International Advisory Board

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International Advisory Board

Debi Guha
Co-Founder and Chief Visionary Officer at TwoDotSeven, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Debi has extensive leadership experience across financial services spanning private equity, distressed assets, structured debt, securitization, project finance, and fund management. These insights led her to setting up TwoDotSeven, a credit analytics firm, and Arcus, a SEBI-registered AIF for private debt. She previously headed alternate investments at GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, for South East Asia, India and Australia. She started her career three decades ago with ICICI, as a founding member of their Infrastructure Industry Group. She is a gold medallist in engineering from Jadavpur University, holds a PGDM from IIM-Ahmedabad and is a CFA charter holder. Debi is married, with two children and a dog, and lives in Singapore.

Deepak Chandra
Former Deputy Dean, ISB

Deepak Chandra is an Independent Advisor in the Education space.

Deepak has over 36 years of experience working with Industry, Education, and Social Sector.

As an Advisor, he consults across the Education landscape including K12 education, Test prep, Ed Tech, Vocational Education, Higher Education and Corporate Learning.

Deepak has worked in the past as Deputy Dean of Indian School of Business, a globally ranked institution having formal affiliations with Wharton School, Kellogg School, London Business School, MIT Sloan School, etc. As Deputy Dean, he was part of the top management team that worked on the creation/execution of school’s strategy/operational plans. At ISB, Deepak was also responsible for the establishment and growth of the Executive Education practice, which grew to be the largest in India.

Before ISB, Deepak has set up and managed a vocational education/consulting firm for over 8 years. He has established multiple education centers in North India to train and place over 1500 unemployed youths. He has consulted/taught Business Development/Leadership to several organizations in the private/public/government/social sector.

Deepak regularly engages with several organizations as a Board member.

Devashis Mitra

Dr. Devashis Mitra is Dean of the Faculty of Management, and Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He is a co-author of a widely adopted textbook on corporate finance and his research in corporate and entrepreneurial finance has been published in leading international journals in Finance and Entrepreneurship. He is a member on the Board and Atlantic Regional Chair of the Business Schools Association of Canada.

Prior to joining academics, Dr. Mitra worked for Price Waterhouse and for Indian Aluminum Company. He has a PhD in Finance from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountant of India.

Douglas Cumming
Distinguished Professor, Florida Atlantic University

Douglas Cumming is the DeSantis Distinguished Professor of Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at the College of Business, Florida Atlantic University. Douglas is also a Visiting Professor of Finance at Birmingham Business School. Douglas has published over 190 articles in leading journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of International Business Studies, and has been cited over 17,000 times. He is the Managing Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Corporate Finance (2021-), the British Journal of Management (2020-2022), and the Journal of Corporate Finance (2018-2020). Douglas has published 18 academic books, including Corruption and Fraud in Financial Markets (2020) and Crowdfunding: Fundamental Cases, Facts, and Insights (2019)

Eric Lui
Business Advisor, Board Member, Academic Professor

Eric Lui is a senior executive/board advisor, emergent technology innovator/entrepreneur, investor and transformational futurist with over 20 years of experience in the financial services, technology, academia, and public sectors. Eric has served over two dozens clients globally within the Financial Services, Healthcare, Supply Chain, Technology areas, internationally recognized and is involved in numerous social impact initiatives with organizations like the United Nations’ via the Global Summit, Sustainability Development Goals (SDG2030) Forum; Science Technology and Innovation (STIC) Forum and Asian American Business Development. He has also contributed thought leadership and articles around Finance, Technology & Innovation, Risk Management and has spoken, keynoted, paneled, and published in CIO, Leadership Council, Waters Technology, RiskUSA, GARP, Professionals Risk Management Association, Project Management Institute, Asian American Business Development Council, Sino-Asian Pharma Association, US-China Foreign Relations and many more prominent events/institutions.

Eric Lui graduated with Bachelors of Business Administration from Pace University and Masters of Business Administration from Northeastern University. He currently is a professor at New York University and City University of New York’s Baruch College where he teaches Business Strategy, Innovation, Management of Multi-national Corporations, Program Management, and Organizational Ethics. He has been recognized as the Global Outstanding 50 Asian Americans for his accolades and contributions to business, academia and social communities and honoree nomination for Finext Excellence in Finance in 2019.

