Ram Bala

Ram Bala is an Associate Professor of Business Analytics at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. He was the Co-founder and Director of the MS program in Supply Chain Management & Analytics (MS-SCMA). He holds a Ph.D. in Management Science from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

He studies pricing, marketplace design and supply chain decisions in dynamic, competitive markets across several industries using optimization, game theory and statistics. A recurrent unifying theme in his research is innovation and how it impacts different players in the value chain and the managerial decisions that emerge as a consequence. His recent interests include an analysis of innovation policy. His work has published in several top tier peer-reviewed journals including Management Science, Marketing Science, Information Systems Research, Production and Operations Management, Naval Research Logistics, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management and Decision Sciences. He has also presented at several prestigious conferences across different functional areas.

He teaches Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, Product Development and Business Analytics at the MBA level. He has been involved with several aspects of program development and execution including curriculum development, implementing academic honor code initiatives and new program launches. He acts as expert reviewer for many of the top journals in his field. He was a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management.

He is passionate about building technology platforms that leverage analytics, data science and artificial intelligence for better business decisions in areas such as algorithmic pricing, marketplace optimization and supply chain fulfillment. He leads and advises teams building AI-driven products, from early stage startups to Fortune 500 Companies.