India Centre people and partners

Jaideep is a Professor at CJBS and a Fellow of Clare College. His qualifications include a BTech (IIT Delhi) and a PhD (University of Southern California). Jaideep is also a renowned author, having co-authored the award-winning book, Frugal Innovation, which explores how entrepreneurs in India are thriving despite limited resources. His research primarily centres around international business, marketing, strategy, and innovation, with interests in radical innovation in high-tech industries, the impact of firm culture on innovation, and R&D location decisions. Jaideep’s work has been featured in prestigious media outlets, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, and MIT Sloan Management Review. His most recent book, How Should A Government Be? The New Levers of State Power, was published in 2021.

Suyash Bhatt is a tech entrepreneur and a Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School. With over a decade of diverse work experience spanning across the United States, Taiwan, India, and the United Kingdom, Suyash’s journey has seen him work across different industries. His roles include software engineering and product marketing in semiconductor technology, marketing leadership in F&B manufacturing, and in the recent years, founding and leading foodtech and education ventures in Cambridge.

After graduating with an MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School in 2020, Suyash founded Foodbud, an AI-based food recommendation platform that is developing a food recommendation platform especially for people with dietary preferences and food allergies. Collaborating with one of the largest food and ingredients research organisations, the company is driving the integration of nutrition and sustainability criteria into consumers’ food choices. Suyash also cofounded Cambridge Interactive Lab (CIL), an edtech startup that focuses on developing next generation game-based learning tools for higher education institutions and for large corporations.

Suyash has organised many knowledge sharing events for business leaders in Cambridge and hosts annual workshops for Indian educators. He organises these conferences in collaboration with large scale Indian associations and academics at University of Cambridge.

Carlos leads initiatives to scale market-based innovations through impact investment and provide practical support to increase capacity and integrity in governments. He has worked for international institutions, governments, and corporations such as the World Bank, European Commission, Cisco, and Accenture. In addition, he spent 8 years in a social innovation lab for health-related behavioural change in East London. Carlos has also held roles as an Associate of the UK Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit and Director of Evaluations of EU Programs worldwide.

He led a €10bn evaluation for the European Council of Ministers and worked as an economist at the World Bank and Central Bank of Peru. Carlos holds postgraduate degrees in Economics from Yale and Columbia Universities.

Email: c.montes@jbs.cam.ac.uk

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Dr Garima Sahai is a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge and a Bye-Fellow at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. She is also an affiliated and associate researcher across the Department of Sociology; Cambridge Global Challenges; and Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre at the University of Cambridge.

Garima’s research focusses on issues of youth, gender, and work in low and middle income countries. She is especially interested in the intersections between research, policy and international development practice. Her research has been concerned with factors that shape occupational gender segregation and female labour force participation in India. She is currently the research and project lead on a multi-partner project on Green Jobs and Youth Voices in sub-Saharan Africa at the University of Cambridge.

She has worked across organisations like Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the World Bank. Her academic background is a PhD in Sociology, University of Cambridge (UK), MPhil in Development Studies, University of Oxford (UK), and an MA and a BA (Hons) in Economics, from Jawaharlal Nehru University (India) and Delhi University (India) respectively.

Sam holds an MA in Geography from Cambridge and is a UK Chartered Accountant and Visiting Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School.

After qualifying with Price Waterhouse, his career has been focused on the remarkable growth and development of India’s financial markets since the path-breaking economic reforms of the early 1990s.
This included senior roles in research, equity sales, wealth management and corporate broking at Robert/Jardine Fleming, JP Morgan, Cazenove, UBS, Standard Chartered, and Credit Suisse. His clients have included many leading global institutional investors and he has been based both in London and in Mumbai.

More recently he has moved on to a role in Indian Asset Management as Director and Head of UK Business Development at Quantum Advisors. Quantum is one of India’s longest-established India Equity Managers, with a track record since 2000 with differentiated value and ESG investment strategies.

Sam is also a Governor of the Fund for Women Graduates Charity and a Trustee of Pratham UK. Pratham is one of India’s leading educational NGOs.

