Good day, Dr. Mohammed Nabeel K. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Yes.

Go ahead, Professor.

So uh, myself, Doctor Mohammad Nabeel, hey, I have come, I'm born and born and brought up in Kerala. I have completed my graduation and post graduation from University of Calicut. I have completed my Bcom in 2013 and with 96 percent, 95 percentage and I have completed my master of Commerce. Again from University of Calicut in the year 2018 with 86 percentage.

And uh, after completing my, uh, post graduation, I cleared my UGC net, uh, with JRF And uh, after completing my uh, uh, M com, I joined as an assistant professor in department of PG Department of Commerce in uh, cooperative college. There I worked for one academic year. And after completing the one academic year, I, I joined as a full time, uh, PhD research scholar, uh, in Department of Commerce, Bhartiya University.

The guidance of Doctor M Sumathi, currently she is the Dean and Professor in Department of Commerce and it was a full time PhD and it took me 5 years to complete the PhD because of because in between the COVID-19 happened. So it took me 5 years to complete and it was a fully funded funded by UGC after completing my. PhD in in in Commerce. I joined as an assistant professor in CMR University.

Uh, Bengaluru in the in School of Economics and Commerce, uh, there I worked around 1 1/2 years. So, uh, this is all about and uh, I'm having total, uh, publication of 22 research articles, including a peer reviewed Scopus care list, Web of science. And I'm having a one book published and I'm an editor of two journals and I have total, uh, nine book chapters and UH-3 proceedings and I have presented more than 50 papers in.

International and international conferences and uh, total UH-35 plus workshops I have attended and I have been acted as a resource person for more than 18 invited, uh, uh, workshops invited as a resource person. I have acted and I've been, I've been reviewed around UH-18, uh, uh, research articles published by Web of Science and other reputed journals and I have one copyright and why while working in CMR University, Bengaluru.

In November 2025, I acted as an organizing secretary of an international conference on Innovation Challenges in Financial Financial Technology, ICI CFD 2025 and.

I have I'm currently I'm guiding 4 resource scholars in in part time. Actually it is a part time, but I'm currently guiding 4 research scholars in CMR university. And this is all about NCMR University. I was actually an ERP coordinator and I was handling.

The Institution Innovation Council member acted as an institution Innovation Council member and also I was the OSA Office of Student Affairs coordinator and I have handled one subject for even PhD research scholars also. So this is all about my academic journey and during my.

PhD time and all. I was working in a part time as a faculty in ethics institute which is basically a national eligibility test.

Coaching center, there I work more than two years and also I worked as a part time faculty visiting part time visiting faculty at ICMS which is basically a CMA Indian CMA of August training institute. There I have handled the papers for CA foundations and also CMA foundations and in ITX institute I handled the general paper of a National Eligibility test. And also state eligibility test.

Uh, with the commerce paper also. So this is all about my, uh, academic journey. And, uh, currently I'm having total 41 citations in Google Scholar with uh, uh, with an h-index of four and with an ITER index of 1. So this is all about my, uh, academic journey.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing, Professor Mohammad Nabeel. I appreciate the detail and depth

Hello, Professor. Let’s begin this academic interview for the Finance Professor role. To start, could you briefly establish what draws you to finance within the academic context? How do your research interests align with teaching in this domain?

So why I why I'm focused more on finances? Basically, if you see the finance is controlling the entire world. It is actually influencing the individuals, it is influencing the business organizations, it is influencing the government, it is influencing even the all the global market. If you see all these things are actually affected good affected by finance. And that is why I my entire focus on my teaching, even my academic journey. If you see I am having.

Become finance and confinance PhD in finance and I'm having an MBA which even though it is a even a distance mode, but still it is focused on finance. My entire career is actually focused on finance because it is affecting or it is controlling the entire world. If you see. So that is our first point the like why I'm into finance. OK. Now second one, how my teaching and my my interest is aligned. So my research interest is focused on behavioral finance. And also the stock market and also the investment behavior like why people are acting like this or why people are showing this kind of tendencies. So talking about my PhD topic, it is all about the cryptocurrency investors like how why they are investing in cryptocurrency. And also one of the aspect, one of the component of my PhD was like the volatility, why that volatility is happening like that much volatility is happening in cryptocurrency market.

