Ramana Nanda

Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Professor Ramana Nanda is the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he teaches Entrepreneurial Finance in the MBA program and in executive education offerings. His research examines financing frictions facing new ventures, with an aim to help entrepreneurs with fundraising and to shed light on how financial intermediaries, corporate R&D, and policy makers can improve the odds of selecting and commercializing the most promising ideas and technologies.

Professor Nanda is a Research Associate in the Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program at the NBER. He received his PhD from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and has a BA and MA in Economics from Trinity College, Cambridge, UK. He is a recipient of the 2015 Kauffman Prize Medal that is awarded annually to one scholar under age 40 whose research has made a significant contribution to the literature in entrepreneurship.

Prior to starting his doctorate, Professor Nanda was based in the London and New York offices of Oliver, Wyman & Company, where he worked primarily with clients in global capital markets as well as in small-business banking. He continues to advise startup ventures on their financing strategies and also works with philanthropic investors who use market-based solutions to address poverty and promote entrepreneurship in developing countries.