Dr. Kanwal Bokhari

Biography

Kanwal's scholarly interests are at the intersection of finance, entrepreneurship, and governance. She is the faculty advisor for the UCeed Haskayne Student Fund, a million-dollar venture capital fund managed by students and a dedicated team at the University of Calgary. Additionally, Kanwal is set to design and deliver courses for the Creative Destruction Lab Rockies at the Haskayne School of Business.

Kanwal completed her undergraduate degree in finance from IBA Pakistan and pursued both her MBA and doctorate in business administration at the Haskayne School of Business. During her doctoral studies, she served as the academic lead for the Financial Feminism Investing Lab, an investment education program with a gender-informed lens. In her research, Kanwal examines the decisions business angels and venture capitalists. She defended her thesis in November, 2022 under the supervision of Dr. Seok-Woo Kwon at the Haskayne School of Business. Her thesis was a finalist for the 2023 Heizer prize for doctoral dissertations on venture capitalists, presented by the entrepreneurship division at the Academy of Management. She has presented her work at leading peer-reviewed conferences and is working on manuscripts that explore how investors reconcile mixed signals in their decision-making, as well as the role of gender in high-tech entrepreneurship. 

She has more than ten years of experience in investment banking and private equity in capital markets across the globe. Kanwal has significant non-profit management and board experience.