Karan Girotra is the Charles H. Dyson Family Professor of Management and professor of operations, technology and innovation at Cornell Tech and the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. Girotra’s recent research and teaching is focused on the promise and perils of technology—how technology can improve how we do things, enable new business models, favor new leadership styles, and at the same time lead to several excesses and unaccounted negative externalities. He has also studied new business models and economic institutions that help reduce carbon emissions, improve urban living, manage global supply chains, and make online-retail less loss-making.
Girotra was one of the founding faculty members of Cornell Tech and now leads its flagship studio-based education programs. He also leads the design and delivery of our executive education offerings and works closely with leaders in industry.
Girotra and his research collaborators have been recognized with multiple best paper awards, and his research contributions were recognized with the prestigious Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Award. His research on new business models (at the time) was summarized in the best-selling book, The Risk Driven Business Model. He has also won over 25 awards for his teaching on entrepreneurship and new business models and was featured in the Poets&Quants Best 40 under 40 business professors’ lists.
In addition to his academic work, Girotra was one of the founders of TerraPass Inc., which the New York Times identified as one of the most noteworthy ideas of 2005. Since then, TerraPass has helped businesses and individuals reduce over hundred million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Prior to Cornell Tech, Girotra held the Paul Dubrule Sustainability Chair at INSEAD and earned a doctorate at the Wharton School and a bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
