Conference Committee

Prof. R. Nagarajan, PhD

Director, IIM Amritsar

Dr. Nagarajan Ramamoorthy received his PhD in Business and Management from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Ramamoorthy has taught a variety of courses in the management discipline at both the undergraduate and graduate level. He spent a semester at the University of National and World Economy in Bulgaria as a Fulbright Scholar in 2008 and a recipient of a second Fulbright grant to teach/research at the University of Applied Sciences, Valmiera, Latvia. He has lectured at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad, the University of Applied Sciences in Austria, Burgas Free University, and University of National and World Economy (Bulgaria). He also received the University's Research and Scholarly Excellence Award in 2008, the Distinguished Service Award in 2009 and the Best Reviewer Award for European Management Review awarded by the European Academy of Management. He has served as the founding Chair of the Management & Marketing Department of the University of Houston-Victoria's School of Business (AACSB accredited), member of the President's Cabinet, and member of the Academic Council, Chair of the University Grievance Committee, Policy Review Committee, among others. He has published his research in leading journals including Human Relations, British Journal of Management, Journal of International Management, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Creativity and Innovation Management Journal, and has presented his research at several national and international conferences. He has served on several editorial boards including the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology in the UK, the Irish Journal of Management in Ireland, Current Issues of Business and Law in Lithuania, and the Fulbright Peer Review Board.

Michael Hoffmeyer

Managing Director, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.

Michael Hoffmeyer's career in higher education has focused on promoting entrepreneurship on campus and supporting diverse entrepreneurs in their journey. Prior to his work in higher education, he held executive and founder roles in several financial technology startups. Before joining Dingman, Hoffmeyer founded the Crews Center for Entrepreneurship at his alma mater, the University of Memphis, where he spent a decade championing entrepreneurship and delivering social and financial impact to ensure the center's long-term sustainability. He is a passionate thought leader in inclusive entrepreneurship and still enjoys personally helping diverse entrepreneurs develop confidence, self-efficacy, and competencies while also providing experienced insights into innovation, strategy, and leadership to help strengthen their business models. Hoffmeyer has served as a lead judge in the Memphis Business Journal's Small Business Awards for eight years, helped raise over $52M in venture capital for Memphis students, and was a recognized thought leader in the Memphis entrepreneurial ecosystem. He founded the ImagineU Summer Accelerator Program at Memphis, raising money to pay students a stipend to participate in the program, providing a level playing field for students regardless of socioeconomic status. Hoffmeyer was known for championing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the entrepreneurship space and was frequently sought out to partner on DE&I initiatives across the campus and ecosystem. Prior to his higher education experience, Hoffmeyer served as executive or co-founder in five startups, two of which he successfully exited. Hoffmeyer holds a Bachelor of Professional Studies, a Master's of Public Administration, and a graduate certificate in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Memphis. He lives in College Park, enjoys spending time with family, watching lacrosse and soccer, and plays the occasional video game.

Dr. Sanket Vatavwala

Assistant Professor, IIM Amritsar

Dr. Sanket is a faculty in the area of marketing management at IIM Amritsar. He completed his Ph.D. in marketing management from IIM Indore. His research interest includes business- to-business/industrial marketing, sustainable marketing, digital marketing, and public-policy marketing. He has published research papers in Industrial Marketing Management and Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing. He has published case studies with teaching notes and a book chapter. He has presented his research papers in national and international conferences. He received scholarship for the 7th AIM-AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium in 2019. His corporate experience includes working in the material handling industry (industrial services), weighing solutions-heavy industry, oil and gas, and event management industry in sales/marketing/business development roles. His corporate background encompasses roles within the material handling industry (industrial services), weighing solutions-heavy industry, oil and gas, and event management industry in sales/marketing/business development divisions.

Dr. Vartika Dutta

Assistant Professor, Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources, IIM Amritsar

Dr Vartika Dutta is an Assistant Professor in the area of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resources (OB & HR) at the Indian Institute of Management Amritsar, India. She completed her PhD in Management from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Her thesis was in the area of Educational leadership. Before joining us, she was working as an Assistant Professor at the Goa Institute of Management in the area of OB & HR for close to four years. She comes with rich work experience in training and consulting and has held significant positions in the training and development vertical of reputed financial and skill development firms. She has conducted numerous management development programs and workshops for the working executives in the area of leadership, understanding and managing self and managing and retaining talent in turbulent times and persuasive communication. She is a trained Happiness Coach and is working in the area of creating positive and happy workplaces. She was also overseeing international exchange partnerships in her previous organization and had tailored and offered “India Immersion programs” for many international participants. She has research publications in refereed international journals and has presented her work at several national and international conferences.

