
Pooja Vijayakumar, Ph.D. is an entrepreneur, Strategic Partnerships, Brand Activation, and Organizational Growth Consultant dedicated to helping organizations build meaningful partnerships that drive business growth, community impact, and lasting brand value. With more than a decade of experience advising Fortune 500 companies and global nonprofits, she has led enterprise-wide initiatives spanning organizational strategy, leadership development, workforce transformation, employee experience, and AI-enabled people analytics, aligning people strategies with measurable business outcomes.
As the founder of a sports and community engagement venture, Pooja is bringing her expertise in strategy, partnerships, and organizational transformation to the sports industry by building a platform that connects sports, brands, culture, and community. Her vision is to accelerate the growth of cricket and other emerging sports in the United States through innovative brand activations, corporate sponsorships, strategic partnerships, and fan engagement experiences that create shared value for athletes, leagues, brands, and communities. She believes the strongest partnerships go beyond sponsorship—they create authentic experiences, measurable business impact, and long-term economic opportunities for all stakeholders.
Pooja holds a Ph.D. in International Management and Marketing, with research focused on global leadership, expatriation, organizational culture, and workforce development. Her unique ability to combine entrepreneurial thinking, strategic consulting, data-driven decision-making, and cross-sector collaboration enables organizations to unlock new opportunities for growth, innovation, and social impact. Whether launching new ventures, advising executives, cultivating strategic alliances, or designing high-impact brand activation strategies, Pooja is committed to building partnerships and experiences that inspire people, elevate brands, and strengthen communities.
Pooja has successfully collaborated and published papers with some of the most experienced and well-known researchers in the International Business, Management, and Industrial-Organizational Psychology domain. She has worked on various expatriation, cross-cultural, and immigration issues and her research work as a first author has been covered in several major news outlets including Bloomberg, BloombergQuint, The Economist, and Press Trust of India.