Board of Management

Amrita Somaiya

Trustee of K J Somaiya Trust and K J Somaiya Medical Trust and Team Leader for the Help a Child project

Amrita Somaiya graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Simmons College, Boston USA. Amrita is a Trustee for Somaiya Trust and Somaiya Vidyavihar & Somaiya Medical Trust. She is the Chairperson of the Help A Child to Study Project, which provides scholarships to motivated students from financially challenging backgrounds. She is the Director of Kitab Khana, a boutique bookshop in fort, Mumbai. Amrita is actively involved as the Managing trustee of The Somaiya School. She loves to read, cook, travel and knit.

Dharmil Sheth

Serial Entrepreneur & Co-founder of Pharmeasy

Dharmil Sheth is the co-founder of Pharmeasy, the leading healthcare platform providing medicines, diagnostics and other relevant services in India. At Pharmeasy,Dharmil particularly looks at the key areas of customer experience and also helms tSerial Entrepreneur & The technology and operations divisions of the company. With a Bachelor's degree in Electronic Engineering from K J Somaiya College of Engineering and a PGDM from IMT Ghaziabad, Dharmil has been associated with renowned companies such as MakeMyTrip in key roles. Fulfilling his entrepreneurial passions with new and exciting ventures, prior to Pharmeasy, Dharmil founded 91streets, a shopping search platform and BoxPlay Sports, a world-class sports infrastructure set-up for teams and individuals to play soccer and cricket. A keen contributor to society, Dharmil has also laid the foundation of and is President to Ekagrata Foundation, a Non-Government Organization which works towards the welfare of underprivileged children. In his free time, he likes to teach these children and play a role in shaping up their future. A football fanatic, he also loves to spend his free time on his creation, BoxPlay pads to polish his skills in the game.

Lakshmi Kantam Mannepalli

Dr. B.P. Godrej Distinguished Professor at the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India

Lakshmi Kantam served as Director at CSIR-IICT, Hyderabad. She is an Adjunct Professor at Tezpur Central University, Tezpur, Assam and RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. She is a Fellow of Indian National Science Academy, National Academy of Sciences, ; J.C. Bose(DST); The World Academy of Sciences, Italy, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. Her prizes include ICC D. M.Trivedi LifeTime Achievement Award; Eminent Scientist Award – Catalysis Society of India and Vasvik award. She is a Member of scientific councils, DST, HEMRL (DRDO), IIT-Hyderabad, DAE. She is Non-Executive Independent Director, Godavari Biorefineries Ltd , Indo-Amines Ltd and Vinati Organics Ltd. She has 33 years of experience in the research, design and development of catalysts for innovative green and economical processes for chemical industry. She has authored more than 332 publications and has 42 patents to her credit

Mahaveer Devannavar

General Manager - Information Technology Somaiya Vidyavihar

Mahaveer Devannavar has over 20 years experience in the field of Information Technology. He is basically a software developer with a wide experience of developing ERPs, Implementation of ERPs, Databases & Web Development. Currently, Mahaveer Heads and Manages the 20 member Information Technology team of Somaiya Vidyavihar, which has brought about a digital transformation in the way the institutes operate today. Newer and robust systems have been successfully implemented specially in Admission Management system, Fee Management system Examinations and Grades Management, Library Management amongst others. His other responsibilities include overseeing the infrastructure of technical operations, eliminating security risks, increasing user satisfaction, and maintaining current operations and systems.

Monica Khanna

Director, K J Somaiya Institute of Management

Monica Khanna is the Director of K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research, Mumbai since December 2016 and a Professor in the area of Marketing, Strategic Brand Management at the Institute and also the Dean of the Faculty of Management Sciences. Monica Khanna has a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering and has industry experience of 4 years with Siemens Ltd, Mumbai as Design Engineer in the area of industrial automation. Her PG degree was in M.M.S.( Marketing )University of Mumbai, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and a Ph.D from University of Pune in June 2006. She has successfully guided 2 doctoral students from University of Mumbai and 1 doctoral student from BIT Mesra, Ranchi Monica Khanna is an International Visiting Faculty at DHBW Stuttgart, Germany and Peter the Great St. Petersburg University, Russia and is invited to present research papers at conferences conducted in different countries of Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, Turkey and Kenya. She has attended training programmes, conducted MDPs and handled consultancy projects. She has been elected as member of the Managing Council of All India Management Association (AIMA) for 3 consecutive periods from AY 2015-17, AY 2017-19 and AY 2019-21.

