Deepa Krishnan

Adjunct Associate Professor
Head of the Abhyudaya Project
S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research

Prof. Deepa Krishnan heads Abhyudaya, a unique pedagogic innovation at SPJIMR where first year PGDM students mentor bright, underprivileged children (whom we call Sitaras). Abhyudaya currently supports 500+ Sitaras from schools in the neighbouring areas.

Prof. Krishnan is also the head of Abhyudaya Community Initiative (ACI), a self-help group which produces textile crafts. ACI currently has 15 Sitara parents as members.

Prof. Krishnan is the founder of Magic Tours of India, a guided tours company which does heritage walks, food trails, and textile tours for overseas visitors to India. Her tourism company serves as an upskilling and employment program for college students from low income neighbourhoods. She is a member of the National Taskforce for Handlooms, working to revive traditional textiles. She has a deep interest in rural self-sufficiency and has been working in 4 tribal villages near Mumbai, primarily in checkdams and rainwater harvesting structures.

Prior to these ventures, she worked for 18 years in the corporate sector, mainly on web-based platforms in the financial services industry. She has handled projects across the globe for Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Barclays Bank. She has a degree in Commerce from Mumbai University and a business degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.