Dean Abbott
Chief Data Scientist
Appriss Retail
Dean Abbott is an internationally recognized thought leader and innovator in data science and predictive analytics, with more than three decades of experience solving problems in customer analytics, fraud detection, risk modeling, text mining, survey analysis, and many more. He is frequently included in lists of the top pioneering and influential data scientists in the world. Mr. Abbott is the author of Applied Predictive Analytics (Wiley, 2014) and coauthor of The IBM SPSS Modeler Cookbook (Packt Publishing, 2013). He is a popular keynote speaker and bootcamp/workshop instructor at conferences worldwide and serves on advisory boards for the UC/Irvine Predictive Analytics and UC/San Diego Data Science Certificate programs. He holds a bachelors degree in computational mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a masters degree in applied mathematics from the University of Virginia.
Sessions: The Revolution in Retail Customer Intelligence
Q&A: Ask Dean and Robert Anything (about Best Practices)
Shavar Beckford
Data Scientist
Allstate
Karan Bhalla
VP, Analytics
EXL Analytics
Karan is responsible for the development and implementation of the IQR (an EXL Analytics company) services, marketing and business strategies worldwide. At IQR Consulting, now a part of market leader EXL Analytics, he has led complex consulting engagements for banks and credit unions. He has 16 years of experience in Financial Services but he has been instrumental in leading IQR to expand its expertise and best practices to other industries as well. He is a graduate in Management Information Systems from Virginia Tech and an MBA in Finance from the University of Maryland. He started his career spending 6 years at Capital One in their data analysis & credit review functions. He has also been a consultant at some top organizations like Fannie Mae, American Express, and British Telecom. Karan has spoken about usage of analytics at many international conferences.
Session: Evaluate A Marketing Campaign's Success Using Uplift Modeling
Richard Boire
President
Boire Analytics
Richard Boire's experience in predictive analytics and data science dates back to 1983, when he received an MBA from Concordia University in Finance and Statistics.
His initial experience at organizations such as Reader’s Digest and American Express allowed him to become a pioneer in the application of predictive modelling technology for all database and CRM type marketing programs. This extended to the introduction of models which targeted the acquisition of new customers based on return on investment.
With this experience, Richard formed his own consulting company back in 1994 which is now called the Boire Filler Group, a Canadian leader in offering analytical and database services to companies seeking solutions to their existing predictive analytics or database marketing challenges.
Richard is a recognized authority on predictive analytics and is among a very few, select top five experts in this field in Canada, with expertise and knowledge that is difficult, if not impossible to replicate in Canada. This expertise has evolved into international speaking assignments and workshop seminars in the U.S., England, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia.
Within Canada, he gives seminars on segmentation and predictive analytics for such organizations as Canadian Marketing Association (CMA), Direct Marketing News, Direct Marketing Association Toronto, Association for Advanced Relationship Marketing (AARM) and Predictive Analytics World (PAW). His written articles have appeared in numerous Canadian publications such as Direct Marketing News, Strategy Magazine, and Marketing Magazine. He has taught applied statistics, data mining and database marketing at a variety of institutions across Canada which include University of Toronto, George Brown College, Seneca College, and currently Centennial College. Richard was Chair at the CMA's Customer Insight and Analytics Committee and sat on the CMA's Board of Directors from 2009-2012. He has chaired numerous full day conferences on behalf of the CMA (the 2000 Database and Technology Seminar as well as the 2002 Database and Technology Seminar and the first-ever Customer Profitability Conference in 2005. He has most recently chaired the Predictive Analytics World conferences in both 2013 and 2014 which were held in Toronto.
He has co-authored white papers on the following topics: "Best Practices in Data Mining" as well as "Customer Profitability: The State of Evolution among Canadian Companies." In Oct. of 2014, his new book on "Data Mining for Managers-How to use Data (Big and Small) to Solve Business Problems" was published by Palgrave Macmillian. In March of 2016, Boire Filler Group was acquired by Environics Analytics where his current role is senior vice-president of innovation.
