Dr. Prabhat
Pankaj
Professor & Director (Academics),
Jaipuria Institute of Management
What did you want to be growing up?
An economist who could explain why some places feel happier than others - long before I knew it was a real field of study.
A leader that inspires you?
The fourth King of Bhutan - for putting Gross National Happiness on the world's agenda before anyone was ready to listen.
Your go-to comfort food?
Litti chokha - a taste of home from Bihar that no five-star kitchen has ever managed to improve upon.
Describe your current role
I serve as Professor & Director (Academics) at Jaipuria. That means I'm part teacher, part architect - designing curricula, shaping faculty development, and still showing up in the classroom because that's where the real ideas happen. After 26 years across universities in India and six years at Sherubtse College in Bhutan, I'm convinced the best management education sits at the intersection of rigour, empathy, and curiosity.
What role does institute culture play in your work?
Everything. At Jaipuria we've worked hard to blend formal learning with the informal - the corridor conversations, the student-led clubs, the live consulting projects. IIM Ahmedabad even wrote a case study on our student-engagement model. Culture isn't a poster on a wall here; it's the permission faculty have to experiment, to be wrong publicly, and to bring their full humanity into the classroom.
From Struggles to Smiles
Highs and lows of the journey
The high was being honoured at the Global Happiness Forum and invited to the World Government Summit in Dubai by the UAE Ministry of Happiness - a long way from my first lectures in Bhutan. The quieter highs are former students writing to say something we discussed years ago shaped a real decision. The lows? Every researcher knows them: the paper that doesn't land, the cohort you wish you'd reached more deeply. Both teach you to keep showing up.
What do you love beyond the classroom?
Writing - for the Times of India, for Economic Times, and for myself. I'm endlessly curious about the economics of happiness, which is just a rigorous way of asking why some communities flourish and others don't. When I'm not writing or travelling for research, you'll find me with a strong cup of chai and a stack of books on Bhutan.
Selected Talks
"Education isn't the transfer of answers - it's the patient cultivation of betterquestions. Get the questions right, and happiness has a way of following."
