Nicholas Surdel

Experience

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  CMC

  Dec 2012 - Aug 2014

  Lead Partner

  • Generated over $60,000 annual gross revenue by providing luxury e-services in a video game’s North American (NA) region• Franchised branding from NA to EU market by developing a Danish partnership, improving brand and generating profits • Reduced advertising expenses by negotiating B2B branding and advertising deals and designing and implementing low-cost incentive programs (e.g., referrals, customer loyalty, etc.) via custom organizational IP

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  Dunkin'

  Dec 2014 - Jul 2016

  Manager

  • Drove 20% revenue growth in our highest same-store sales location through emphasizing customer loyalty (via quality control, customer experience, etc.) and increasing average ticket sales (via upselling trainings for employees)• Systematically reduced costs by 8% by focusing on lowering our stores’ employee retention and loss prevention rates through empathetic leadership (i.e., meeting individual needs of employees) and promoting our 25-member team’s moral capital

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  Boston Joe's Appliance Repair, Inc.

  Jul 2018 - Jul 2019

  Office Manager

  • Oversaw the most profitable year by 10% through reducing costs (e.g., utilities) and increasing revenue (e.g., optimizing routes)• Implemented data-driven approach to negotiate contract rates with major companies such as Lowe's and LG, using collected job completion and recall rate data and comparing it with competitors' metrics, resulting in up to 20% raises

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  William & Mary

  Aug 2019 - May 2021

  Graduate Research & Teaching Fellow

  • Analyzed and disseminated research at 7 national conferences, serving as a featured, fully funded invited speaker at an international conference as the only U.S. representative, resulting in 9 conference-related awards • Implemented inclusive cultures in 7 undergrad courses, building relationships with 120+ students, receiving 2 teaching fellowships• Strategized a plan to improve research efficacy that hierarchically targeted research grants with the highest chance of success, leading to me winning the most research funds and awards in the lab (awarded 7 grants from 5 unique sources) Show less

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  Yale University

  Jun 2021 - now

  Graduate Research & Teaching Fellow

  • Dean’s Emerging Scholars Award (2021; 10 are awarded annually)• Published 1 article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (IF = 17.33)• Lead, analyze, and drove a $2.6M Office of Naval Research grant, running 30+ studies on how we mentalize robots with 13+ collaborators from 6 departments across 5 universities and 3 countries, resulting in 4 awards and 5 conference presentations • Co-developed a $250k Binational Science Foundation grant with Israeli collaborators studying perceptions of robot motivations• Manage 7 parallel research projects by delegating tasks to 8 employees and 7 collaborators, leading to 8+ invited lab talks at Yale• Structure dynamic solutions to problems of 50+ undergrad mentees in classes and volunteer groups (e.g., 1stGenYale), empathetically improving students’ decision-making on individualized problems•Strategically plan and implement analytical solutions to 100s of novel questions prior to data collection via pre-registration Show less

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  Yale Graduate & Professional Student Senate

  Sept 2021 - now

  Senator

  • Co-organized an inaugural cross-institutional networking event by establishing connections with student governance leadership at Yale, MIT, Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, Princeton, and Brown, hosting 750+ attendees and 14 alumni speakers • Initiated a new DEI initiative, as an elected Spring Fellow, to provide 500+ FGLI graduate students with dental insurance

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  Yale Grad Crew

  Feb 2022 - Mar 2024

  Captain

  • Developed and implemented a strategy to meet the market’s needs, resulting in 370% growth in active members over 20 months• Collaborated with the boathouse’s director to institute mutually beneficial terms for storage of equipment at no material cost

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  Bulldog Innovation Group, LLC

  Oct 2022 - now

  Venture Capital Board Secretary

  Bulldog Innovation Group is a private, Yale alumni, early-stage micro-VC firm founded to support alumni entrepreneurs from any Yale University school. BIG continues to assist and mentor portfolio companies after initial investments, and aims not only to achieve returns for investors but help build the ecosystem and foster the entrepreneurial spirit at Yale.• Identified inconsistencies and implemented reviews across 100s of archival records via self-initiated audit, standardizing records to improve the efficiency and access for all14 GPs and 24 LPs Show less

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  Yale School of Management

  Jan 2023 - May 2024

  Graduate Teaching Fellow

  • Coordinated with 6 admins across two departments, negotiating funding and flexibility, to trailblaze as the first non-SOM student to be a teaching fellow (by invitation) for PhD-level MGMT 758 – Foundations of Behavioral Economics (Spring, '23 and Spring '24)• Accidentally created a mathematical proof, to show Bayesian updating in expected value calculations, during a friendly disagreement

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  Yale Graduate Student Consulting Club

  Feb 2023 - now

  • Lead 19 internal and client (CEO) meetings with a team of 7 pro-bono consultants to help a biotech start-up expand into new markets, conducting interviews (3 key opinion leaders) & research (e.g., clinical trials, competition) to test strategic hypotheses resulting in a paid consulting job offer for the government of Kazakhstan

  • Member

    Aug 2021 - now

  • Project Lead of Pro-Bono

    Feb 2023 - May 2023