Session: Demystifying the Confusion of Big Data in Customer Level Predictive Analytics Solutions
Bob Bress
Head of Data Science
Freewheel, A Comcast Company
Bob Bress is Head of Data Science at Freewheel, a Comcast Company focused on advanced advertising technologies. In that role he leads teams of data science and analytical staff using their expertise to lead the development of the next generation of advanced targeted advertising products for television and premium video. Bob has over 15 years of analytics experience across industries including work in hospitality, energy, and at GE's Global Research Center in the Applied Statistics Lab.
Bob holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research & Statistics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Eugene Choi
Predictive Analytics
Zurich North America
Eugene received his BS in civil engineering from the University of Illinois
and earned his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Session: Data Science in the Insurance industry -- Is There Still an Arms Race?
Alice Chung
Sr. Manager
Genentech
Lawrence Cowan
Senior Partner & COO
Cicero Group
Lawrence is Senior Partner, COO and Customer Insights & Advanced Analytics practice leader with Cicero Group. Lawrence has spent the last decade building Cicero's analytics practice where he has experience helping Fortune 1000 firms solve real business challenges with data, including attrition, segmentation, sales prioritization, pricing, and customer satisfaction. He also leads the firm in predictive analytics and Big Data related engagements, applying Cicero’s deep expertise in strategy execution to ensure data delivers ROI. He has partnered with companies to help them to shift from reactive to predictive analytics by collecting and analyzing real-time information and distributing it across the organization— allowing management to make better, faster decisions that move the business forward.
Lawrence holds a Master’s of Science in Predictive Analytics from Northwestern University, an MBA with an emphasis in Business Economics from Westminster College, and a BA from Brigham Young University
Dr. John Elder, Ph.D.
Founder & Chair
Elder Research
John Elder chairs America’s most experienced Data Science consultancy. Founded in 1995, Elder Research has offices in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Washington DC. Dr. Elder co-authored 3 award-winning books on analytics, was a discoverer of ensemble methods, chairs international conferences, and is a popular keynote speaker. John is occasionally an Adjunct Professor of Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia.
Special Plenary Session: Doing Space-Age Analytics with Our Hunter-Gatherer Brains
Robert Grossman
Frederick H. Rawson Professor of Medicine and Computer Science
The University of Chicago
Robert Grossman is a partner at Analytic Strategy Partners and a professor at the University of Chicago. From 2002 to 2016, he was the Founder and Managing Partner of Open Data Group, which provided data science consulting services to a wide variety of companies, including those in financial services, location services, computational advertising and cybersecurity. From 1996 to 2001, he was the Founder and CEO of Magnify, which developed predictive analytic software for the financial services and computational advertising industries. Magnify was sold to ChoicePoint in 2003 and is now part of the RELX Group. He is the Frederick H. Rawson Professor of Medicine and Computer Science and the Jim and Karen Frank Director of the Center for Translational Data Science at the University of Chicago, where he leads a data science research group that is developing systems and algorithms for managing, analyzing and sharing large biomedical and environmental datasets.
Sessions: Best Practices for Deploying Analytic Models into Operations
Q&A: Ask Dean and Robert Anything (about Best Practices)
Gitali Halder
Analytics Manager
Hewlett-Packard
She is responsible for pre sales, business development, solution design and delivery of Analytics and Data Science opportunities for the Americas region within HP Enterprise Analytics and Data Management.
Prior to joining HP, she worked with JP Morgan Chase and Fractal Analytics. She has a Master degree in Economics from Delhi School of Economics.
Session: Retail Shrink Prediction to Improve Store Operation Efficiency
Mark Heiler
Data Scientist
Paychex Inc.
Josh Hemann
Director - Analytic Services
Activision
Hsing-Chien Kao
Data Consultant
Incendo
Deep Khadka
Senior Data Scientist, Analytics and Insights
EMC Corporation
Deep comes with extensive enterprise experience on Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Data Analytics and Data Science with past work experience at Verizon and Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS).
