PhD Candidate
BCom (Shri Ram College of Commerce), MCom (Delhi School of Economics), MPhil (University of Cambridge)
Year of entry: 2022
I’m a PhD student in Quantitative Marketing and a member of the Marketing group, advised by Professor Jaideep Prabhu and Professor Ahmed Khwaja. My interest lies in the empirical analysis of marketing problems at the intersection of business innovation, social impact, and marketing strategy.
Research
Research topic
Up-skill to Up-scale: Micro-entrepreneur Mentor Matching in Emerging Markets
Research interests
Business innovation; emerging markets; marketing strategy; entrepreneurship; social impact; business sustainability.
Pathway
Supervisor
Biography
Soniya’s current research focuses on bridging the gaps in mentoring platforms for micro-entrepreneurs in emerging markets by developing the algorithmic criteria for promoting mentorship programmes, market skill training, and policies for micro-entrepreneurs. She also investigates the fit between the mentors for market skill training and the micro-entrepreneurs by combining machine learning and Bayesian inference with econometric modelling.
Prior to starting her PhD, Soniya graduated with an MPhil in Strategy, Marketing and Operations at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, as a Commonwealth Masters Scholar 2021 from India. She was awarded the prestigious Mitsubishi UFJ Foundation Scholarship during her Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree at Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi (2014-2017). Soniya earned her Master of Commerce from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi (2017-2019).
Her experience as a researcher in emerging markets fuels her inspiration to contribute to the sustainable business ecosystem for nano entrepreneurs, small and medium-scale enterprises, and technology-based industries. Soniya has held positions as a Researcher at the Department of Strategic Marketing, MICA, India; Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Policy Research; and Research Consultant at Ernst & Young, Global Delivery Service, India. She has interned at Grant Thornton, EY India, Urban Company and Parliament of India.
She is constantly learning and developing a comprehensive understanding of the working of markets and individuals at the intersection of the market, social and academic spheres.
Publications and papers
Published research papers
- Corrado, L., Gupta-Rawal, S., Kattuman, P. and Prabhu, J. (2026) “Democratizing space: India’s frugal space innovation provides key lessons for emerging nations.” PNAS (forthcoming)
- Gupta, S., Gupta-Rawal, S. and Shrivastava, P. (2026) “Dynamic AI-embedded super app: a design-based process innovation towards customer engagement and value creation.” Journal of Product Innovation Management, 43(1): 99-124 (DOI: 10.1111/jpim.70009)
- Gupta, S., Shrivastava, P. and Gupta-Rawal, S. (2023) “More the merrier!! Understanding the effect of available content choices over willingness to pay for over-the-top subscriptions.” Psychology and Marketing (DOI: 10.1002/mar.21895) (published online Sep 2023)
- Gupta, S. and Jeyaraj, A. (2021) “Online-to-offline (O2O) commerce in emerging markets: analysis of the retail sector.” Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, 22(4): 260-278 (DOI: 10.1080/10599231.2021.1983501)
Conference paper presentations
- Gupta-Rawal, S., Khwaja, A. and Prabhu, J. (2026) “Match frictions and engagement: two-sided matching for digital business mentoring in Indonesia.” In:
– ISMS Marketing Science Conference, Nova School of Business and Economics, June 2026, Portugal.
– EMAC Main Conference and Global Doctoral Colloquium, University of Bath, May 2026, Bath, UK.
– AMA Global Conference, May 2026, Nice, France. - Hassan, M., Gupta-Rawal, S., Prabhu, J. and Vassallo, J. (2026) “Shattering the invisible chains: social constraints and supplier dependency of women entrepreneurs in Egypt.” In: AMA Winter Conference, February 2026, Madrid, Spain.
- Gupta-Rawal, S., Kattuman, P., Corrado, L. and Prabhu, J. (2025) “Signals from space, decisions on farms: digital leapfrogging for agricultural productivity, climate resilience and sustainability.” In:
– Ivey-PhD Sustainability Academy, Ivey Business School, November 2025, London, Canada. (Best Paper Award)
– UK Workshop on Digital Economics (4th), Centre for Competition Policy (CCP), Imperial College London, November 2025, London, UK. - Gupta-Rawal, S. (2022) “Matching mentors with nano-entrepreneurs in emerging markets.” In: SEI Research Day, Bayes Business School London, November 2022, London, UK.
- Gupta-Rawal, S. (2022) “Matching mentors with nano-entrepreneurs in emerging markets.” In: Cambridge Zero Research Symposia, Hughes Hall, November 2022, Cambridge, UK.
- Gupta-Rawal, S. (2022) “Capital-centric opportunities for skill training of microentrepreneurs in emerging markets.” In: Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) Annual Conference, Jesus College, May 2022, Cambridge, UK.
- Gupta-Rawal, S. (2021) “The future is remote: social impact of telemedicine business in emerging markets.” In: Cambridge Zero Research Symposia, November 2021, Cambridge, UK.
- Gupta, S., Gupta-Rawal, S. and Shrivastava, P. (2021) “Super app: a design innovation towards customer engagement.” In: AMA Winter Academic Conference 2021, Virtual.
- Gupta-Rawal, S. (2021) “Neuromarketing: substitute for a consumer’s decisions.” In: Annual Global Strategy and Emerging Markets (GSEM) Conference (5th), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
- Gupta-Rawal, S. (2020) “Store promotion using halo effect contamination in consumers decision making.” In: International Communication Management Conference (6th), MICA India, Ahmedabad, India, January 2020. (Received Consolation Prize in the Best Paper Awards)