Monica Lodha

Director, S K Somaiya College

Monica Lodha is a Chartered Accountant & a Faculty at Somaiya Vidyavihar. She is the Coordinator of Self-Financing Courses at K J Somaiya College of Science and Commerce. In a service of a decade at Somaiya Vidyavihar she has published and presented 14 Research Papers in State, National, and International Conference & Seminars. With her specialisation in Accountancy & Taxation, Monica has also authored a book on Indirect Taxes. Monica Lodha is an Associate member at Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), She has worked as convenor of Examination Cell and is active at various social forums. She has worked as a Committee Member at Bharat Jain Mahila Mandal & Jain Shwetambar Terapanth Sabha Mumbai, as the President at Amet Mahila Mandal.

Nandkumar Gilke

Registrar

Dr. Nandkumar Gilke is Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering in K J Somaiya College of Engineering for the last 28 years. He served as ex-member of Management Council, Academic Council and Faculty of Technology of University of Mumbai.

Pooja Birwatkar

Faculty, K J Somaiya College of Education

Pooja Birwatkar is an Assistant Professor at K J Somaiya Comprehensive College of Education, Training and Research. She holds a Ph.D in Education and has worked as a Visiting Scientist at Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education. A meritorious student with 2 gold medals and JRF to her credit, she has 10 years of teaching experience in Teacher Education Institutes. Her passion for research has led her to successfully complete and guide several research projects along with many publications. She is an avid reader and an author for many magazines based on educational and social issues.

Sachchidanand Shukla

Chief economist of the Mahindra Group

Sachchidanand Shukla is chief economist of the Mahindra Group. He has around 20 years of experience spanning capital markets and financial services. Prior to joining the Mahindra Group, he was associated with Axis Capital (earlier known as ENAM) as chief economist. His key areas of research have been financial markets, strategy, development policy,programme implementation and impact evaluation. He has a Ph.D in financial economics from Birla Institute of Technology and post graduate qualifications in business management (finance) as well as in economics from the University of Mumbai and has been a recipient of K J Somaiya Gold Medal. He is currently a part of NITI Aayog’s panel of Economists and has been a part of a Planning Commission/ World Bank study - Maharashtra Development Report - as an `External Expert’. Dr. Shukla is currently chairperson of the Banking, Finance & Economics Committee of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and is also a member of the Economics committees of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) & FICCI and is a member of the ASSOCHAM Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, Delhi. He is keenly associated with academia and has also authored a book (on macro-economics for BMS course of University of Mumbai) besides publishing several research papers. He contributes regularly to business publications and has written articles in the Economic Times, Mint, The Financial Express, The Hindu Business line and Moneycontrol etc.

Shubha Pandit

Principal of K J Somaiya College of Engineering

Shubha Pandit is the Principal of K J Somaiya College of Engineering since 2012. Earlier, she was the Vice Principal of Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai. She has a Master’s Degree in Engineering from the University of Mumbai and a Ph.D from I.I.T. Bombay. Besides being an approved PG Teacher by the University of Mumbai, she is an approved Ph.D. Guide. In the past Shubha has held several important positions in the Mumbai University. She was a member of the Academic Council, Member, Board of Studies in Electrical Engineering, Convener of the Syllabus Committee in Electrical Engineering, she was also a Member of the Syllabus Committee of Bhagubai Polytechnic Mumbai. She is extremely active in other governmental and academic activities which include being a member of AICTE – NBA; Autonomy Committee; UGC; DTE – LIC; State Level Committee of MSBTE and DTE amongst others Shubha has co-authored a book: Computational Methods in Large Sparse Power System and has several chapters in journals as well as conference papers to her credit.

Supriya Rai

Director, K J Somaiya Institute of Dharma Studies

Supriya Rai made a transition to academia in 2003, after a ten year career with the Tatas, as an officer of the Tata Administrative Service. She received her doctorate from Mumbai University in 2008, on Buddhist meditation. She is currently Acting Director at the K. J. Somaiya Centre for Buddhist Studies. Her areas of interest are Buddhist meditation, Central Asian Buddhism (particularly the work of Kumarajiva), Buddhist ethics, gender issues in Buddhism and socially engaged Buddhism. In pursuit of the latter, she led the effort to set up an outreach project 250 kms from Mumbai where the mission is to facilitate spiritual practice and in livelihood support in the local community. But these are all veils and illusions. In the ultimate analysis, Supriya Rai is a dreamer who loves the rains and Hindustani classical music.

V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai

Vice Chancellor of Somaiya Vidyavihar University and Provost & Prof. Chemistry of Somaiya Vidyavihar & Somaiya Ayurvihar

Prof. V. N. Rajasekharan Pillai has been at the helm of affairs of many higher educational and scientific research establishments for the last 47 years of service as a teacher, researcher, professor, and executive head of Education, Science and Technology establishments in the country and abroad.