Ajay Bhalla

Professor Ajay Bhalla is a tenured Professor of Family Business and Innovation at Bayes Business School (part of the University of London). He leads the Executive Masters in Leadership (EML) programme and has been at Bayes since 2001. His work focuses on resilience in family businesses, employee ownership, and digital innovation. He co-authored the Amazon bestseller The Resilient Decision-Maker and contributed to UK government policy on employee ownership, influencing a £75M annual investment in this sector.

Education: B.Comm (Punjab University), MBA (University of Wolverhampton), PhD (Nottingham Trent University), and international training at the Stockholm School of Economics. Awards include the prestigious Distinguished Best Paper Award at the 73rd Academy of Management conference and the CMI Management Articles of the Year award.

Research interests emphasize organizational resilience, family enterprise longevity, and employee ownership effects. Key contributions include the Ownership Effect Inquiry (2018), which demonstrated the economic benefits of employee ownership. He collaborates with institutions like John Lewis Partnership and advises multi-generational family businesses such as Wates Group and Bibby Line Group.

Teaching and advising include supervising PhD students in family business and innovation topics. Professional roles include Board Trustee at the Family Business Research Foundation and visiting scholar at the Indian School of Business. Media engagements span BBC, Bloomberg, and The Economist.

Grants and policy impact: His work on employee ownership shaped UK government policy, including the Model Growth report (2010) and REF-recognized impact studies. His research teams produced seminal reports like the Ownership Dividend (2018), launched at the Institute of Directors.

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with Professors Joseph Lampel and Dr. Pushkar Jha on policy and innovation studies, and with Dr. Aneesh Banerjee on resilience and organizational psychology.