Prof Khandwalla was born on 18th February 1940 in Mumbai into a family of managers, professionals, educationists, freedom fighters, social reformers, politicians, institution builders, and writers. He studied for B.Com. at Sydenham College and then did CA. He opted to go in 1965 to the U.S. for an MBA at Wharton School. There he won the Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, and enrolled for a Ph.D. at Carnegie Institute of Technology (later Carnegie-Mellon University) in 1966. He majored in Organization Theory, with minors in Economics and Management Science. In 1969 he joined McGill University's Faculty of Management in Montreal, Canada. He returned to India in 1975 on a sabbatical to be at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and decided to stay on until his retirement in 2002. During his years at IIMA he was Professor of Organizational Behaviour, L&T Chair Professor, and Director.