His interests include how to address the challenges presented by achieving equitable growth for large emerging economies while facing the growing threats from climate change, environmental degradation and social dislocation.

Marvin is a Fellow at CJBS, a Senior Scholar at the London School of Economics, a Sloan Fellow at London Business School, and a qualified Chartered Accountant. His primary area of research interest is government innovation and permanent funds in the context of intergenerational equity. His experience combines an uncommon mix of cross-disciplinary skills with deep expertise in entrepreneurship, finance, brand and innovation. He designed Goa/India’s first model permanent fund to mitigate resource curse and safeguard intergenerational equity (2015) and is the creator of India’s first licenced animation character, Chhota Birbal (2002), designed to preserve local identity.

Venkata (“Serish”) is a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, and leads InnoFrugal, a decade-old non-profit focused on frugal innovation and impact investing. He’s spearheading a white paper on climate finance in India and is a multidisciplinary expert in academia and entrepreneurship.

Serish specialises in leveraging AI for impact, open innovation, and circular economy for frugal innovations. He’s authored key reports and participated in the EU-funded FRANCIS project. He co-hosts the More With Less Podcast on sustainable growth.

In addition to his role at Cambridge Judge, Serish serves on multiple advisory boards. He served as an advisor to the Smart Village Movement (SVM), a research project of Berkeley Haas Garwood Center. He previously co-founded Vault Impact, raising €17.5 million for an impact VC fund. He has developed a MOOC (massive open online course) on frugal innovation and is also a guest lecturer at global universities.

Tejas Rao is Research Affiliate (Law and Development) at the Centre for India and Global Business. He is PhD Candidate at the Department of Land Economy & C-EENRG, University of Cambridge, and Research Coordinator with the Chair in Sustainable Development Law and Policy.

He is also Senior Manager at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law. His research examines narratives and the political economy of lawyers interaction with the implementation and compliance of the Rio Treaties. He has previously taught at SOAS, University of London, and the National Law School of India University, Bangalore and worked with members of the United Nations International Law Commission. He holds an LLM from the University of Cambridge (as JN Tata Scholar), and a B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) from the Gujarat National Law University.

Sonia Singh has been a journalist, senior television anchor, author and editor of India’s most respected news network, NDTV. Currently, she is also a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and part of the Global Advisory
Council of the World Woman Foundation. She now anchors the marquee interview show, ‘The NDTV Dialogues’, which brings together thought leaders in different fields for a conversation on Indian and global contemporary challenges.

In the last 3 decades she has interviewed Prime Ministers, former Presidents, Nobel Laureates, and senior government ministers across political parties.

As Editorial Director of the NDTV network, Sonia had vast experience in liaising with governments, decision-makers and viewers, a responsibility which required skillful
navigating of governmental and legal requirements. She was a special invitee to the NDTV Board and a Board member of the News Broadcasters and Digital Association, the main industry body till September 2023. As the person who set up and headed NDTV’s Ethics Committee, ensuring integrity and credibility, both personally and
professionally, are part of her ethos.

Ambika is a multi-sectoral entrepreneur and policy strategist with over 2 decades of experience in law, advocacy and building high-impact collaborations. She is the co-founder of GreenCat, where she leads strategy and partnerships to make chemical processes more sustainable and reduce dependence on rare earth minerals. She also co-founded a perfume brand rooted in Indigenous knowledge and manages partnerships at Verdentum, an impact measurement platform. Ambika serves as an advisor to Senara, the world’s first cell-cultivated milk company.

Ambika holds an MPhil in Public Policy from the University of Cambridge and an LLM in Public International Law from UCL. Her career has spanned roles in litigation, philanthropy and policy, including leading animal rights and environmental litigation in India’s highest courts and driving national-scale initiatives while at the Tata Trusts and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives. She was part of the founding team at the Good Food Institute India, promoting sustainable food innovation, and has served on various government committees.
She frequently shares insights through public speaking, media and academic forums and was named one of India’s ’50 Most Powerful Female Change-Makers’ by India Today.