Centre for Family Business and Entrepreneurship (CFBE)

Ganga Chitnis

Ganga Chitnis is a Mentor in Residence at SPJIMR CFBE & Sine IIT B. She has been associated for over 30 years with entrepreneurs, founders and promoters of startups as well as small and medium enterprises in various roles, including being an SME banker with India’s largest private bank, educator, mentor and facilitator. In addition, she mentors incubatees/startups with other leading incubators in the country. She is associated as a consultant for Indian Step & Business Incubator Association and is a resource person for the CII startup council. Her blend of corporate experience along with academic orientation helps her connect with the entrepreneur and startup community seamlessly.

Amit Sharma (Khandelwal)

Amit Sharma (Khandelwal) is the Co-founder & CEO of two startups, McareSpareParts.com (India’s fastest emerging online store for mobile spare parts, tools and smart gadgets) and Sault.in (Airplugs and Smartfits).

Ravindra Dey

Founder and member of the Enneagram Academy of India, Ravindra is a fellow and management graduate in the area of Human Resources with over 25 years of rich experience in teaching and corporate management roles.

Ajay Dang

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), Ajay has over 27 years of work experience in sales, marketing and business assignments with a diverse set of challenges and business drivers.

Farzan Ghadially

Farzan Ghadially is Senator India, The World Business Angel Forum (WBAF), and an affiliated partner of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI). As a Senator, his role includes helping the start-up / early-stage companies along with SMEs to rise to a global scale leveraging the WBAF network across 111 countries around the globe.

Dhanashri Gokhale

Dhanashri Gokhale is a Programme Coordinator at the CFBE. She holds a master’s degree in Law from Mumbai University and has over sixteen years of experience in academic administration and coordination. 

Email: dhanashri.gokhale@spjimr.org 

Call: 022-61454322

Shilpa Mehta

Shilpa Mehta is the external relations and admissions outreach associate at CFBE, SPJIMR. She has an overall work experience of over 15+ years in the hospitality industry, teaching and non-teaching roles in the education field.

Email : shilpa.mehta@spjimr.org

Call : 022-62134442

Mayuri Karkera is the programme manager for PGPFMB at CFBE. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and has completed Postgraduate Diploma in Planning and Management from IIPM, Mumbai. She has over 12 years of experience in the education industry, which includes product development, business development as well as overall operations.

Email: mayuri.karkera@spjimr.org

Call: 022-61454307

Tanja Leppäaho

Tanja Leppäaho is Professor in Growth entrepreneurship, Akatemiatutkija / Academy Research Fellow, LUT University, Finland  and Vice Director for LBM Doctoral School, LUT University, Finland. She was recognised as the leading scholar and expert in the area of family SME internationalisation on a global scale by Pukàll and Calabro (2014). Previously she held a tenure track in International Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of Jyväskylä and was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh Business School, UK. In her current IBE project “Building Theory on the family business internationalization process” core areas of focus are the internationalisation process of firms through times, networking and family ownership. She has been published in various journals including Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, British Journal of Management, Family Business Review, Journal of Small Business Management, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, British Journal of Management, and International Business Review. She was awarded the best paper award by the leading conference in entrepreneurship, Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference for her work co-authored by Professor Sarah Jack.  Her areas of interest are international entrepreneurship, networking, process, family entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship and qualitative methodology.  

Andrea Calabrò

Andrea Calabrò is Director of the IPAG Entrepreneurship & Family Business Center and Professor of Family Business & Entrepreneurship at IPAG Business School, France. He is the Global Academic Director of the STEP (Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices) Project Global Consortium www.thestepproject.org). He has published journal articles on family firms, internationalisation, and corporate governance in leading international journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of International Business Studies, Family Business Review, Harvard Business Review, and Journal of Business Ethics. His latest book, “A Research Agenda for Family Business: A Way Ahead for the Field”, has been published with Edward Elgar Publishing and sets the stage for a shift in the family business debate. His research has appeared in several practitioner-oriented outlets such as The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several practice-oriented family business reports. He serves as an advisor to family businesses and coaches next-generation members.