Vidya Mani

Education: B.E., MS University, India; MBA, IIT Mumbai, India; Ph.D. Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC Chapel Hill, USA

Dr. Mani is an Associate Professor of Business Administration. Her research and teaching focus on creating sustainable global value chains wherein businesses not only conduct their operations in a responsible manner but also ensure that they do so as part of a global supply chain that adds value to the society and environment that these supply chains pass through. It is key to achieving the targets set out in the UN Sustainable Goals by 2030. Her research focuses on how supply chain imperatives drive operational decisions across electronics, oil and natural gas, pharmaceutical, and retail sectors. Her work highlights how businesses within these supply chains will respond to specific market constraints and regulations. Some of her research topics include developing an efficient product portfolio and distribution strategy for specialty drugs, evaluating the effectiveness of inspection and penalties towards ensuring environmental safety and compliance for the oil and gas sector, making targeted assortment and labor decisions for retail stores, and effective ways to create a secure supply chain in the electronics sector.  She teaches an elective on Sustainable Global Value Chains in the Residential and Executive MBA programs at the Darden Business School. She is also the faculty lead for the P3 Impact Award Program run by Concordia, the University of Virginia Darden School Institute for Business in Society, and the U.S. Department of State's Office of Global Partnerships.

Dr. Mani works with the industry and policymakers to identify the impact of recent legislative efforts and ESG standards on the supply chain and evaluate the tradeoffs associated with local policies, national security, and global goals. In collaboration with the US Department of Defense and the LMI Research Institute, she developed a data-driven intelligent response toolkit to mitigate counterfeit risk in the weapons system supply chain. Dr. Mani is a Franklin Fellow at the Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Office of International Labor Affairs. She is also a member of the working group tasked with developing sustainability standards for the textile and apparel sector at GRI and an Expert Advisor to the working group on Critical Minerals Supply Chain for the Ripples of Hope Project at the Miller Center.