Professor Navjot Sandhu
Professor of Agri-Entrepreneurial Finance & Deputy Head of Department
- Email:
- navjot.sandhu@bcu.ac.uk
Professor Navjot Sandhu is a finance scholar whose research focuses on how finance, technology and education can widen economic opportunity for underserved entrepreneurs. Her work concentrates on small and marginal farmers, women entrepreneurs, ethnic minority businesses and SMEs in emerging economies. She was appointed Professor of Agri-Entrepreneurial Finance in 2024. She has also held senior academic leadership roles at Birmingham City University: Head of the Department of Finance and Economics (2021–2023), Deputy Head of the Graduate School of Management, and, since 2025, Deputy Head of Accountancy, Finance and Economics.
Her research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Education + Training and the Journal of the Knowledge Economy, and in Edward Elgar research handbooks. Her recent work covers blockchain adoption in rural enterprises, entrepreneurship education for women in agritourism, bank lending practices, and transnational diaspora finance. She has co-edited the Elgar Companion to Entrepreneurship and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and in 2026, she received various awards for her research, academic contribution, teaching and leadership nationally and internationally. She was named VIWA Distinguished Researcher in Finance in 2023.
Her research directly addresses the UN Sustainable Development Goals on poverty, food security, gender equality, clean energy and decent work. She is a Co-Investigator on a £2.6 million UKRI-funded project on solar irrigation and rural energy in Bangladesh. She has also secured funding from the British Academy/Leverhulme, the British Council and the Global Challenges Research Fund, as well as fully funded doctoral studentships. These projects cover diaspora finance, blockchain-enabled agri-supply chains and clean energy for rural communities in India and Bangladesh.
She is closely engaged with practice. Before entering academia, she held general management and business strategy roles in India. She has delivered entrepreneurial finance training to SME owner-managers through the UK government’s Help to Grow and Innovation Vouchers programmes, and executive education on UK financial regulation to senior Chinese executives.
Her academic service is extensive. She is Associate Editor of the Journal of Small Business Strategy, was Assistant Editor of the Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development for eight years and is a member of the UKRI-ESRC Peer Review College. She reviews for journals including the Journal of Business Venturing, Tourism Management and World Development. She has supervised five PhDs to completion, currently supervises nine doctoral researchers, and has examined more than 20 doctoral theses in the UK and internationally.
An experienced curriculum leader, she has developed undergraduate and postgraduate finance programmes, including the MSc in AI with Fintech, MSc Fintech and Financial Analytics, and MSc Finance and Investment. She has also served as an external examiner and validation advisor for several UK universities. She holds a PhD in Finance, an MBA (Finance) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Birmingham City University and completed the University of Oxford Fintech Programme. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of various organisations, including BAFA, ISBE, BAM, CISI and the Royal Economic Society.