Rishikesha T. Krishnan

Professor Rishikesha T. Krishnan is a distinguished policy and management scholar, recognized for his multidisciplinary expertise and successful leadership of premier higher education institutions.

An Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, Stanford University, and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad alumni, Professor Krishnan is well known for his work on the management of innovation. His foundational research centres on studying innovation in India at the national, industrial, and organisational levels.

Professor Krishnan was the Fall 2008 Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania, and a member of the Research Advisory Committee of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Advanced Study of India (2020-25).

Recognized among Thinkers50 India & most influential management minds, Professor Krishnan has led two Indian Institutes of Management (Indore and Bengaluru) as Director. At IIMB, he held the prestigious Jamuna Raghavan Chair in Entrepreneurship from 2007 to 2010 and the Ram Charan Chair in Innovation and Leadership from 2022 to 2025.

Beyond academics, Prof. Krishnan is deeply embedded in national policy and corporate governance. He was a key member of the 2017 Justice BN Srikrishna Committee that drafted India's data protection framework. Currently, he chairs governmental advisory bodies for the Department of Science & Technology and ARCI Hyderabad, while serving on the boards of the Higher Education Financing Agency
(HEFA), MAHE, Gujarat State Petronet Ltd., Wheels India Ltd., and Tonbo Imaging India.

Professor Krishnan’s extensive research is widely published in top-tier international journals for Economics, Development, and Science Policy and Management. He has been on the editorial boards of several international journals as well. His two books on innovation – From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation: The Challenge for India & 8 Steps to Innovation: Going from Jugaad to Excellence (co-authored with Vinay Dabholkar) were well received, with the latter winning the Best Book Award for 2013 from the Indian Society for Training and Development.

In recognition of his impactful career, IIT Kanpur awarded him the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2025.