Volatile, it is showing so why it is happening, why people are shifting or why people are more investing in, in cryptocurrency. So what is that behavior? So in that, in that PhD, uh, uh, in my PhD journey, I was actually checking why this, how this investment behave mean behaviors or I mean investment behavioral biases are actually influencing, uh, the investment decisions. So my teaching, if you see teaching actually my way of teaching is like.

As compared to the stock market so if you compare the volatility of stock market and also the cryptocurrency market, we can see that the cryptocurrency market is showing a very what is that very exorbitant rate of uh what is that uh.

Uh, it's actually a, a practical oriented teaching or basically a, a real life based teaching. Or you can say that in a better way. I can say that it's an application oriented research. Like if I'm teaching something like, suppose for example, if I am teaching about something stock market operations or if I'm talking about, uh, the mutual funds, or if I'm talking about the systematic investment plan, how you can invest, how you can invest or how you can find a good investment opportunity we have.

Whatever purchase investment avenues are there so how s s student or as an individual, how you can in the real life, how you can pick a good good sip or how you can pick a good share. So my way of teaching is like entirely focused on real life or we can say that application oriented and while teaching I focus more on why suppose for example, if if price is there is a saying or there is a theory demand theory law of demand, which says that keeping all. Things constant other is an inverse relationship between price and demand. If price is increasing, demand is going to I mean it it will reduce. So why it is happening? So instead of explaining what is it like what is demand or what is supply or what is BOP or what is actually capital budgeting or what is actually financial leverage, why? Why it should be studied and how these theories or these concepts can be included in your real life. Suppose you are running a business you are planning to become.

Entrepreneur or you are planning to become an employee or you are you are doing something right now. How you can mean you can utilize all these informations or all these knowledge that you're getting during your degree or your your, your graduation or post graduation, how you can implement in your real life. And so that whenever we are teaching, it should not be like only for marks, only for marks. Notes should not be only for degree or only for getting that certificate of degree. It should be like should be useful.

So that is actually my way of teaching and these all about my, uh, research interest. So mainly I focused on behavioral finance, like how, uh, the behavioral biases are influencing the investment decisions and also the stock market anomaly, stock market operations.

Yeah. So when it comes to the teaching, the main problem that every faculty will face is actually like the when you come, when you see the student communities, actually it is actually very what is that diverse? We are dealing with very diverse student community where you will be having advanced learners will be there, slow learners will be there, the mediocre will be there. And so some will be coming from. As a finance faculty, what I am facing recently is actually some students will be coming from.

Professor, you’ve articulated a strong foundation in finance—rooted in both academic inquiry and practical application. You emphasize not just theoretical understanding but its real-world relevance—a vital attribute for this role. Given your focus on behavioral finance, could you elaborate on how you would address common challenges students face when comprehending complex behavioral biases? How do you simplify these concepts to ensure understanding and engagement?

Uh, science background or from some computer science background, people are coming into commerce. So these kind of challenges we are facing. So when it comes to slowness slow learners, what I'm usually do is actually first I will and identify the slow learners. So during, during the time of, uh, internal assessment or some other assessments and all, we will identify or maybe during the class itself, we can identify, uh, the slow learners. So first we will first I will identify the slow learner and then we will.

I will I will find why they are actually slow learners. I mean where they are lacking, whether they are slow in in mathematical calculations or whether they are, they don't have any like basic knowledge of commerce. So first I will identify what is the reason like why they became a slow learner. Then the thing what I normally do like I will couple a slow learner with an advanced learner. So that advanced learner. So peer learning. So peer learning is actually one of the.

