Anju Ahuja
Anju Ahuja is a co-founder and managing partner of Psyche Manufactory - a media and entertainment focused corporate development and principal investment firm. She works with her portfolio companies and clients at the board level, along-side or as part of the management team on content strategy, marketing, business development and growth financing.
Before launching Psyche Manufactory with her partners, Anju was one of the founding partners of MK Capital, a venture capital fund with $150 million under management. Previously, she was a principal with First Analysis, specializing in venture investments across their family of funds with over half a billion under management. Prior to this, Anju worked for Bank of America's leveraged buyout group, where she focused on turnarounds of distressed companies. Anju's background is grounded in strategy analysis and corporate development, skills she developed as an associate at The Boston Consulting Group. She summarizes the first decade of her career with the following lesson learned: if you are fearless in the face of ambiguity, judicious in your use of resources and uninhibited in your creativity, then entrepreneurship and sleep deprivation naturally follow, whether you want them to or not.
Outside of the office, Anju is passionate about education, innovation and the arts. In addition to co-chairing the President's Advisory Council at Columbia College, she is also an adjunct professor in Arts, Entertainment and Media Management, where she teaches graduate students the intricacies of entrepreneurship and new business creation in audience-driven enterprises. After serving on a regional board of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for six years, she now chairs the recently launched UNICEF Enterprise committee in the Midwest. Anju also serves on the External Advisory Board of the Global Health Initiative, an inter-disciplinary health and education program started at The University of Chicago. She previously served on the advisory board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs in the San Francisco Bay Area, was vice president of UC2MC (The University of Chicago alumni board) and chaired the board of one of the city's first charter schools. She has a BA in economics from The University of Chicago and an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
Of her recreational indulgences, jazz, quirky films and Iyengar yoga rank high. Otherwise, she is sure to be found deep in conversation and tragically short of true culinary talent at impromptu gatherings of colleagues and friends, many of whom are also part of the Columbia community.
