Innovative Partnership
Nov. 20, 2015
During the summer of 2015, four graduate students--Niloy Krittika, Daniel Li, Ashutosh Kumar, and Chris Avery--engaged in a data analytics project with staff from Citi Retail Services quantifying how Millennial card members differ from their older counterparts. The students' work culminated in a formal business presentation delivered September 2015 in person to Michael Redfearn, Director, Decision Management and Uday Bhanu, Sr. Vice President, Decsion Management, and simultaneously via telepresence to Citi Retail Services staff in Chicago (see photo at presentation).
Dubbed “Project Saguaro,” the collaboration was the initial project in which Citi Retail Services asked graduate students a variety of questions about how Millennial card members spend and manage their accounts. Citi Retail Services staff carefully constructed an anonymized data set for a non-random sample of customers representing consumer accounts at four major retail partners. With supervision from Gary Thompson, students met weekly throughout the summer to discuss intermediate results with Citi Retail Services staff in Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta. The students concurred they learned a tremendous amount and Citi Retail Services staff were impressed at the depth of analysis and sophistication of the final presentation.
Photo credit: from left to right: Gary Thompson, Daniel Li, Ashutosh Kumar Chris Avery, Michael Redfearn, Director, Decision Management, Niloy Krittika, Uday Bhanu, Sr. Vice President, Decision Management, and Mike Staten.