Meeta Kothare

Meeta Kothare is a Professor of Practice in the McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She is the Managing Director of the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute at UT and served as the inaugural Managing Director of the Social Innovation Initiative at McCombs. She previously founded and led Neeva Solutions, a management consulting firm assisting nonprofits and for-profit organizations dedicated to social impact. 

Kothare has over 25 years of academic, business, and social sector experience. Kothare began her career in sales and marketing before pursuing graduate studies in business. After completing her doctorate, she joined the finance faculty at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, where she has taught in the MBA, Business Honors and Executive Education programs. Her research on corporate finance, corporate governance, and securities markets has appeared in leading academic finance journals.

Kothare has dedicated her personal and professional life to supporting social and sustainable innovation. She focuses primarily on the role of finance, systems change, and human-centered design in promoting such innovation. Her areas of expertise include impact and sustainable finance, impact measurement, systems change, corporate sustainability, and social entrepreneurship. She is a recipient of the 2019 UT President’s Award for Global Learning for her interdisciplinary research on social determinants of diabetes management in underserved communities. She serves on the steering committee of the Impact and Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium, the UN PRME’s working group on sustainable finance. Kothare serves as an advisor to several startups and is also actively engaged in community service and philanthropy. She is a frequent speaker on sustainability and social impact.

Kothare holds a Ph.D. in Finance and an M.S. in Applied Economics from the University of Rochester, and an MBA from the University of Georgia.