Suresh Nair


Alternative Sabbaticals In Industry Develop Skills, Says Associate Dean Suresh Nair

Suresh NairHow do credit card companies decide when to boost your credit line or send you a new-card solicitation in the mail?

And how do banks save millions by carefully managing their cash reserves?

Professor Suresh Nair has worked on these, and other pivotal business-research issues, as a means to enhance his knowledge as an educator and as the associate dean for graduate programs at the UConn School of Business.

A project-based, research-focused sabbatical at a large company can be a wonderful alternative to a more traditional academic sabbatical experience, Professor Nair said.

Not only did his sabbaticals in industry save tens of millions of dollars for companies, he has also received research awards, started a company with seed funding from the National Science Foundation, and transformed and strengthened his teaching.

“This is a largely unexplored opportunity for our faculty,” Professor Nair said following his well-received presentation to more than 50 colleagues this fall. “I’ve participated in sabbaticals at General Electric, Merrill Lynch and Booz & Co., and have had excellent experiences.

“I wanted to use my sabbaticals to pick up new skills. Going back to industry helped me stay on top of current issues in financial services, healthcare and entrepreneurship, and also gave me the opportunity to help these companies achieve their goals,” he said. “I left each of my three sabbaticals with new topics to research, and many ‘war stories’ to share in the classroom.”

To a consumer, credit-card solicitations by mail (sometimes derisively called junk mail) may seem like a random process, Professor Nair said. In fact, it is very complex. Who gets offered a credit card, and at what rate, involves complicated analytics, Professor Nair said.

“A company may start out with 10 million contacts and narrow them down to a million or fewer,” Professor Nair said. “The marketing experts want more customers and the risk experts want fewer. If you go to a store and you’re close to your credit limit, and you want to buy furniture, how does the bank determine if it should increase your credit line? If they don’t, you’ll use another card. If they hike it up too much, they risk higher losses if you become delinquent.”

Professor Nair helped create an algorithm—using credit scores and other factors—to determine who would qualify for a credit increase. His work was so sophisticated and unique that it won the coveted Wagner Prize.

During another sabbatical, Professor Nair worked at Merrill Lynch, delving into research of banking reserves.

“The Federal Reserve requires banks to set aside about 10 percent of your checking account balances as reserves. The bank cannot invest these funds and gets very little interest on it from the Fed,” Professor Nair said. “This rule comes from the Depression era, to prevent a run on banks. However, it means that banks have millions of dollars that they can’t invest.”

Professor Nair helped Merrill Lynch optimize its “sweeps” program to save $4 million a year.

The program was so successful that Professor Nair wanted to develop a similar product for smaller banks. He began a successful start-up in South Windsor using a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation.

“It gave me a good experience, the satisfaction of making payroll and creating and commercializing a new product,” he said. “It never would have happened without my sabbatical. It gave me a unique perspective as the founder of a company.”

Professor Nair said he began searching for sabbatical opportunities about a year prior to his leave, and that he was selective in the ones he considered. He found that industry was very welcoming, and wondered why more faculty don’t take advantage of similar opportunities. Industry is happy to host sabbaticals, since they are inexpensive to the firm, as long as an educator can demonstrate a skill that will complement and add value to the company.

Professor Nair worked on his sabbaticals without pay from the firm, since UConn continued to pay salary, asking that the corporations only cover his lodging and travel expenses. At the completion of his sabbatical, some of the companies asked that he continue his work as a paid consultant.

“It is difficult work,” he said. “I asked to be treated like an employee, with the badge, the email, the off-site meetings and everything. Sometimes I worked very long hours and I was away from home at least four days a week. It may not be for everyone. But the opportunities you get, and the real-life exposure to business problems and issues, really can’t be experienced any other way.”

After his presentation, many UConn colleagues said his work was eye-opening and that they would consider a similar, alternative sabbatical.

