Guest lectures · Workshops · Visiting faculty
Dr. Ravi Kiran Sethi
An operator with a doctorate. Twenty years in operating roles, from the engine room to Group COO, and a PhD on how entrepreneurship is actually learnt. I teach both.
Group COO, YC Ventures, Dubai
CEO, SEAKNOTIQ Ship Management
Chief Growth & Strategy Officer, Aequor Shipping
Founder, Start Young CEO
40% → 80%
Fleet utilisation in one year, West Africa
14 vessels
On ExxonMobil and Total contracts
α = 0.977
Reliability, 400 students and 30 teachers
33
Courses written and delivered
The sessions
Six sessions you can book.
Each runs standalone or as a module inside a course you already teach, with a slide set, a student handout and an assessable exercise. Full outlines and learning objectives are in the speaker kit.
- 01
Teaching Entrepreneurship So It Sticks
The ADEPT model. Fear of failure outranks skill gaps as the binding constraint.
Faculty development · 90 min
- 02
Run the Entire Ship
What founders actually do in year one. Ventures die of sequencing, not product.
UG / PG · E-cells · 60–90 min
- 03
AI for Business Operations
What changes on Monday. One workflow, two weeks, then the next. No code.
PG · MBA · Exec ed · 90 min
- 04
Using AI Without Outsourcing Your Judgment
What students give away when they use it, and what an employer still pays for.
Employability · 60 min
- 05
Positioning Before Message
Positioning as a test a brand passes or fails in front of a real buyer.
MBA marketing · PGDM · 90 min
- 06
Engine Room to P&L
The machinery a cadet understands, connected to the commercial decisions above it.
Maritime academies · 90 min
- Length
- 60 to 90 minutes, or a full module across a term.
- Format
- Lecture, workshop, or a panel built around student pitches.
- Where
- In person in Dubai. Remote anywhere. Elsewhere on request.
- Notice
- Two weeks is comfortable. Less is usually possible.
For deans and department heads
The paperwork answers.
Do you meet the UGC Professor of Practice criteria?
Yes. The 2022 UGC guidelines require fifteen years of senior professional experience and explicitly waive the PhD and NET requirement. They also exclude serving and retired academics, which is the category I am not. AICTE's route is wider still, with Assistant and Associate Professor of Practice rungs at five and eight years, and an allowance of up to fifteen percent of required faculty strength on most programmes.
How do I count against accreditation?
Under AACSB Standard 3, a doctorate combined with current senior professional practice qualifies as Scholarly Practitioner or Practice Academic. That places me inside your ninety percent requirement rather than against the additional-faculty allowance. Verify it against your own faculty qualification table before you commit to anything.
Can you teach postgraduate students at a UAE CAA-licensed university?
Yes. The requirement is that postgraduate students are taught and supervised by doctoral-degree holders. Foreign qualifications also need a UAE Ministry of Education certificate of equivalency, which the institution normally files within a month of a start date. I will supply whatever your HR office needs for that.
What do you need from us?
A date, a room or a link, and the name of the course the session sits inside. I send the outline and any pre-reading two weeks ahead, and I am happy to be observed or recorded.
Background
The ADEPT model.
Adolescence, roughly thirteen to sixteen, is the window where entrepreneurial skill is most readily built. Schools deliver theory and assess recall. The gap is structural, not motivational.
A
Awareness Building
Entrepreneurship made visible before subject choices close it off.
D
Dynamic Learning
Simulations, pitch panels, prototyping. Practice, not lectures about practice.
E
Ecosystem Engagement
Mentors and competitions outside the school gates.
P
Policy & Infrastructure
Teacher training and incubation space. Without these the rest decays.
T
Tracking & Evaluation
Pre and post measurement, pitch scores, portfolios.
- Doctorate
- PhD, Business Administration. LIUTEBM University, Lusaka, 2026.
- Study
- 400 students, 30 teachers. Cronbach's α = 0.977. Four hypotheses, all p<.001.
- Published
- Three peer-reviewed papers on entrepreneurship education, 2025. IJRIAS, IJSREM and IJIRT.
- Taught
- Nine-session programme at Hindu University of America. Thirty-three courses for Start Young CEO.
ORCID 0009-0008-3637-6268. Career history in full, from marine engineer officer to Group COO, is in the academic CV.
Invite me