Vivek Bhandari was a visiting professor at Krea University, and in the past, has served as Director of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA). Before joining IRMA, he was a tenured faculty member at Hampshire College in Amherst, USA, where he worked closely with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, as well as Amherst and Mt. Holyoke Colleges. He has held visiting scholar/fellow appointments at the Centre for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. He has also taught at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad; and for the Young India Fellowship Program at Ashoka University, Sonipat.
In addition to pursuing academic work, Vivek has worked as a consultant with a variety of philanthropic trusts on strategy and impact in the areas of livelihoods, health, and education. When at IRMA, he worked closely with India’s cooperative sector; and in 2009, co-authored India’s first ‘State of Panchayats Report’ for the Government of India. He has a growing interest in issues of financial technology, and since 2017 has been serving as chairman and independent director of the Jio Payments Bank, a joint venture of the State Bank of India (SBI) and Jio Infocomm Ltd.
Vivek is an alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, and the University of Pennsylvania from where he received an M.A. in South Asian Studies and a Ph.D. in history. In 2008, Business Today magazine included him in its list of ‘India’s Top-25 Young Executives under the age of 40’.
