Indian American Professor Roy Honored for AI Sales Research

Roy, a marketing professor at the Pompea College of Business, presented his paper "Beyond the Polanyi Paradox in B2B Marketing: Leveraging AI to Extract Tacit User Knowledge in Product-Led Growth" at the association's 2026 Summer Academic Conference. The paper explores how AI systems analyze unstructured workplace actions to detect unspoken customer preferences, helping business-to-business firms improve market outreach and value delivery.

Roy said the research has direct implications for business education. As routine marketing tasks such as drafting sequences and list building become automated, entry-level marketing roles increasingly demand analytical reasoning, question design, and ethical judgment. "The graduates who thrive in the AI age will be the ones who can direct AI rather than compete with it," he said, adding that integrating current research into coursework prepares students for evolving workforce needs.

Roy's academic journey began in India, where he earned a Master of Science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in 1980 and a postgraduate diploma in rural management from the Institute of Rural Management Anand in 1982. He later completed a doctorate in marketing at the University of Western Sydney in Australia in 2002.

Before academia, Roy spent 13 years in India's commercial sector, serving as head of marketing and sales for HPCL, a joint venture between Sweden's Tetra Pak and India's National Dairy Development Board. He was part of the leadership team that introduced aseptic packaging to the Indian market through products like Amul and Frooti.

Roy joined the University of New Haven in 2001 and has chaired the Department of Accounting, Finance, and Marketing. He serves as co-editor of the American Business Review and has published in journals including the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Marketing Science, and Industrial Marketing Management. He has also been a visiting lecturer at Texas Christian University and a visiting scholar at the Yale School of Management.