Dr. Kalpit Sharma

Assistant Professor, IT and Computational Systems, IIM Amritsar

Dr. Kalpit Sharma is an Assistant Professor in the IT and Computational Systems area at the Indian Institute of Management Amritsar (IIM Amritsar). He has pursued his doctoral studies in Information Technology and Systems at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow. Kalpit has published articles in internationally reputed journals such as Information Systems Frontiers, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, and conferences, namely the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), Pre-International Conference On Information Systems (ICIS) workshops, Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) conference, PAN-IIM World Conference, Society of Operations Management (SOM) Conference, and Indian Academy of Management (INDAM) conference. His research interests include cyber-risk issues in information systems, the economics of cybersecurity, IT governance, and crowd-based digital business models. He also uses data mining, text mining, and machine learning methods extensively in his research. For more information on his research, please visit: www.kalpits.com

Dr. Nitin Koshta

Assistant Professor, Quantitative Methods & Operations Management, IIM Amritsar

Dr. Nitin Koshta is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Methods and Operations Management at the Indian Institute of Management Amritsar, India. His research broadly focuses on sustainable and socially responsible operations. Within these themes, some of the contexts that he has studied include design of household e-waste recovery network, people’s e-waste disposal behaviour, and drone technology for rural healthcare supply chains. Prior to joining the IIM Amritsar, he was an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at the Alliance School of Business, Alliance University. He obtained a Ph.D. in Operations Management from the Indian Institute of Management Kashipur, India.

Dr. Pinakhi Suvadarshini

Assistant Professor, Quantitative Methods & Operations Management, IIM Amritsar

Dr. Pinakhi Suvadarshini is an Assistant Professor in the area of Quantitative Methods & Operations Management at the Indian Institute of Management Amritsar. She has completed her Ph.D. in Operations Management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow. Her doctoral thesis was titled Essays on Closed-Loop Supply Chain: Multi-Channel. Her research interests lie in Supply chain coordination and contracts, Closed-loop supply chain and Sustainable supply chain. She has published in peer-reviewed journals and presented her work at reputed national and international conferences.

Prof. Subra Tangirala

Area Chair, Dean's Professor of Management, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland

Prof. Subra Tangirala is Dean's Professor of Management. He teaches the leadership course in the MBA program. In his research, he explores reasons why employees often remain silent despite having information, concerns, or suggestions to share, and what organizations can do to facilitate candid exchange of ideas at the workplace. His research has been published in academic journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, a human resources manager. and Personnel Psychology. Tangirala received his PhD in organizational behavior and human resources from Purdue University. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for several years as

Prof. David A. Kirsch

Associate Professor, Faculty Director, Center for Social Value Creation, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland

is Associate Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship in the M&O Department at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. From 1996 to 2001, Kirsch held various adjunct and visiting appointments at the Anderson Graduate School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles. He received his PhD in history from Stanford University in 1996. His research interests include industry emergence, technological choice, technological failure and the role of entrepreneurship in the emergence of new industries. In 2000 Rutgers University Press published his revised dissertation, The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History. His work on the early history of the automobile industry has also been published in Business History Review and Technology and Culture. In 2003, his co-authored article on the Electric Vehicle Company received the IEEE Life Members Prize from the Society for the History of Technology. Kirsch is also interested in methodological problems associated with historical scholarship in the digital age. With the support of grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Library of Congress, he is currently building a digital archive of the Dot Com Era that will preserve at-risk, born-digital content about business and culture during the late 1990s.

Prof. Patrick Flood

Professor, DCU Business School, Dublin City University

Prof. Patrick C. Flood is Full Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Dublin City University. He is an expert on organizational behaviour, leadership and change management and teaches on executive programmes worldwide.He is the holder of both the DCU Presidents Overall Teaching Award and the DCU Presidents Research Award. Most recently he served as Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His research work focuses on the impact of leadership and human resource practices on organisational performance. He consults on top management team functioning and leadership development. He is a frequent industry conference speaker and media commentator. His advisory work is concerned with improving the effectiveness of organisations and top teams. Patrick received his PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) where he was a British Council Scholar. He has held faculty and visiting appointments at a number of business schools including London Business School, University of Limerick, University of Maryland, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Canterbury, NZ, CUEB, PRC and the Australian Graduate School of Management. Patrick is a former Erskine, Fulbright, EU HUMCAP and British Council FCO Scholar. He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. His articles appear in Journal of Management, Human Relations, Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations, Journal of Organizational and Occupational Psychology and the Strategic Management journal. His 12 books include Outsider Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Change lessons from the CEO (Jossey Bass, 2013) (http://www.managers.org.uk/bookclub- book-prize-march-2014); Persuasive Leadership: Lessons from the Arts (Jossey Bass, 2010), Leadership in Ireland (Blackhall, 2010); Strategy Implementation (Blackwell, 2000), Effective Top Management Teams (Blackhall, 2000) and Managing Without Traditional Methods (Addison Wesley, 1996).