IFA Board

The Governing Body (IFA Board) comprise of the following office bearers elected by the General Body for managing and implementing the activities of the association. The names and designation of the present members of the governing body are as follows:.

Mr. Ashok Banerjee – IIM Udaipur President

Prof. Ashok Banerjee is currently the Director of Indian Institute of Management Udaipur. Prof. Banerjee joined the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) as Professor (Finance and Control) in August 2004. Prior to joining IIM-C, he was a professor at IIM-Lucknow. He was the Dean (New Initiatives and external Relations) of IIM Calcutta during 2012-2015.

He is a Postgraduate in Commerce from University of Calcutta, a qualified Chartered Accountant and holds a PhD.

Prof. Banerjee, during his tenure as Dean, was instrumental in setting up an Incubator at IIM Calcutta called IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, which is duly recognized by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) as a Technology Business Incubator.

Prof. Banerjee teaches Corporate Finance in the first year, and Corporate Restructuring, Trading Strategies and Business Valuation in second year of the MBA Programme at IIM Calcutta. He also teaches Empirical Finance and Corporate Finance in the PhD programme.

Prof. Banerjee was the founder-coordinator of the Financial Research and Trading Laboratory of IIM Calcutta. He was instrumental in starting the International Finance Conference in 2009 at IIM Calcutta. The conference is now rechristened as India Finance Conference and is organized jointly by IIM Calcutta, IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad.

His current areas of research include high frequency finance and sentiment analysis. Prof. Banerjee studies the behaviour of algorithmic traders in intraday market. He is particularly interested in the role of proprietary algorithmic traders in supporting market quality. In sentiment analysis domain, he uses text from corporate filings and electronic media to estimate default probability of corporate borrowers. He is presently working on directional prediction of inflation using news.

 

Prof. Banerjee serves as an independent director on the Boards of companies in the financial and technology sectors.

 

Mr. Ajay Pandey – IIM Ahmedabad Vice President

Prof. Ajay Pandey is the Dean at IIM Ahmedabad. He is a Professor in finance and accounting. His professional interests related to research, training, and teaching are mainly in corporate finance and capital markets such as corporate governance, risk management, project finance, volatility, and asset price dynamics etc. His other professional interests, particularly for consulting, the electricity sector, public procurement, and regulations. Prof. Pandey received a Doctorate at IIM Ahmedabad by specializing in Finance and is a graduate from IIT Roorkee.

Mr. Sankarshan Basu – Amrut Mody School of Management Secretary

Sankarshan Basu is the Dean of the Amrut Mody School of Management. Professor Basu joins from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, where he has worked for the last two decades as a Professor of Finance and Accounting. Professor Basu has completed his Honours (Statistics) from Presidency College, Calcutta, his MSc (Statistics) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his PhD (Statistics) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. In terms of research, his areas of interest are Financial Calculus, Option Pricing, Bond and Portfolio Valuation, Applications of Quantitative Techniques to Finance, Insurance, Reinsurance, Risk Management, and Financial Markets. He has presented his work at international conferences in Thailand, the US, the UK, France, Spain, Norway, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, the Netherlands, and India. He has, to his credit, several papers in international journals of repute like European Financial Management, International Review of Financial Analysis, Finance Research Letters, International Review of Economics and Finance, Economic Letters, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, and the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference. Professor Basu has vast experience in the finance and treasury domains. He was briefly in the finance industry, working in the Treasury Operations of ICICI Ltd. (now ICICI Bank Ltd.) in Mumbai. He has been actively involved in various consulting and training projects across multiple domains like banks (e.g., State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Vijaya Bank, and Federal Bank), insurance companies (e.g., ING Vysya Life Insurance), stock exchanges (Bombay Stock Exchange), and various governmental agencies (e.g., Indian Revenue Service and the Indian Foreign Service) as well as other corporate entities. He currently serves on the board of The Federal Bank Ltd., as Director, PRMIA, since 2020, and a Founder Member and Secretary of the Indian Finance Association (IFA) since 2015. He has also served on the boards of companies like The Clearing Corporation of India Limited, The Bangalore Stock Exchange Limited, and Bilcare India. Between 2014 and 2015, he was the President of the Asia Pacific Risk and Insurance Association (APRIA) and served on the international selection panel of Fellows for the German Chancellor Fellow, a fellowship run and administered by the Office of the German Chancellor between 2014 to 2022.

Ms. Manju Jaiswall – IIM Calcutta Assistant Secretary

Manju Jaiswall is a faculty member in the Finance and Control area at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. She has done her M.Phil. in Commerce from University of Calcutta and doctorate in Management from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. Her research interests are in the areas of Corporate Governance, Financial Reporting, Earnings Management and Executive Compensation. She teaches courses in corporate financial reporting, cost management and financial statement analysis.

Mr. Ashok Thampy – IIM Bangalore Treasurer

Ashok Thampy is an Associate Professor in the Finance and Control Area at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).Prior to joining IIMB, he was at the Department of Finance, Bilkent University, Turkey. He has also held visiting positions at the Department of Economics at Santa Clara University, USA, and the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.Prof.Thampy’s areas of interest are Corporate Finance, Financial Risk Management, Industrial Economics, Banking, and Regulation. Prof. Thampy received a Doctorate at Krannert Graduate School of Management, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA by specializing in Economics and master degree Jawaharlal University, New Delhi.

Mr. Vineet Virmani – IIM Ahmedabad Assistant Treasurer

Vineet Virmani is an Assistant Professor in Finance & Accounting area at IIMA since January, 2011. He received his degree in engineering from IIT (BHU), Varanasi and his doctorate in management from IIMA with a specialization in Economics. After finishing his doctorate he worked as a post-doctoral fellow first at ISB, Hyderabad and then at IIMA before leaving for industry. Before coming back to IIMA, he was with Nomura/Lehman Services, Bank of America Continuum, Mumbai and Dell International Services, Bangalore.