About

Who am I………

A mechanical engineer, a railways professional, a professor, and an eternal student…

Professional memberships:

• Institution of Engineers (India) (Life member)
• Institution of Mechanical Engineers ( UK) (1992-1995)
• Project Management Institute (USA) (Since 2006)
• Academy of Management (Student member) ( Since 2008)
• Southern Management Association (2009-2011)
• Strategic Management Society (2011)

Biography sketch:

I am a railway mechanical engineer who is comfortable working at the interface of academia and industry. At the early age of 18, I I was selected by the Indian government to be part of the Special Class Railway Apprentice undergraduate program, which has an acceptance rate of less than 0.1%. Here I was trained to be a mechanical engineer and groomed to be an officer-gentleman at the prestigious Jamalpur Gymkhana and Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers in Bihar, India. During this program, I also earned credentials in mechanical, electrical, and electronics engineering from IMechE (UK) and the Institution of Engineers (India).

Upon graduation, I served with the Northern Railway in a Mechanical Engineering role in four divisions (Delhi, Ambala, Allahabhad, and Lucknow). During this period, I was looking after the operational divisions and maintenance sheds and gained experience in a variety of roles which included maintenance and operations of locomotives, coaches and wagons.

In the year 2000, I appeared for CAT ( Common admission test to Management schools in India) and was selected for the Executive MBA program, called National Management Program, at the Management Development Institute in Gurgaon, India. Herein, individuals from the public and private sectors join a residential program sponsored by the Indian government common program and interact with one another for a 15-month period to develop a deeper understanding of the how the two sectors work interdependently. During this program I specialized in Information Systems Management, and my interests shifted from engineering to management. With this exposure I spent two years at Diesel Locomotive Works in Varanasi, India, piloting their nascent Enterprise Resource Planning project; and later spent four years at IRCON International Limited, India, managing their different IT initiatives that were adopted during this period, such as the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP) and the Project Management Information System.

My interests have continued to evolve since then, and soon I found myself drawn to broader managerial practice and general management. With almost 20 years of techno-managerial experience in diverse industries (i.e., railroad, construction, and information systems), combined with his graduate level education, I became attracted to the academic underpinnings of managerial practices. I thereupon joined the Ph.D. Management program at the Warrington College of Business Administration in August of 2007, where I could conduct research in the area of management. Over time my interests have narrowed to strategic alliances, with a specific focus on partnerships at the public-private interface and the process of entrepreneurship.