Vidya Mani

Education: B.E., MS University, India; MBA, IIT Mumbai, India; Ph.D. Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC Chapel Hill, USA

Dr. Mani is an Associate Professor of Business Administration. Her research focuses on establishing the impact of operational decisions on performance under changing marketplace conditions. Towards this, she leverages empirical models to develop data driven insights that inform operations management theory and industry practice. The operational decisions are: 1) at the firm level, what products and services to offer in the marketplace; 2) at the supply chain level, how to manage the inventory and distribution of these products and services, and 3) at the industry level, how to compete within market and regulatory constraints. She evaluates the direct impact of these decisions on the firm and supply chain performance, as well as, studies the indirect impact of these decisions on overall industry performance under government oversight. Since 2014, she has been actively working on effective ways to create a secure supply chain in the electronics sector. In collaboration with the US Department of Defense and the LMI Research Institute, she helped develop a data-driven intelligent response toolkit to mitigate counterfeit risk in the weapons system supply chain. Other research includes developing efficient product portfolio and distribution decisions for specialty drugs, evaluating the effectiveness of inspection and penalties towards ensuring environmental safety and compliance for oil and gas sector, and making targeted assortment and labor decisions for retail stores.

Dr. Mani is a Franklin Fellow at the Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Office of International Affairs for 2019-2020. In this role, in collaboration with industry and government, she is developing a framework to enable supply chains to have a positive impact on the society through sustainable operational practices.