Vivek Bhandari

Vivek Bhandari is the President of IIHMR University, Jaipur, India's premier knowledge institution committed to research and teaching in the fields of public health, health management systems, rural development, and a variety of fields that impact issues of health and well-being.  

He has served as Director of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), India’s pioneering institution created to address the needs of India’s large rural population. Before joining IRMA, he was a tenured faculty member at Hampshire College in Amherst, USA for just under a decade, and worked closely with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the colleges associated with the prestigious Five College Consortium. In 2010, he spent a semester at the Centre for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), University of Pennsylvania, as a visiting scholar. 

Dr. Bhandari has also worked as a consultant with India’s leading philanthropic trusts such as the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust,  and Reliance Foundation to provide strategic direction for their initiatives, and to enable them to address the country’s myriad developmental challenges in the areas of livelihoods, health, and education. He has worked closely with the World Economic Forum, Geneva. More recently, he served as Vice-Chancellor of the recently launched Auro University in Surat. Prof. Bhandari completed his B.A. (Honors) and M.A. from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. He went on to receive a second M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 

He has a distinguished academic record, and lectures at academic institutions in India and abroad. His writings have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, in edited volumes, and reference works such as the International Encyclopedia for the Social Sciences, the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, and most recently, in the Encyclopedia of Sustainability. Dr. Bhandari serves on the boards of numerous professional and academic institutions, as well as committees convened by the Indian government. 

In 2008, Business Today magazine included him in its list of “India’s Top 25 Young Executives under the age of 40” when he was the director of IRMA.