We if we, if we combine an advanced learner with a, a lo slow learner, even slow learner will become like, I mean it will improve, it will, it will improve their performance. So, so that is the one thing. And second one, I will give additional remedial classes especially during in my previous institution, we are having something called remedy L classes. So during Saturday, those people who are actually slow learner has to come and attend a very basic, very simplified.

What is that most researched? I mean already there is a finding that.

Lectures will be there with real life examples. So that is a one one of the main technique as a teacher, I am using the like, I will connect everything with a real life example. So one of the main problem that we are facing as a teacher, as a teacher community is that if you see we are dealing with the Gen. C students and the problem with the Gen. C students are actually they are not interested in anything. So if you want to keep it, keep them engaged. We have to use some real life examples so.

Definitely what I am, what I, what I am you doing, uh, usually what I will do, I will connect all these things, all these concepts with the real life example. Suppose for example, uh, systematic investment plan. So students are not aware about systematic investment plan. So to create some curiosity about the systematic investment plan, what I have done in my last few lectures, what I have done, I have, I will open that grow website. I will open in the grow website, we have something called as IP calculator.

So I will show them see I'm investing ₹100. Suppose you are you people are starting an investment of SIP with ₹100 and you are investing for next 20 years. And say for example, we are expecting a return of 10 percentage, say for example average 10 percentage and you see that even after 10 years or 20 years this much crore will be you will be having and also systematic withdrawal plan. Also see you are investing 20,00,000 for the next 20 years, you are investing and you are withdrawing 10,000 each from each.

So this is one one example what I have used so I will connect with the real life. So instead of simply explaining the concept or suppose for example, I have handled one paper call measures of send, I mean statistics, business statistics where all the statistical concepts are being explained. So that time I will explain how this concept you can use in your real life. For example, there is something called standard deviation or something called measure of central tendency How you can I mean as a student or a for example as an employee how you can I mean.

This one you are investing, I mean you are withdrawing 10,000 even after withdrawing 10,000 for 20 years, still you are that amount that corpus will be there.

Uh, will, will help you to identify them and we'll give them some additional, uh, like, for example, paper present. I will, I will instruct them to participate international conference or some other conferences outside or some case study analysis I will do. And, uh, sometime I will use them for flipped classroom. That is actually another important technique. You can use it flipped classroom. We can use it. So I will help. I mean, I will, I can, I will instruct them for flipped classroom where I'll be giving some topics to these advanced learners and these advanced learners has to, uh, take classes.

You can use these concepts in your life. Now when it comes to advanced learner that is also another component like another segment of students. Like first I will identify advanced learners through some exams and these exams will will will actually.

For the others, so this is how I hand, I mean, I'm handling, uh, this, uh, what is that vibrant, uh, student community?

Thank you.

Yeah. So during my PhD, this was my topic like how cryptocurrency investment behavior is affecting their investment. So there what I have used is actually to to segment, I mean two types of I mean two types of data have used. I have collected secondary data from the coin market cap and other databases. I have collected the secondary data of top 10 cryptocurrency based on the market share. So top 10 cryptocurrency have selected based on the market share which with approximately around 7578 percentage market share.

Let’s proceed, Professor. You emphasized research within behavioral finance, including cryptocurrency market volatility and investor biases. Could you detail how your research on these topics has contributed to new insights or methodologies within the academic field or influenced your teaching approach?

Total total uh see representing total 78 or 80 percentage market share. So what I have done I have user and egars technique exponential uh generalized auto regressive conditional heteroscedasticity technique. I have used and I have modeled the historical prices. So what I found that positive like uh, the impact of uh these users, especially on the uh cryptocurrency prices when you see negative uses are more impact than positive news for some cryptocurrency for.

Other crypt, some some cryptocurrency it is like reverse like uh positive users have more impact than negative users and uh for one or two cryptocurrency, there is no impact as such like whether it even if it is a positive or even if it is a negative uses. There was no impact. So majority of the cryptocurrency is affected by more affected by uh negative news than positive news. That was a finding from the secondary data and the primary data I have collected the data from 393 uh uh.

