Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Sreedhari Desai is an Associate Professor & Crist W. Blackwell scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Kenan Flagler Business School) and a Visiting Faculty at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. She was previously also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Prior to that, she was a research fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics (Harvard University), at the Women and Public Policy program (Harvard Kennedy School), and at the Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation. She obtained her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at the David Eccles School of Business in the University of Utah. She did her undergraduate studies at the Punjab Engineering College in the field of Metallurgical Engineering, and has an M.S. degree in Finance from the University of Utah. Her research investigates how individuals behave in organizations, with a focus on ethical decision making, fairness and gender diversity. Sreedhari's work has been published in academic outlets such as the Organization Science, Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and received extensive media coverage from journals such as the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Boston Globe, NineMSN, the Irish Times, the Financial Times, the Toronto Star, the Indian Express, the MotleyFool, the Huffington Post, the Economic Times, the Nation, the Christian Science Monitor, to name a few. Not only is Sreedhari well versed in the natural and social sciences, she is also gifted as an artist. She has won art competitions sponsored by the Camlin Art Center, Shankar's Academy of Art, and the T. S. Central State Library of Chandigarh. She has undergone formal training in the fine arts at Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah. However, her most valuable art lessons were learned during her travels in Europe in the years 2002 and 2008 during which she was exposed to the work of Dutch, Italian, French, and Spanish masters. Her work is also influenced by her friends and fellow artists, Rob McKay, Craig Glidden, Allen Bishop, and Rick Graham. A former model, she says, "Modeling for Rob and others has taught me different ways of capturing light and shade." Sreedhari has had solo art shows in Salt Lake City (Utah) and Durham (North Carolina) and maintains a studio space in Chapel Hill.
Sreedhari teaches programs in Strategic Decision Making, Change Management, Negotiation, Power & Influence, Ethical Leadership, Leading High Performing Teams, Foundations of Diversity & Inclusion, and Women’s Leadership to senior leaders, both in the government and private sector. Sreedhari is one of the most highly-rated faculty in Executive Development and has engaged with both domestic and international clients, such as the US Navy, the US Army, the US Air Force, FORSCOM, Veteran Affairs, Sunbelt Rentals, Kroger’s, Marriott, ExxonMobil, Southern Glazers Wine & Spirits, American Financial Services Association, Textron, Institute of Defense & Business, Commscope, NC DHHS, CSX Bioenergy, Water & Wastewater, Ferguson, Vulcan Materials, and IBM.