About Me
I am currently an Assistant Professor in Marketing at IIM Udaipur. I currently serve as a member of the Board of Governers at IIMU and am also the Chairperson for Research and Development (a position equivalent to the Dean for Research in most North American Schools). Since April 2023, I am the Co-Director of the Certificate Program in Digital Product Management where I am responsible for the academic rigor, course structure and related academic matters.
I am currently focused on understanding how communications (between firms and brands, between firms/brands and consumers, and between consumers) interact with the marketing mix to improve brand equity and profitability. You can find a more formal research statement here.
My work experience has largely revolved around working with huge amounts of data and trying to make sense of it. For the five years before joining ISB, my focus had centred on understanding consumer behaviour patterns. My most notable achievements are helping two start-ups shape their businesses – in one instance by helping the business raise close to USD 1 million in grants, and in the case of the other start-up, assisting in its successful acquisition by a technology giant. During my stay in the US, I volunteered at various camps, non-profits and local libraries, where I tutored college students in math and algebra. I most recently worked as an Analyst with Google in New York while starting my career as a Database Developer with TCS in Mumbai.
I have always been fascinated by the uncertainty surrounding every decision to switch to a better and more innovative product and wondered why it was so difficult for a consumer to make that decision. With the extensive growth of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, WhatsApp and the likes, researchers are beginning to focus their attention on social networks or network communities in general. Most current published research is in the area of Computer Science and my current goal (for the next decade or so) is to explore this and its impact on Marketing both existing and new products.
The motivation to pursue a career in research springs from my roles in two New York based start-ups; UV Solutions, which used patented technology to generate ultra-violet light, and TxVia, which leveraged advances in mobile technologies and payment systems. Both the firms had very limited success in raising seed funds and my role was primarily to help reposition them in order to attract investors. Using a mix of communication strategies including rebranding and redesigning the product offerings I was able to successfully raise over $1 million for UV Solutions from the state and federal agencies. An extensive rebranding and positioning of the product offerings along with highlighting the value of the intellectual property helped the acquisition of TxVia by Google. While the mix of communication strategies helped the positioning, I was often left intrigued about the value added by the vocabulary and language used to describe a business or a product. The value added by all such communications originating from or are about a firm are central to my research. In addition to my undergraduate education in Computer Science Engineering and the experience in business environments, the education at the Indian School of Business has helped me (i) better understand the various tools and methods that can be used to approach a research question, (ii) learn how to constructively critique the questions in order to clarify them, and (iii) develop the art of conducting rigorous research.