Commercial Bank Management

Prof. (Dr.) Anusha Agarwal is a distinguished academician, researcher, and thought leader in the field of Finance. She is currently serving as Professor (Finance) at I.T.S School of Management, Ghaziabad. With over 26 years of rich experience spanning teaching, research, and academic administration, she has made significant contributions to management education and institutional development. Her areas of expertise include Financial Modelling, Business Valuation, Financial Statement Analysis, Personal Wealth Management, Banking, Project Finance, Financial Management and Risk-related areas.
Dr. Agarwal holds a Ph.D. in Economics from CCS University, where her research focused on financial challenges and solutions for MSMEs. She also holds a PGDBM in Finance and a Master’s degree in Economics. Further strengthening her expertise, she has completed an Executive Programme in Financial Data Analytics from IIM Kashipur. Her academic journey reflects a strong commitment to excellence, innovation, and the development of future business leaders.
As a researcher and academic mentor, Dr. Agarwal has published research in ABDC, Scopus and UGC-CARE indexed journals and has presented papers at several national and international conferences. She is also the author of research on banking, sustainable finance, ESG, MSMEs and financial performance and has a published patent on financial statement fraud. She has guided Ph.D. scholars and reviewed the PhD thesis as a external expert. She is the also the member as a subject expert at ICSI Institute.
She has played a pivotal role in accreditation and quality assurance, serving as Convenor for NBA accreditation processes across multiple cycles and successfully securing accreditation for the PGDM programme. Her leadership extends across curriculum design, faculty development, industry collaboration, and the organization of international conferences, workshops, and business summits.
She is widely appreciated for her dynamic teaching approach, strong interpersonal skills, and unwavering commitment to academic excellence and innovation.

Arjun Pratap Upadhyay is an Assistant Professor of Finance and Accounting at the University of Western Australia – India. He pursued his PhD in Finance, Accounting and Control at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIM Kozhikode), where his doctoral research examines rural lending in India through the broader lens of credit accessibility, financial inclusion, and economic development. His thesis investigates the effectiveness of government interventions in expanding institutional lending, credit behaviour in Left Wing Extremism-affected regions, and the relationship between social protection and credit access. His research contributes to the understanding of how financial institutions, public interventions, and household-level factors shape access to and absorption of credit in emerging economies. His PhD thesis has been submitted for evaluation.
He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management, equivalent to an MBA, with a major in Finance and Accounting from IIM Kashipur and a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical and Automation from Amity University Rajasthan.
Before entering academia, Arjun gained approximately five years of experience in the financial services industry, primarily in wealth management and private banking, where he was responsible for portfolio management and wealth advisory for high-net-worth (HNW) individuals and families. He has worked with global financial institutions, including HSBC India and Citibank N.A.
His research interests span empirical finance, banking and financial institutions, financial inclusion, household finance, rural credit markets, development finance, and applied econometrics. His research employs quantitative methods, including causal inference, Difference-in-Differences, Instrumental Variables, Propensity Score Matching, multilevel modelling, and machine learning techniques.
His research has been published in the China Accounting and Finance Review (ABDC A), and his ongoing work examines rural household savings, credit behaviour in conflict-affected regions, social protection and credit behaviour, sustainability practices in investment banking, and rural credit markets. He has presented his research at national and international academic conferences, including conferences at IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Kozhikode, and the University of Warsaw.

Dr. Pankaj Baag - Fellow IIM Calcutta, MFM, MCom, CAIIB, PGD banking, PGD
Foreign Trade, PGD MM, PGD PM IR, Certificates in LC (Pace University, US),
Certificate in OM FA (Brunel University, UK), Certificate in Econometric Analysis
(ICSSR) is an Assistant Professor in FAC area at IIM Kozhikode. He teaches Management Accounting, Commercial Banking, Financial Management, Financial Institutions, Financial Services, Project Finance, and Advance Corporate Finance regularly at IIMK, at IIMK Kochi campus, and at IIM Amritsar. He is also an NCERT scholar and has over 15 years of International banking experience at USA and India. He has presented and published papers at International conferences and Journals and have won “Best paper awards”. He is also the author of two books and have published chapters in different edited books.

Dr. Shaji Krishnan V is currently Chairman of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and has over three decades of experience spanning commercial banking, development finance and rural banking. He has played a pivotal role in advancing digital transformation, climate and sustainability initiatives, fintech engagement, data-driven supervision and risk management at NABARD. Prior to NABARD, he spent 26 years with Canara Bank in senior leadership positions and served as Chairman of Kerala Gramin Bank, where he championed financial inclusion and digital transformation. He has extensive board-level experience across institutions including DICGC, ONDC and NCDC, and chairs NABCONS, NABVENTURES and BIRD, Lucknow. Dr. Shaji holds a Ph.D. in Finance from IIM Kozhikode, a PGDM in Public Policy and
Infrastructure Finance from IIM Ahmedabad, and a postgraduate degree in Agriculture. A thought leader in banking and financial systems, he has contributed to scholarly research and co-authored a book on Financial Engineering and Quantitative Risk Analytics. He has also chaired the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) and several Government of India expert committees. He was conferred the Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by Kerala Agricultural University.