Rumi Naik
Partner
Rumi Naik is a client-serving problem solver, with a strong record across the semiconductor, pharma / biotech, and financial services sectors. Rumi’s multi-industry leadership has leaned heavily on machine learning and process innovations that guide the bold ambitions of clients’ executive leadership. Rumi’s training at Carnegie Mellon (BS and PhD) emphasized first-principles thinking and imagination as the two hands of pragmatic pioneers with design as the discipline that grounds the work in commercial and customer reality.
“Rumi is unique as a scientist, educator, and business leader. He approaches complex problems with unconventional wisdom. By leaning on his creativity and natural curiosity of our world, he is able to design systems that push what we see as possible. A true innovator, Rumi is dedicated to enhancing both technological advancement and societal functioning, striving to improve how we live and interact as humans.” -Jen
Rumi walks the AI walk at an unmatched level among consultants or executives - the first completely AI designed vaccines were his team’s work while at Sanofi. These flu vaccines were twice as efficacious as the existing standard of care. The AI was built from concepts Rumi innovated in his PhD work, which was the first time an AI autonomously drove scientific experimentation in an unexplored area of biology; the answers were not known ahead of time. Before that Rumi was a machine learning pioneer in his Intel and Bloomberg tours of duty. Rumi connects his industrial, battle-tested practitioner knowledge, with a world-class theoretical basis (Rumi was faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and taught machine learning and biology), with the real-world understanding of being a big pharma executive at Sanofi, a biotech executive at Flagship Pioneering (President of FL72, now Metaphore), and as the CEO of a young firm, Avronna Inc. Rumi is heavily involved with his alma mater: he served on the Advancement Committee of the Board of Trustees, on the Mellon College of Science’s Dean’s Council, and was the founding donor of the Naik Endowed Undergraduate Research Fund. Rumi is currently a fractional Executive Director at Carnegie Mellon with courtesy faculty appointments in the schools of Computer Science and Science.