Karthik Ramanna

Professor of Business and Public Policy, Director of the Master of Public Policy

Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Karthik Ramanna is Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. An expert on business-government relations, sustainable capitalism, and corporate reporting and auditing, Professor Ramanna has studied how organisations build trust with stakeholders and the role of business in designing sensible and responsible “rules of the game”. He has authored dozens of research articles and case studies on non-market strategies in Africa, China, the EU, India, and the US, and he has consulted with several leading business organisations worldwide, including Fidelity, KPMG, McKinsey, PwC, Sonae, and State Street. His scholarship has won numerous awards, including the Journal of Accounting & Economics Best Paper Prize and twice the international Case Centre’s Outstanding Case-Writer prize, dubbed by the Financial Times “the business school Oscars.”

Professor Ramanna is director of Oxford’s Master of Public Policy programme, a flagship one-year degree for current and prospective leaders in government. He is faculty chair of the Transformational Leadership Fellowship, a bespoke, by-invitation, part-time programme for senior corporate executives considering a second career that can bring their strengths to address broader societal challenges. He also directs the Case Centre on Public Leadership at the Blavatnik School, and he is fellow and member of the finance and investment committees at St John’s College.

Previously, Professor Ramanna taught leadership, corporate governance, and accounting at the Harvard Business School in both the MBA and senior executive-education programs. He has a doctorate from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including as co-editor of the interdisciplinary journal Accounting, Economics & Law.

He lives in Oxford with his husband, Jon, and they enjoy dinner parties and touring Caravaggios.