2026 Best 40-Under-40 Business Professors: Vandith Pamuru, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

Vandith Pamuru
Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad 

“What distinguishes him is his ability to make complex analytical concepts accessible and directly relevant to real-world decision-making. The frameworks and tools taught in his course continue to inform my approach to problem-solving across disciplines, reflecting the depth and transferability of his teaching. Equally noteworthy is his commitment to student development beyond the classroom. Through his openness, mentorship, and encouragement of intellectual curiosity, he inspires students to go beyond surface-level understanding and build enduring capabilities in data and technology. For many of us, BATM was not merely a course, but a formative academic experience that significantly influenced our learning trajectory at ISB.” – Arushi Agarwal

Vandith Pamuru is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. He holds a Ph.D. in Management Information Systems and an MS in Economics from Purdue University, and a an undergraduate degree in Information Systems from BITS Pilani. 

His research spans platform design and governance, market frictions, user-generated content, and agentic AI. His work has been published in Information Systems Research and Production and Operations Management, and at AAAI. At ISB, he has received the Emerging Scholar Research Award (2024) and the Impact Innovation Grant Award (2025), and was named in the BITSAA Global 30 Under 30 (2022). He has also received ISB’s Junior Faculty Research Award (2021) and the Best Paper Runner-Up at the Workshop on Information Technology Systems (WITS 2019). 

At ISB, he teaches Business Analytics, a course that was redesigned around an AI-enabled, group-based learning approach that mirrors real-world organizational problem-solving. He also teaches Frontier Technologies, a new core MBA course built on an AI-first classroom model for both the one-year and two-year MBA (PGP) programs. Beyond the classroom, he mentors entrepreneurs at ISB IVI on AI integration and serves as coordinates Faculty Recruitment for Information Systems area. 

His current research includes Bargaining Under Breach, an investigation into prompt hacking as a cognitive attack surface in LLM-based negotiations, and collaborative work on agentic AI and managers’ analytics capabilities. He has collaborated with the Government of Telangana on online gaming regulation and contributed to national policy conversations on responsible gaming, including a panel appearance at the Indian Gaming Convention 2024 and a feature on CNN-News18’s Game OK Please. His research has been covered by Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Context News, Business Day, and The Star (Malaysia), among other outlets. 

BACKGROUND 

At current institution since what year? July 2020 

Education: Ph.D., Management Information Systems, Purdue University, 2020 MS, Economics, Purdue University, 2018 B.E., Information Systems, BITS Pilani, 2009 

List of MBA/graduate business courses you currently teach:  Business Analytics, Frontier Technologies, AI in Business: From Fundamentals to Applications (ISB Online)  

 

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR 

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when …  I was working as a UI/UX designer and found myself far more fascinated by the data than the interfaces. Exposure to large-scale user-generated data from the web made me curious about something deeper: how do people actually behave on platforms, and how does the design of those platforms shape their choices, their interactions, and ultimately their outcomes? I realized I was less interested in building the next interface and more interested in understanding the social equilibria that platforms create, and how we might design them more responsibly. Becoming a faculty member felt like the natural path to pursue those questions rigorously, and to turn that curiosity into research that could genuinely inform how we build better digital systems. 

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? My current research sits at the frontier of multi-agent systems, where the central question is how agents with different incentives converge to different equilibria, and what happens to those equilibria when AI enters the mix. The dynamics change substantially: human-agent collaboration, agent-agent interaction, and the policies that govern these systems all behave in ways we don’t yet fully understand. A core thread of this work is designing systems that produce good outcomes, not just efficient ones. One concrete instantiation of this is Bargaining Under Breach, which examines how prompt hacking destabilizes LLM-based negotiations by exploiting the cognitive vulnerabilities of AI agents, raising fundamental questions about the integrity of automated economic systems. 

If I weren’t a business school professor…  I’d probably be in some kind of training or organizational development role, somewhere that combines working closely with people, building teams, and creating things together. I’ve always been drawn to spaces where learning happens in community, and that instinct shows up outside academia too. I’ve had the opportunity to volunteer at large-scale social events, and that kind of people-first work is something I’d have found my way back to regardless of the path I took. All of it, in one form or another, comes back to a motto my guru instilled in me: working for the greatest good of the greatest number of people for the longest time. 

 What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? I try to be as approachable as possible, because when students feel comfortable enough to have real conversations, and in the process, I learn as much from them as they do from me. Understanding where they’re coming from, what they’re struggling with, what they’re excited about, makes me a better researcher and a better teacher. It’s a significant time investment, and I won’t pretend it doesn’t come at a cost. But I’ve never thought it wasn’t worth it. 