Professor Nair acknowledged that there is some trepidation on the part of faculty, who are under pressure to publish and might find an industry sabbatical a distraction. But Professor Nair has demonstrated that excellent published papers in top journals can result, and allayed some of those fears through his presentation.

“I felt I could navigate a path which would provide both research expertise, topics for publication, and also improve my teaching,” he said. “To me, it hit all the sweet spots I wanted.”


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UConn School of Business Announces Inaugural Class for MS HRM Program

The UConn School of Business is proud to introduce its inaugural class for the Graduate Programs in HR Management. 24 students have been admitted into the MS HRM program, and five students in the ABC HRM certificate program. The MS HRM students will be joining our HRM team in Hartford on Friday and Saturday, August 22-23, for our in-residence program kickoff. The weekend will consist of special guest speakers, including Dean John Elliott, industry speakers, and program faculty that also serves as the launch for the cornerstone course, Business Acumen and Strategic Human Resource Management. Greg Reilly, Academic Director of the Graduate Programs in HRM, will be leading the event. Other special guests include Susan Spiggle, Chair of the Management Department; Peter Diplock, Assistant Vice Provost for eCampus; and Suresh Nair, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for the School of Business.


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Honor, Wisdom, Earnestness: Faculty and Students Recognized for Academic Achievements

School of Business Awards and Honors
The best and brightest of UConn School of Business were honored Friday morning, April 25 at the 2014 School of Business Awards & Honors ceremony. Honorees, family and friends gathered in the Dave Ivry Seminar Classroom at the School of Business in Storrs for the annual celebration, where 2014 Student Hall of Fame Fellows were recognized, Ackerman Scholars were awarded, Faculty Awards were presented, and new members were officially inducted to the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society.Continue Reading



UConn MBAs Win First Prize in APICS Supply Chain Case Competition

UConn MBAs stood first in the APICS Northeast Region Supply Chain case competition hosted at UConn’s business school on Saturday, April 21st, 2012. Twenty one teams from across the northeast participated, including undergraduate and MBA teams from Boston University, Rutgers, Northeastern, and Bryant. Prof. Manuel Nunez mentored the UConn undergraduate team and Prof. Suresh Nair mentored our MBA teams. The winning team members were Anup Ratnakaran, Nanxin (Nick) Li, and Samir Mohanty. Another UConn MBA team won the fourth place in the competition. Continue Reading


Ackerman Scholars Announced

The Dean’s Council has reviewed the Ackerman Scholars at the University of Connecticut School of Business and made the following awards:

Appointed for the next two years (2012-13 and 2013-14) are:

Continuing in their second year are:

  • Sulin Ba, OPIM
  • Joe Golec, Finance
  • John Harding, Finance
  • Suresh Nair, OPIM
  • Rex Santerre, Finance
  • Zeki Simsek, Management

The Ackerman Scholar award recognizes significant and continuing all round academic productivity among the faculty of the School. It is awarded to faculty who are not already supported by Chair or Professorship appointments. The award is supported by the Ackerman Fund, the School and the departments. The purpose of the Ackerman Fund is to “grant a monetary reward to faculty members who have excelled in classroom teaching, curriculum development, research, outreach to business and state agencies.”


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Ackerman Scholars Announced

The Dean’s Council has reviewed the Ackerman Scholars at the University of Connecticut School of Business and made the following awards:

Appointed for the next two years (2011-12 and 2012-13) are:

  • Sulin Ba, OPIM
  • Joe Golec, Finance
  • John Harding, Finance
  • Suresh Nair, OPIM
  • Rex Santerre, Finance
  • Zeki Simsek, Management

Continuing in their second year are:

The Ackerman Scholar award recognizes significant and continuing all round academic productivity among the faculty of the School. It is awarded to faculty who are not already supported by Chair or Professorship appointments. The award is supported by the Ackerman Fund, the School and the departments. The purpose of the Ackerman Fund is to “grant a monetary reward to faculty members who have excelled in classroom teaching, curriculum development, research, outreach to business and state agencies.”


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