Gautam Gode
Co-founder, Samara Capital

Gautam Gode is a private equity investor. He is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Samara Capital which is a mid-market buyout fund that has over a billion dollars invested across emerging Indian companies in sectors such as healthcare, food retail, logistics, staffing and financial services.

Prior to co-founding Samara, he spent a decade with Citigroup’s India corporate and investment banking business in senior leadership positions.

He graduated with honours from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy and followed it up with an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

He’s also an amateur middle-distance runner.

M Rammohan Rao
Former Dean, ISB

Pankaj Dubey
CEO , Power.Global Energy Services, Top50 Indian Icon’16. Blackbook top 100 Luxury Indian’16. TEDX Speaker. ‘Intellectual Icon’ 2020

Mr. Pankaj Dubey is a Tedx speaker and a well established namein the Indian Automobile industry having contributed significantly to Yamaha, Hero and Polaris. In his last position as Managing Director of Polaris India ,Mr Dubey established the Indian operation of the world no. 1 in Off road vehicle , PolarisInc. He is credited with the introduction of Indian Motorcycles, All terrain vehicles & snow scooters in India. He was also instrumental in turnaround of Yamaha India (2007-2010) and introduction of Yamaha R15,FZ,SZ, Fazer, R1, FZ1 etc during his tenure as the National Business Head. He started the mobile business of Intex Technologies as Business Head. He was also CEO of joint venture of Eicher & Polaris where an innovative product, a car cum pick up van cum generator named Multixwas launched. He has rich experience of working closely with the Americans, Japanese, Chinese & Germans stakeholders and has lead 4 startup operations , Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Eicher Polaris and Intex mobile.

Puja Chandna

Puja Chandna is a seasoned Marketing Insights professional with over 20 years of experience. She is heading the Insights & Planning function at Kellogg’s India. Puja worked with Unilever (HUL) for 10 years where she was leading Consumer & Market Insights for the South Asia Foods Business. Prior to that, she was the CMI Manager for Skin Care at Unilever.

Puja has led the Market Development work stream at Unilever for Foods globally. She has developed packaging guidelines for Unilever foods business globally, using new age neuro-science principles. Puja started her career and spent a significant amount of time working in leading market research agencies. Puja is an expert at all the leading and emerging Research techniques/solutions.

Puja’s core expertise is in brand development, Innovation & bringing insights to the forefront. Puja has a penchant for building winning teams & grooming talent. Puja has developed an innate consumer and product intimacy over the years. Puja won many accolades in her tenure at Unilever for her work in India and leading work streams across the world.

Rajiv Inamdar
Non Executive Director at Ummeed Housing Finance Pvt. Ltd. Gurgaon, Haryana, India

Ravi Saxena
Co-founder, WonderChef

Ravi Saxena is an entrepreneurial CEO and a builder of businesses. MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad and Electronics Engineer from DIT, he has a 27-year track record of launching new concepts and taking them to success.

Ravi is the promoter of Wonderchef Home Appliances, India’s fastest growing brand of kitchen appliances. Ravi was also the Indian partner of Università Bocconi in their business school in Mumbai – SDA Bocconi.

Ravi established Sodexo India and as the CEO, created a team of over 20,000 people across 5 unique businesses over a 12-year career with the organisation.

With Dubai Based Retail Group – Landmark he built leading brands like Gloria Jeans Coffees, Fun City, Yellow Chilli Restaurants and Citymax Hotels

Ravi is on the Board and Advisory Board of various companies including some of the most exciting start-ups in India.

Mr Sanjay K Jain
MD, T T Textiles

Mr Sanjay K Jain is the Managing Director of T T Limited. It is a Rs 500 crore vertically integrated textiles company (fibre to fashion company). The company is listed on both NSE and BSE. Its brand T T is more than 50 years old and its products are sold not only all across India, but also across 65 countries globally. In last few year some of the notable awards are India’s Small Giant Award, Top 100 SME of India award, Master Brand, India’s Most Promising Brand, Most Desirable 30 Power Brands and ET Business Leaders Award 2019

Mr. Jain is a Double Gold Medalist from IIM (Ahmedabad) apart from being a rank holder Cost Accountant and Company Secretary. He is a regular speaker in conferences and writer of articles. He has been awarded the prestigious World HR Congress CEO Award (2019), BW Business World & GOPIO Global Business Award (2018), Asia Pacific Entrepreneur Award (2017), TOIBP award by JCI International (2012) and Udyog Ratna Award (2010). He is an expert in marketing and finance and is overall incharge of the Company. He has travelled to over 55 countries and has wide exposure on textiles issues and other business related issues. He has the unique experience range of doing business meetings in Empire State Building, New York to towns like Motihari, Ballia and Bettiah.

