Archives: Authors

Pallavi, executive vice president, AISECT Group, heads marketing, new business development and human capital management across the group. She has been instrumental in leading the business transformation and modernization of the forty-year old group through technology and process streamlining. Additionally, Pallavi is one of India’s foremost voices in early education and an award-winning parenting coach. As a leading content creator and founder of Get Set Parent with Pallavi, boasting over 1.5 million followers on Instagram, as well as the Brainy Bear Preschools and Learning Aids, she is deeply committed to promoting foundational learning. She has been recognized for her work with prestigious honours, including the Economic Times Women Leader Award, BW Education 40 under 40, and recognition from India Today and Femina. Recently, she received a nomination for the ‘Best Education Creator’ at the inaugural National Creators Award. Pallavi holds a PhD, is a chemical engineer, and completed her MBA from SPJIMR, Mumbai.

Chairman and managing director of the AISECT Group, Santosh is an award-winning social entrepreneur and a senior Ashoka fellow whose career spans over four decades across education, enterprise creation and literature. He has pioneered advancements in information and communications technology
and skill-based education and services for semi-urban and rural India. Under his leadership, AISECT has grown into one of India’s largest education, skill-development and financial-inclusion networks. Santosh is also the chancellor of five universities of the group, including Rabindranath Tagore University, MP, and Dr C.V. Raman University, Chhattisgarh, and is credited with bringing in multiple innovations in formal and non-formal education. He is the recipient of prestigious awards, including the Schwab Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship by the World Economic Forum, the Indian Innovation Award 2005 and the National (NASSCOM) IT Innovation Award; the latter two were presented by President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Besides being a prolifically published poetry and fiction writer, he has also authored and edited over forty books on popular science topics, including India’s first Hindi book on computers, Computer: Ek Parichay.

Executive vice president of the AISECT Group and chancellor of Scope Global Skills University, Bhopal, Siddharth is one of the leading voices of skill development and entrepreneurship in India today. As a second-generation entrepreneur, Siddharth has expanded AISECT’s work in several parts of the country, especially in rural areas. He has also worked on technology infusion in the group’s operations, resulting in stand-alone tech products in the areas of learning, upskilling and jobs, operating in the phygital model. He is also passionate about nurturing start-ups and leads the Atal Incubation Centre at Rabindranath Tagore University. He sits on the governing bodies and committees of many associations in the country in an advisory capacity. He has been the recipient of several recognitions nationally as a young leader. Siddharth also led the case study development on the AISECT Group’s initiatives through the Indian School of Business, which was featured in Harvard Business Review. He holds a PhD, an MBA from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai, and a BTech from Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), Bhopal.

Jae H. Kim holds a PhD in econometrics (1997) and has been a professor at leading Australian universities until 2022. With over 70 published academic articles and book chapters, his research has garnered nearly 5,000 citations, significantly advancing financial market efficiency, time series forecasting, and statistical inference.

Lauren Jackson grew up in the beautiful Northern Rivers in New South Wales, Australia and is an author of romances who loves spending her time writing, reading, and hanging out with friends and family. She is always working on a new book.

JASMINE SHAH served as the vice chairperson of the Dialogue and Development Commission, the policy think-tank of the Delhi government, from 2018 to 2024, and is an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader. He played a crucial role in many reforms of the Delhi Model in transport, environment, electricity, education and employment sectors.

In a career spanning two decades, Jasmine has worked in multiple roles spanning the private, non-profit and government sectors. He was previously the deputy director of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, South Asia, and led the nationwide ‘Jaago Re’ voting campaign at Janaagraha. A graduate of IIT Madras, he holds a Masters in Public Administration from Columbia University, New York, where he was a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow. His columns have appeared in Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Mint and Economic Times. Jasmine is on X and LinkedIn @jasmine441.

Avantika Swali is a passionate artist and student who believes in her generation’s potential to shape a more compassionate and creative future. In 2014, she founded ACE, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to providing children with holistic education. Continuing this mission, she launched the ACE Book Club in 2021, a mobile library service aimed at democratising access to cultural and educational experiences for children. Later that year, Avantika co-founded Moonray, a contemporary fashion line focused on preserving traditional crafts through innovative design and collaboration. Roots is Avantika’s debut book, created to inspire young readers and curious minds to explore the rich and diverse cultural heritage of India.

A self-proclaimed standardized test junkie—having taken the Common Admission Test (CAT) more than fifteen times, with scores of 750/800 (2008) and 770/800 (2017) on the GMAT, and 333/340 (2011) on the GRE—Tony Xavier is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow and is currently the chief learning officer of IMS Learning Resources.