Pradeep Debata is a Doctoral Researcher at IfM Centre for Technology Management (CTM), supervised by Dr Letizia Mortara. He holds an MPhil in Real Estate Finance and an MBA; both from the University of Cambridge.

Research interests

The integration of AI technologies in the operating model of firms, especially incumbents.

The past decade has seen proliferation of AI technologies and adoption in commercial setting. The extent of adoption starts with specific tools to interlinking of AI tools to make decisions, as in the case of Big Techs. While Big Techs largely grew without an existing regulatory setting (and regulation is slowly catching up) this is not the case for incumbents.

My research aims to understand the challenges that characterises adoption of AI by studying cases of AI adoption in sectors outside Big Tech e.g. Data providers, financial services, construction industry etc.

I intend to achieve this through case studies of specific products and process in the value delivery mechanism; to identify, contextualise and interpret points of tensions. This in turn would contribute towards preparing for the adoption of AI by incumbents who are still considering the move and/or struggling to realise the benefits from AI.

 Professional experience

Pradeep has been a world leading derivates valuation professional actively shaping global industry benchmarks for equity derivatives during his time in London at Nomura and JPMorgan. His product knowledge spans across equities, rates and credit products; and he has lived through the financial crisis in the industry driving data and model driven operating model transformations.

He has also been a management consultant in the UK tech & innovation sector developing business cases and financial models for UK public sector clients, such as Connected Places catapult, Satellite Applications Catapult, TfGM, IBI and InnovateUK.

He has been awarded fellowships from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK; Higher Education Academy and the Cambridge Commonwealth Society.

Pradeep currently is part of the teaching team on Cambridge Judge’s Executive MBA programme for the Corporate Finance and the Financial Reporting & Analysis modules.

He has previously held a Teaching Fellowship at the Department of Economics in the University of Cambridge; been a visiting lecturer at Institute for Continuing Education in the University of Cambridge and Cambridge Judge Business School; and has trained colleagues at Nomura and JPMorgan.

Previous appointments

Prior to joining Cambridge Judge Business School, Pradeep was the Managing Director of the boutique consulting firm Accelerate East. He previously worked as a Vice President of Finance at JPMorgan; and held appointments at Nomura, Merrill Lynch and the Reserve Bank of India.

Awards & honours

• Two SSRN Top 10 category papers on AI, 2020 and 2022
• EPSRC Doctoral Research Studentship, 2020
• Fellow, Association of the Chartered Certified Accountants, 2013
• Fellow, Higher Education Academy, Advanced HE, 2022

Selected publications

Toye Scott, E., Stiles, P. and Debata, P. (2022) “Managing new technology: the combination of model risk and enterprise risk management.” Cambridge Judge Business School Working Papers, No.1/2022. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. (Available online via the SSRN)

Ryll, L., Barton, M.E., Zhang, B.Z., McWaters, R.J., Schizas, E., Hao, R., Bear, K., Preziuso, M., Seger, E., Wardrop, R., Rau, P.R., Debata, P., Rowan, P., Adams, N., Gray, M. and Yerolemou, N. (2020) “Transforming paradigms: a global AI in financial services survey, World Economic Forum.” SSRN Scholarly Papers, No.ID 3532038. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. (Available online via the SSRN)

Debata, P. and Tiwari, P. (2008) “Mortgage market in India.” In: Ben-Shahar, D., Leung, C. and Ong, S.-E. (eds.) Mortgage markets worldwide. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.