He has recently written a Book: “Pinch of Salt in the Recipe Called Life”, published by internationally renowned publisher Bloomsbury.

He is the Immediate Past Chairman of CITI, Textile Sector Skill Council, NITRA and NITMA . He is also Vice President of FOHMA and WBHA and Chairman of ICC Textiles Committee. He is also on the committee of TEXPROCIL, IAAI, SIMA, MCCI, & CII Textiles. He is also an advisor for two textile magazines. He is also a member of the Core Committee promoting the First Hosiery Park in India coming up in West Bengal. He has been actively involved in Textile Policy formulation in both Centre & States like West Bengal, UP, Gujarat and Assam. He has also been a Board Member of the Apex Skilling Body of India – NSDC.

He is an expert on entreprenuership and has been part of MentorEdge of IIM, Ahmedabad and has been a jury and mentor in ET Power Ideas 2010, 2012, 2015 & 2017. He has been a guest faculty in educational institutes like ISB, IIMs, SP Jain and many.

Shyam Sunder
Professor of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.

Shyam Sunder is the James L. Frank Professor of Accounting, Economics, and Finance at the Yale School of Management and Professor (by courtesy) in the Department of Economics. He His research contributions to management and economics include information processing in stock markets, statistical theory of valuation, social norms and regulation. He is a pioneer in the fields of experimental finance and experimental macroeconomics, having introduced the concept of zero-intelligence agents to computational economics. His review of higher education reforms in India appeared The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy. Sunder’s research includes ten books and more than 230 articles in the leading journals of accounting, economics and finance, as well as in popular media. His books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean Portuguese and Spanish. He and his research have been awarded many honors. He served as elected president of the American Accounting Association (2006-2007), former director of Yale’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, fellow of Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center, distinguished fellow of the Center for Study of Science and Technology Policy in Bengaluru, and research fellow of Research Institute of Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University. He is also a member of the International Academic Advisory Boards of the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, the Business School of Jindal Global University, Sonepat, and an academic advisor to the Board of Trustees of MICA, Ahmedabad, India. He is a founding editor of Accounting, Economics and Law: A Convivium. https://faculty.som.yale.edu/shyamsunder/research/.

Sumit Chandna

Sumit Chandna is an agile corporate leader leader with over 22 years of experience. Sumit Chandna jcurrently works with Bata India as Chief Merchandising Officer and Head Famous Brands. A graduate in Economics from Delhi University and a Marketing and Merchandising post graduate from National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, Sumit is a seasoned retail professional. Over the years he has worked in various retail functions, having worked for brands like Shoppers Stop and Hypercity. His last role was, Chief Merchandising Officer, at Aditya Birla Retail Limited. He has a deep understanding of the shopper and consumer through various product and format lenses, having worked from Hypermarkets, Department Stores to Convenience Stores and from High Fashion to Food and Grocery. Over his 2 decades in the retail business, he has developed and nurtured several private label programs/brands, both in Fashion and Food & Grocery. His exceptional commercial acumen and executions skills have helped him identify and develop many unique segments and categories both in Fashion and Grocery over the years with credible market success. Sumit is a consistent performer and a winner of many Prestigious Awardsr and has attended multiple leadership programs over the years, including at Harvard, IMD, Lussane and other international consortium leadership development programs.

Tara Kenyon
President & CEO at Kentara Analytics

Tara Kenyon, PhD, is a behavioral economist, author, and thought leader with expertise in quantitative risk analytics, credit risk modeling, stress testing, and strategic and capital planning. She is passionate about helping executives in the financial services and insurance industries use their data to make better business decisions. She is the CEO of Kentara Analytics, a member of The Tara Kenyon Group. Prior to founding her companies, Dr. Kenyon was a Global Banking Risk Practice Leader for IBM, based in North America. A former Chief Risk Officer, her financial services industry experience spans over 25 years.

International Advisory Board