Anand Nandkumar, Associate Professor of Strategy and Executive Director for SRITNE at ISB. He explores industry and firm-level phenomena that influence innovation – the generation of new ideas and entrepreneurship – the distribution and commercialization of new ideas. His research focuses on high-technology industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and software, and it falls in between industrial organization (IO), the economics of technological change, and strategy. Professor Nandkumar's current work in the innovation stream examines the effect of stronger IPR on different aspects of innovation, such as the influence of stronger patents on long-run incentives for innovation or the influence of stronger patents on the functioning of Markets for Technology (MFT). He also explores how the advent of general-purpose technologies such as AI influences firms’ competitive advantage and how the design of organizations influences innovation. In the entrepreneurship stream, his current work examines the influence of venture capitalists on entrepreneurial performance and whether entrepreneurs who toggle between a job and entrepreneurship perform better.

Professor Nandkumar graduated with a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management, with a focus on strategy and entrepreneurship, from Carnegie Mellon University in 2008. Prior to his Ph.D., he was with a startup in Silicon Valley and, prior to that, in New York City with one of the world’s largest investment bankers. True to his expertise, at ISB, Professor Nandkumar teaches Competitive Strategy, Leadership with AI, Digital Transformation, Private Equity and Venture Capital, Growth Strategies, and Strategic Innovation Management.