I am an INSEAD Master in Management graduate with experience in research immersing in opportunities that leverage communication skills, innovative thinking and deep analysis. I have a research background, and it it’s a pillar of my modus operandi: I drill deep and broad to analyze issues or opportunities—ideating with creative liberty and testing with rigorous method—and then carry the insights and direction generated on the drawing board to the stage. I strive to be protean, and my work so far has included research, strategy design, product design and management, and business consulting. Whatever the prompt, I am able to communicate meaningful ideas and searching questions (and bad puns) cogently, with subtle touches to engage the particular stakeholder.

My broader mission is to master the art of helping people win.

Professional Experience & Résumé

Research and Research Assistantships

~ Negotiation and Conflict Management Collaborative (NCMC)

with Professors Eric Uhlmann and Horacio Falcao

I work with two distinguished INSEAD professors on the Negotiation Course for the World project. We create rigorous and open-source negotiations cases and teaching material that institutions across the world can use to teach generations the praxis of decades of research and accumulated experience in the field. For me personally, it’s the perfect follow-up for me after an international education. I stem from humble roots: I grew up staunchly middle-class in Bangladesh with a penchant for understanding how people tackle questions and challenges with their fellow man. I can’t say whether it is unlike anywhere else in the world, but I am confident that it is a tantalizingly rich and unique ecosystem of interactions and behavior. My education at INSEAD was transformative in shaping my understanding of negotiations and communication: both academically and practically. I fell in love with not just storytelling and effective communication, but with the idea of creating academic insights in the realm of negotiations that tap into contexts that surpass my personal experience.

I don’t think I’d be as happy if the things I were working on weren’t free, down to the philosophy of the endeavor. This is for all the dreamers without the present means to flourish as they’d like. Thanks profs.

~ Published Paper: Does Haggling Provide Utility in Information Asymmetric Markets? Evidence from Sales Tactics

Prottay Hasan, Zaeem-Al Ehsan. (2022). Does Haggling Provide Utility in Information Asymmetric Markets? Evidence from Sales Tactics. J Edu Psyc Res, 4(1), 282-285.

Conducted as a personal initiative (with help editing from my friend), I prepared this paper (and conducted requisite surveys) to bolster my research skills and further understanding in an understudied area. I designed a frame that condenses a relatively intractable behavioral issue to a testable and well-defined idea and was rewarded accordingly with novel findings. Here’s a snippet:

Even in the discussion of the noneconomic motives, which veers towards psychological roots of motivations for haggling, the paper contends that there remains can angle unexplored: that the act of haggling itself can provide economic utility to buyers under certain circumstances. The research finds that prices in markets with price information hidden to consumers, buyers can perceive utility in haggling—and prices in the market are inflated by buyers to meet this demand for haggling. Furthermore, the research suggests that haggling markets may have disappeared in many places in the world due to shifts in consumer mindset. The work draws on structured interviews with book salesmen in Dhaka’s “Nilkhet” book market and a focus group discussion with apparel store owners in “Mohammadpur Krishi Market”, another haggling-prone market.

We propose that an early market stage M₀ exists in which haggling buyers (those who gain utility from the act of haggling) are the dominant consumer group; price and information asymmetry exists. The market price range reflects the demand for haggling. As most buyers are hagglers, consumers will face price levels ranging from x+y (that is, P₂ to P₀), with the range x being dominant. This range x represents a postulated ‘price buffer’. When faced with a consumer, sellers have the choice of:

a) Offering an elevated price to take advantage of a possible demand to haggle
b) Offering a fixed price that is attractive to begin with to a non-haggler who will search without participating in haggling

Sellers must ‘bet’ – they do not have prescience. Wrong “bets” can result in losing a non-haggler. The market, over time, develops into M₁ in which non-haggling buyers become dominant and only a minority gain utility from purchases. We infer that a change in consumer mindset results in this transition from M₀ to M₁, but inference is not central to building my case. In this case, the prices offered move to a wedge in which sellers choose to what extent they will try to wield the power to discriminate, as offered by information asymmetry. In the market M₁, a seller risks losing a customer by offering an elevated price as non-haggling buyers are dominant.

They reflect demand for purchasing without utility gained from haggling. The dominant consumer type, non-hagglers, will carry their information search and be offered fixed prices within the range y. In the final market stage M₂, information asymmetry disappears and the market price settles at P₀, the ‘ideal’ equilibrium price. Bargaining disappears from the market.

~ and more work

I have also worked as a research assistant to Mrs. Khonika Gope of Stanford, and I study multi-round negotiations and write cases with Professor Eric Uhlmann at INSEAD. I have been invited personally to Professor Philippe Aghion’s Innovation Lab and work with him on a research paper on entrepreneurial decisionmaking and innovation.

Entrepreneurship

~ CarboBang

I am a co-founder and product lead at CarboBang: a startup that aims to create a trustworthy and effective carbon credit ecosystem through South Asia’s forests. We use cutting-edge geospatial technology to enable data-driven carbon offset systems for organizations. Our MRV technology allows us to track changes in carbon sequestrhttps://carbobang.net/ation and forest health, and helps us create products backed by evidence, not promises. These business solutions are more than a step towards helping organizations achieve stronger environmental stewardship: they create virtuous cycles for communities and grassroots stakeholders, creating results that are truly sustainable and inclusive.

In the past, I’ve also founded an electrical products business that helped communities in Bangladesh save 30% on lighting costs through more sustainable lighting solutions. It broke even in two months.

Work at Large

~ Prep Zone Academy

I’m a strategist at Singapore’s premier educational consulting outfit; I work closely with the director to design and deliver short- and long-term strategy for the company. Beyond business strategy, my work encompasses product design and management, organizational process design and sales strategy.

I also double as an education consultant (in the coolest room in the office)! I work with people of all ages—from high schoolers to executives at INSEAD—on preparation for a variety of pursuits. I coach people in analytical business case studies, presentations and interviewerial conversations¹, and also in verbal and mathematical reasoning for a range of settings.

1. Yes, I have chosen to pen a new term; it’s not exactly on the safe side of Occam’s Razor, but it has a layer of solid, defensible nuance that I love

~ Innovations for Poverty Action

I have rigorous research and project management experience from Innovations for Poverty Action and Nielsen. I worked not only as an economic research analyst, but as a team whisperer and research communicator: a liaison between Bangladeshi Ministries, a government innovation unit, globally-based researchers at my firm, and a technical team: designing requisite collaborative processes and managing ambiguity and competing demands.

My outdated CV (update to come):