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ICMM 2026 Conference Keynote Speaker

Professor Balaji Padmanabhan

Professor Balaji Padmanabhan
 

Title: Artificial Intelligence and Small Businesses: Opportunities and Challenges

Professor Balaji Padmanabhan, Director of the Center for AI in Business, and the Dean's Professor of Decision, Operations and Information Technologies at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

Professor Balaji Padmanabhan is the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives, Director of the Center for AI in Business, and the Dean's Professor of Decision, Operations, and Information Technologies at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. He has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and a PhD from New York University (NYU)’s Stern School of Business. His current work addresses the intentional design and governance of artificial and augmented intelligence solutions that combine AI and human capabilities to generate value. He has worked on artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives with several organizations spanning manufacturing, retail, services, technology, healthcare, and policy. He publishes and teaches graduate courses in artificial intelligence and business and has served in senior editorial capacities of leading journals, including MIS Quarterly, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Information Systems Research, Management Science, Big Data, ACM Transactions on MIS, and the Journal of Business Analytics.

Professor Sougata Ray

Professor Sougata Ray

Title: Indian SMEs at an Inflection Point: Reigniting Entrepreneurial Passion, Sparking Innovation, and Refocusing Family Capital

Professor Sougata Ray,Thomas Schmidheiny Chair Professor, and Executive Director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship (Practice) at the Indian School of Business

Dr. Sougata Ray is Thomas Schmidheiny Chaired Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship Practice, and Executive Director of the Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise. Earlier, he served the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta for over two decades as a Professor of Strategic Management, a member of the Board of Governors, and Dean. He also served as a senior-level executive in Infosys Technologies Limited in a strategic role as General Manager & Head of Innovation Lab, having the responsibility to spearhead the innovation initiatives and incubate the innovation services practice. He blends over three and a half decades of experience in diverse roles – international quality academic, research, and institution building practices with hands-on corporate managerial and governance experiences as an executive, member of the Board of Directors, co-founder of start-ups, corporate advisor, trainer, mentor, and coach. He has developed deep insight into strategy, innovations, entrepreneurship, digital transformation, governance, international business, and global competitiveness of firms in high-growth economies through intense academic research and varied corporate and start-up experiences.

He is one of the most prolific and cited home-grown strategy scholars in India with over 180 research papers, monographs, book chapters, case studies and teaching notes. He has been publishing regularly in top-tier international journals and presenting in prestigious peer-reviewed international conferences. His research examines strategic behaviour and organisational adaptation of firms in emerging economies and is distinguished by three interconnected themes. First, he examines how firms from developing economies overcome institutional and resource constraints to compete globally, documenting their learning trajectories and strategic renewal processes. Second, he investigates family-owned and family-managed enterprises, exploring how familial involvement influences strategic choices, from internationalization to sustainability, while addressing critical challenges in family governance, professionalization, and strategy execution. Third, he analyses the dual role of business groups as both resources and constraints for affiliated firms during periods of institutional transition. In the recent years, being motivated by the pervasive role of family businesses in India and family owners' and leaders' profound influence on enterprise futures, he has been pursuing a multifaceted research programme to build evidence-based insights into Indian business families, firms, and groups.

A revered teacher among his MBA, executive and doctoral students, he has received several prestigious research and teaching awards and many more award nominations. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, Shibpur.