Shashidhar Nanjundaiah
Director, School of Media & Communication, Whistling Woods International, Mumbai

Shashidhar Nanjundaiah is a well known leader in mass communication education, a teacher, trainer, researcher, newsperson, and an expert on communication and infrastructure industries. Reputed for his 20:20 vision with the ability to nail it down to the brasstacks effectively and sustainably, Prof Nanjundaiah’s 22 years of experience includes leadership positions in higher education and the media. He is known nationally in India as an academic who introduced and made viable innovative and well-grounded methods of education. He was Director at the prestigious Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, and then went on to etablish the Indira School of Communication, which turned out to be the largest start-up communication institute until that time. His team and he established new methods and systems towards a student-oriented vision of higher education—something he has committed to work towards at Whistling Woods International. His concept of interdisciplinary education has received commendable support from investors, industry leaders and academics in the US and India. He encourages students to think and act independently and responsibly; many of his students have won national awards for their projects.

Prof Nanjundaiah has also been the Managing Editor of The Indian Express North American Editions, Group Executive Editor at ASAPP Media Information Group—where he edited infrastructure-related magazines, and headed research and programmes at Zee News. He is now a widely sought after advisor in higher education, is widely published in scholarly journals, was on the Fulbright Fellowships Selection Committee and the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).

Prof Nanjundaiah has an M.S. from Radford University, Virginia, USA, where he graduated with a 4.0/4.0 GPA in Corporate and Professional Communication. He has taken courses towards Ph.D. at Texas A&M University at College Station and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.