Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha
DEAN
Media and education are Pramath’s twin passions and what better than leading the 9.9 SoC to bring the two together. Pramath has extensive experience and networks in media in India and internationally. After a foray into engineering, robotics, and academia, he started working extensively on media assignments when he joined McKinsey & Company, the reputed global management consulting firm. He helped create what became Canada’s first TV network, and worked with major newspaper groups in tackling the impact of the Internet. Moving to India, he worked with almost all the prominent media companies across newspapers, magazines, TV, films, music and online. He left McKinsey to become the MD & CEO of the ABP Group, one of India’s leading and most diversified media conglomerates with leading properties in the newspaper, magazine, and TV genres. It has properties such as Ananda Bazar Patrika, the #1 Bengali daily, The Telegraph, Eastern India’s #1 English daily, Businessworld, the #1 national business weekly magazine, and STAR News, the popular Hindi news channel. Pramath has since then founded an exciting special-interest media company, 9.9 Mediaworx, which publishes several magazines, and has numerous websites and events.

Pramath’s real passion is, however, to build educational institutions. Pramath took a year off from McKinsey to be the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB), an initiative led by McKinsey and a group of leading Indian business leaders, in partnership with Kellogg and Wharton, to establish a world-class business school in India. The ISB is today regarded as one of India’s leading b-schools and was ranked 15th in the latest Financial Times ranking of global business schools. He has been associated with the project right from its inception and continues to be actively involved in the School as a member of its Board of Governors. Pramath is now leading a group of India’s leading business and academic leaders to create a world-class university in India. He is on the Board of Governors of Welhams Girls’ School, Dehradun. He is also on the Board of Directors of BILT, India’s largest paper products company; DLF-Pramerica, an insurance JV between India’s leading real estate company and Prudential of USA; and Kaleidoscope Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., a prominent film and TV production business. Pramath is an alumnus of the highly-respected IIT Kanpur, and has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Dr. Eric D Saranovitz
Associate Dean - Academics & Research
Eric comes to the School of Convergence with a broad and diverse background in international media, journalism, and communication—both as a scholar and a practitioner. He earned his PhD in Media Studies from the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He received his MA in Communication and Journalism from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel and his BA in Comparative Religion from Amherst College. Before joining the School of Convergence, Eric worked as an Instructor of Media Studies at NYU and as an Assistant Professor in International Communication at Denison University—an elite college in central Ohio.

Among the many honors he has received for his academic research, Eric was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship for his research on the Israeli national media system. Eric’s research interests and teaching have been focused on developments in media technologies, national and international media industries, globalization, national identity, and documentary production. During his academic career, he has lectured and given talks on these subjects at various international venues.

In addition to his academic passion to understand developments in the electronic and print media, Eric has held a wide variety of positions in the media and communications industry as well. Before beginning his PhD, Eric worked as a marketing communications consultant in Tel Aviv, advising start-up high tech companies on their international marketing campaigns and web design during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. He also worked as an assistant correspondent in the Jerusalem bureau of the Japanese broadcaster, NHK. To add to his diverse experiences, Eric also served as a Combat Medic in the Israeli Defense Force.

A gifted writer, Eric has taught courses in expository writing and has worked as a writing consultant in New York City, helping aspiring journalists, writers, and filmmakers develop their skills and find their voice. His expertise as a writer was developed in part through the various positions he has held over the years in public relations firms in both Boston—his home town—and New York City. In addition to his professional background, Eric brings his cosmopolitan sensibility and an intense desire to help others in order to bring out the best in people as they learn, think, and grow.

Gunjan Aggarwal
Associate Dean - Career Services
Gunjan brings the formidable CA-MBA combination to the 9.9 SoC team. A graduate of Delhi University, she topped her college and was ranked second in the university in the BCom (Hons) programme. She started her career with Arthur Anderson as a tax specialist and went on to pursue an MBA at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. At ISB, she was one of three in a batch of 270 to be awarded the prestigious Citibank scholarship. After finishing, Gunjan joined Citibank in 2005, and worked for its structured finance and syndication team. With a burning desire to address the skills-gap in the education sector in India, she became an entrepreneur in 2006. During this time, she also headed ISB’s student placement initiatives for north India, finding 25 new clients in a short span of two months. In 2007, Gunjan founded Avsarr – a vocational training institute that has trained/placed more than 1,000 candidates in the last two years. As Head of Career Services at 9.9 SoC, Gunjan will draw upon her experiences in the education and corporate sectors to help students make the right career decisions.

Bejoy Suri
Associate Dean - Admissions & Marketing
An MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Bejoy has about 10 years of experience in investment management, consulting and start-ups. He was a merit scholar at the Delhi School of Economics and a student of Shri Ram College of Commerce. He started his career in 1999 as part of the award-winning investment team at Dundee Mutual Funds and went on to join ICICI Bank, where he invested across a range of equity and debt instruments in India. Having closely analyzed success drivers of performing companies as an investor, Bejoy decided to dirty his hands. He joined Thailand’s oldest print media company, Advertising & Media Consultants, repositioned its product portfolio and led its online initiatives. In 2004, he joined Accenture’s strategy consulting practice. By 2007, Bejoy was ready to become an entrepreneur, co-founding Avsarr, a vocational training institute that has trained/placed more than 1,000 candidates in the last two years. Bejoy will be leading the marketing efforts of 9.9 SoC as its Head for Admissions and Marketing.