Subra Suresh, Professor at Large at Brown Engineering and recent National Medal of Science recipient, has been appointed chairman of a new scientific advisory council established by Société Générale, the French-based multinational financial services company. Suresh’s appointment was effective Feb. 1.
SocGen recently created its Scientific Advisory Council to provide science-based advice to its general management on key trends that will influence the group’s business and activities in the coming years, and to take a broad and long-term view of the challenges facing the industry. The advisory council will combine complementary expertise in the areas of science, technology, and global affairs, with the intent to integrate the United Nations’ sustainable development goals framework into the group’s strategic thinking.
“It is an honor to welcome Subra Suresh as Chairman of our new Scientific Advisory Council,” said Slawomir Krupa, Chief Executive Officer of Société Générale. “I value his distinguished leadership in science and academia and his acute understanding of how our group can enhance its standing as a leading bank in ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance). I look forward to engaging further with the Council, seeking their advice on how to best address long-term global challenges and to increase our positive impact and commitment to sustainability.”
As inaugural chairman, Suresh will assist in the setting up of the council and its composition. Suresh is a leading scientist, engineer and researcher, with decades of distinguished positions in academia and is an elected member of numerous science and engineering academies. He was successively Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), President of Carnegie Mellon University, and President of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has served as an independent director of publicly listed companies and as a member of science and technology councils advising the CEOs of multinational corporations. Along with his professor at large position at Brown, he is a Vannevar Bush Professor Emeritus at MIT, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology.
Born in India, Suresh graduated from high school at 15 and received his undergraduate degree in first class with distinction from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai. He received a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Iowa State University in 1979 and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1981.
He was appointed Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur of the French Republic in 2023. He was also inducted in 2017 as a foreign associate into the French Academy of Sciences (Académie des Sciences).