Currency investors in Kerala which I have used a snowball sampling using the snowball sampling I identified 393 and I have used a mediation and also moderation analysis like the mediation was how the what is that regulatory perception? So I have I have I have introduced a new variable called regulatory perception like what? What is the feeling? Why like how the perception about the regulation is mediating the.

So my independent variables was, uh, like, uh, all the behavioral bias and my dependent variable was, uh, investment decision and my mediation variable was mediating variable was, uh, this, uh, what is that?

Behavioral biases and also the investment decision, Sir.

Behave.

What is that? Uh, we by what is that?

Regulation, I mean regulatory perception. So how regulatory perception is mediating or strengthening or weakening, Weakening the impact of behavioral biases on investment decision. And what I found that there is a positive mediation effect from the part of regulatory perception I mean mediating I mean this regulatory perception is strengthening the relationship between behavioral biases and the investment behavior. And when it comes to moderation, I check the moderating effect of. The financial literacy. So how the financial?

The literacy is what sorry risk perception, how the risk perception is moderating the relationship between the behavioral biases and and I found that there is a positive moderation effect where the this variable risk perception is moderating positively moderating the relationship between behavioral biases and that this one. So basically the study talks about how the behavioral biases is influencing the investment decisions.

Your research demonstrates an impressive application of advanced econometric modeling techniques and introduces innovative variables like regulatory perception and risk perception. The findings—especially the varying impacts of negative versus positive news and the role of financial literacy—are significant for both academia and practice. How do you incorporate such advanced insights into your teaching? Specifically, how do you bridge the gap between complex methodologies like EGARCH or mediation models and the practical understanding required for students?

Sorry to interrupt, we're down to the last 5 minutes.

OK, so as we are having only last five minutes, I will sum up in very short. So what I'm using actually what I, we have something called a business statistics subject and we are having a module for especially for statistical concepts. So in the statistics we are something called, I mean time series analysis where we we have we are explaining all the time series concepts like what are the time series, what is actually basically time series and what are the how you can model a time series and what are the. Modeling methods which is available, what are what is actually what is that? What is that AR model, Mr. model Rs All these kind of concepts are actually briefly explained in this particular module. So what I will do I will give a case study analysis or I will give a project based method where student has to collect the data from the stock market and they have to model and they have to use using advanced Excel. We are having a module called advanced Excel module using advanced Excel.

I mean, Excel, Excel software, they have to model it, they have to find the relationship, they have to find the regression analysis, they have to find the impact of this on this and they have to predict it. For example, using the last five years data of particular company, say for example, Ashok Leyland, you collect the last five year data and you model it and you predict data. So I'm we are incorporating these kind of statistics even though it is not advanced concepts, not advanced regards ours and all because there we are where we are handling only the graduation student not post.

Students so for post graduation students, we can give like SPSS, even our programming nowadays people are I mean institutions are following our programming, our programming classes, even SPSS classes advance excel classes. We can give so that we can bridge the gap between the Academy and the real life look so, so so that for example, whatever we are learning from the school or from the college, it should be useful in your life, especially when you are getting hired in a good company or when you start a business of your own. So that it should be whatever the.

That you're learning it should be applicable, so it should be a practical oriented this one. So as the time is very limited, I'm just.

So nowadays actually research is actually more into like more into softwares. So I'm having a software proficiency in SPSS and also in advanced excel and also in imos E views where I'm using e-views for secondary data analysis. And also now started using R and even R programming also I started which is actually a free software where where you can use it for all the data analysis. So, so for you how to first of all you how to get the data. So whatever, whatever, first you have to identify the problem. And how to get the data of that particular related to that problem. And then you have to model it using any software. So nowadays I'm using more R programming. Why? Because it is a, a free software which is freely available. And you are getting a, an access to a more advanced tool, which is not actually available in SPSS, which is actually a, a paid 1. And as a, I'm actually a research statistician. I mean, I'm a statistician. I'm a freelance statistician where I used to do all the analysis works. And I'm, I'm actually.

