When I (re)joined industry after my PhD, I had the confidence of someone who has recently discovered a world-class hammer, in my case, behavioral science. With this hammer, I was going to change marketing, innovation, design, insights..you name it. And with it, the world.  There was lots of enthusiasm for my presentations but after a…More

I grew up in quasi-socialist ’80s India and we were taught that you don’t upgrade things easily and you ALWAYS unwrap presents really carefully so that you can re-use the wrapping paper. An admirable principle for shoes, less so for knowledge. Over the years, I’ve ignored a pretty big upgrade in my work: understanding the…More

Most of my work is concentrated outside the US – in that vast section of the world we conveniently label “The Global South” (is there a better term?) – Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America. But COVID-19 struck America in a way I’d previously seen or heard of, growing up in India. What was…More

One of the exciting research streams I’m working on is around the theme of dignity. As human beings, we have it. It’s one of those things we all agree on, and yet we often don’t affirm (or even do the opposite of affirming) someone’s dignity. Why is that? And what repercussions might that have? At…More

Last year, I read through this excellent piece “Imagining the Next Decade of Behavioral Science” in the Behavioral Scientist magazine. It’s a wonderful curation, as always – I am a big fan of Behavioral Scientist. But then I discovered something uncomfortable: almost all of the contributors were from North America, UK/Europe, Australia/NZ. 85% of the…More