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor:  Nobody really tells you that the job is actually four jobs rolled into one. You are a researcher, a teacher, an institution builder, and a public intellectual, all at the same time. And early in your career, every single one of those roles is pulling at you with full force. The hardest part is not excelling at any one of them. It is learning to hold all of them together without dropping the ball on any. I wish someone had sat me down and been honest about that tension before I started. 

Professor I most admire and why:  There are many professors I admire, but two stand out for very personal reasons. Before I even started my PhD, I had a stint at ISB where I got to experience Professor Sarang Deo’s teaching firsthand. It set a benchmark in my head that I have carried ever since. The way he combined articulation, sincerity, and genuine care for students showed me what great teaching could look like, and those qualities became something I consciously aspired to when I eventually stepped into the classroom myself. 

And then there is my doctoral advisor, Professor Kartik Kannan, which almost goes without saying. Working with him fundamentally changed how I think about research, and honestly, how I think about life as a faculty member. I am particularly grateful that his mentorship came at exactly the right time in my life. That timing made all the difference. 

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? Perspectives push on our understanding of things. And a business school class, with people who bring such different experiences to the table, continuously challenges you on your own understanding. The preparation you go through is incredible. You have to think from their perspective, make sure what you are teaching is relevant to what is happening in the real world right now, preempt the questions they will ask, and be ready for them. You also have to make sure you gamify the experience so it does not get boring and learning itself stays interesting. All of this put together makes teaching business school students very different. And very interesting. You learn a lot more than you think you will. The same things do not work the next time around, because the world is moving so fast. And unless you are developing yourself, how can you be more useful to others? This profession has definitely pushed me on that. 

What is most challenging? The most challenging part is keeping pace with technology, especially in a field that moves as fast as AI does. But equally challenging is understanding where each cohort of students is coming from and adapting to them. Every batch is different, and what resonates with one group may not land with another. You have to constantly read the room and recalibrate. 

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as…  I have come to believe that setting difficult evaluations is the right way to push students, and I would rather do that than please them with easy exams and easy grading. A difficult exam also forces a different kind of reflection afterwards. When students sit down and think about what they could have done better, that deliberation is itself an integral part of the learning. That said, I try to balance the rigor with other kinds of incentives to keep them engaged. Good participation gets rewarded in class, sometimes with chocolates too.   

 LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM 

What are your hobbies? I play Ultimate Frisbee and badminton, and I am quite passionate about Ultimate in particular, especially for what it stands for. I also love following music, especially Indian classical and film music. 

How will you spend your summer? Interestingly, I will be teaching through the summer. ISB runs a one year MBA program, and the core courses fall in May and June, so that is when the action really happens. I am genuinely looking forward to it.  

Favorite place(s) to vacation:  New Zealand, by a margin. I still have a lot of India to explore as well.  

Favorite book(s):  Measure What Matters, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Shri Guru Bhagwat. 

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much?  Anbe Sivam, a Tamil film that is over two decades old but still ranks as one of my all-time favorites. It shaped my perspective on God and humanity in a very personal way, and as a film enthusiast, the writing is something I keep coming back to. 

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? I have been a huge fan of A R Rahman for as long as I can remember. So much so that at one point my dream job was to become his concert manager. What I love about his music is that it spans genres in a way very few artists can, and yet it always feels distinctly his own.  

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS 

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have … far more simulations, real-world experiences, and live problem solving. The classroom should feel less like a lecture and more like a lab, where students are working through actual challenges with real data, real stakes, and real consequences. I would love to see more collaboration with organizations happening in real time, where students are not studying what a company did three years ago but helping figure out what it should do next. The line between learning and doing should blur a lot more than it currently does. 

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… treating people with genuine respect, and taking stronger stances against exploitative practices even when it comes at a cost to the bottom line. It is too easy to hide behind short term objectives and quarterly targets. The organizations that will truly matter in the long run are the ones that hold a longer vision, one where doing right by people and doing well as a business are not in conflict but are actually the same thing. 

I’m grateful for…  I am grateful for wonderful parents, siblings, and a family that has been my foundation through everything. My mentor, Dr. C B Satpathy, has been a constant source of guidance through every phase of my life, and I cannot overstate what that has meant to me. It only gets better when you have friends who genuinely inspire you to be better every single day. And beyond all of that, I am deeply grateful for the opportunities and privilege I have had in my life. I do not take any of it for granted. Professionally, ISB has been a wonderful place to work at, and I am grateful to have some amazing colleagues, who save the day. 

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2026 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 GRADUATE BUSINESS PROFESSORS 

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