Understood, Professor. Your integration of statistical methodologies into accessible frameworks, such as case studies and advanced software tools like Excel, demonstrates a commendable effort to make complex concepts practical for students, especially undergraduates. Thank you for clarifying. Let me wrap up this section quickly. Let’s confirm your expertise in specific skills critical to this role. Starting with "Financial Analytics," how do you approach translating large datasets into actionable insights, particularly in contexts like portfolio management or investment risk assessment?

A resource person for all almost 18 research analysis related workshops I have conducted as a resource person. So these expertise will be helpful for the institution. And I'm also focused more on the research in the future, I'm planning to already 3 publications are under processing in the high-quality Scopus list, I mean Scopus index journals. And so my focus on more on to analysis path using all these kind of advanced.

Uh, softwares.

So, uh, could you repeat the question?

Thank you, Professor. Your proficiency with tools like SPSS, R, EViews, and Advanced Excel, combined with your experience as a resource person in research workshops, positions you strongly in financial analytics. It is clear that you prioritize actionable, data-driven insights in your work. Next, let me inquire briefly about "Core Financial Management." How do you integrate essential principles, such as capital budgeting, cost of capital, or financial leverage, into practical student learning and examination settings?

Certainly, Professor. How do you incorporate fundamental concepts like capital budgeting, cost of capital, or financial leverage into practical learning and examination frameworks for your students?

Yeah. So capital, all these capital, all these concepts are actually part of financial management. So capital budgeting is nothing but you are having a limited budget or you're having a limited fund and you have to find the best investment opportunity. So in the capital budgeting we are talking about how you have to allocate the fund based on the return or based on that. So there we are having in capital budgeting there we are having lot of.

Uh, tools are there like we are having, uh, modern and we have having a traditional method. In traditional, we are having payback period and we are having average profit method. Uh, and then, uh, in, in advance, we are having an NPV IRR, net net NPV method. We are having IRR. So all using all these methods, we can select the best investment alternative. So say, for example, if you see if you use payback period, we will use the project. We will select that project with the less. Payback period. If it is IRR, we will use.

We will select that project with the highest IRR. If it is an NPV, we will select that project with NPV. So suppose for example, you, you, you are hired. I say, uh, finance manager in particular, uh, uh, company. And suppose as a store you are hired. Now you have to use your suppose for example, your manager is giving CVR having 3 alternatives, 3 alternative investment projects are available. So simultaneously we cannot invest in all three because of maybe fund shortage. Now the question will come, how you will select it? So what you can do, you can use the capital.

Getting technique, you can use any of the capital budgeting technique and more. Actually, if you see IRR is actually one of the best method. Why? Because it's a relative method, right? It's not an absolute measure. It's a related it give you the answers in relative measure. So I will suggest you go for an IRR method, calculate the IRR, select that project with the highest IR, correct. So as an employee, as a finance manager or as an investment advisor or as an investment analyst, you can use capital budgeting in your life and talking about.

For capital, there's another question. Suppose for example you are working in a company, OK, you are a finance manager. Suppose your company want an additional amount of 10,00,000. Now the question will come from where I will get this 10,00,000, whether I should issue a new equity shares, fresh equity shares where, whether whether I should go for some debentures or whether I should go for some bank loan or whether I should pledge some what is that property of the company and then take some loans. So there are multiple or whether I should?

Rely on the savings internal fund. So there are multiple options are there. So how you will select it. So there comes the concept called cost of capital. You check the cost of capital, you check that cost of capital with with less cost of capital or you create a portfolio of all the different investment or different financing options so that your overall WACC nothing but the weighted average cost of capital with the less WACC which will minimize your WACC. So this.

This particular cost of capital help you for financing decision from where I should procure my fund, whether it should be from equity or whether it should be from debenture or from maybe loan from whatever it is. So you can decide you can use this investment. I mean you, you can use this cost of finance concept into your life. Now talking about the leverage that is also another thing. Leverage. Now what is basically leverage? Leverage is nothing, but you are getting an extra.

Time