/// ENTREPRENEURSHIP · STRATEGY · STORYTELLING ///

MANISHA VASWANI.

Assistant Professor ✦ Mentor ✦ Researcher

I am an Assistant Professor of Practice in Entrepreneurship and a scholar of strategy and behavioral decision-making. My work asks a deceptively simple question: what makes a founder succeed, and whose definition of success counts? My research has grown into three connected streams: how CEO overconfidence and ability shape strategic change; founder identity and inclusive entrepreneurship, including family and neurodivergent founders; and how constraints and near-miss outcomes shape venture emergence. Over a decade I have taught strategy, entrepreneurship, international business, human resources, and organizational behavior, and I build open teaching tools and simulations for other educators. Beyond the classroom, I mentor founders from underserved communities, advise early-stage healthcare and life-science ventures, and founded a nonprofit expanding educational access for under-resourced children in India. Earlier in my career I ran a retail business and held senior HR and legal management roles, which grounds my research in the lived realities of the entrepreneurs I study and teach.