Session: The Power of Predictive Analytics to Strengthen B2B Customer Relationships
Mahesh Kumar
Founder & CEO
Tiger Analytics
Mahesh is the Founder and CEO of Tiger Analytics. He started Tiger Analytics with a desire to bring his experience in management science to help organizations achieve superior performance through the application of advanced analytics.Before founding Tiger Analytics, Mahesh was on the faculty of the Smith School of Business and Rutgers Business School.
Mahesh has conducted research in the areas of data mining and statistical modeling and has successfully applied his research to solve problems related to forecasting, pricing, promotions, and customer segmentation for a wide range of businesses across industries. Mahesh holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research and Marketing from MIT, and a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay.
Expert Panel: Data Prep: Overcoming the Bottleneck and Nailing It
Michael Li
CEO
Pragmatic Institute
Michael Li founded The Data Incubator, a New York-based training program that turns talented PhDs from academia into workplace-ready data scientists and quants. The program is free to Fellows, and routinely accepts just 1% of applicants. Employers engage with the Incubator as hiring partners.
Previously, Michael worked as a data scientist (Foursquare), Wall Street quant (D.E. Shaw, J.P. Morgan), and a rocket scientist (NASA). He completed his PhD at Princeton as a Hertz fellow and read Part III Maths at Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar. At Foursquare, Michael discovered that his favorite part of the job was teaching and mentoring smart people about data science. He decided to build a startup to focus on what he really loves.
Michael lives in New York, where he enjoys the Opera, rock climbing, and attending geeky data science events. You can find out more at www.thedataincubator.com.
Lisa Middleton
Director of Marketing
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Session: The Perfect Ensemble - Predictive Analytics and the Performing Arts
Shawn Murphy
Global Director, Analytics and Insights
EMC Corporation
The TCE team uses Big Data via a holistic listening culture, analytics and data science to identify customer and product performance risks, market opportunities and competitive threats as it relates to EMC customer loyalty. Shawn is responsible for delivering business value by providing actionable insights, through advanced analytics, to determine drivers & trends that impact the Total Customer Experience.
Session: The Power of Predictive Analytics to Strengthen B2B Customer Relationships
Daniel Porter
Co-Founder
BlueLabs
Daniel Porter is the cofounder of BlueLabs, a Washington DC based analytics, data and technology company whose clients include political campaigns, nonprofits and corporations.
Prior to founding BlueLabs, Daniel was Director of Statistical Modeling for the 2012 Obama reelection campaign. His team developed individual level statistical models that were used throughout the campaign for fundraising, media buying and state strategy. These models served two primary purposes: to pinpoint which voters were most likely to take an action or hold a belief (i.e. support the President or turn out to vote) as well as to measure the influence a campaign contact had on an individual's likelihood to take such actions or change their beliefs. Combined, these measures helped the campaign optimize their targeting to maximize their return on investment.
Keynote: Persuasion Modeling in Presidential Campaigns and How It Applies to Business
Steven Ramirez
CEO
Beyond the Arc
Steven J. Ramirez is the chief executive officer of Berkeley, Calif.-based Beyond the Arc, Inc., a firm recognized as a leader in helping companies transform their customer experiences by leveraging advanced analytics.
In addition to developing and executing the vision for Beyond the Arc, Ramirez leads teams of data and strategy consultants committed to client success. They analyze customer and social media data, combined with text analysis, to drive customer growth, improve customer retention, understand service breaks and build stronger customer loyalty.
Prior to leading Beyond the Arc, Ramirez served as an executive with Time Warner, where he was responsible for creating and successfully implementing marketing and corporate development strategies.
Ramirez earned a bachelor's degree and master's in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley. He as also created and taught courses in business management for UC Berkeley and been a guest speaker at the university's Haas School of Business.
Pasha Roberts
Co-Founder and Chief Scientist
Talent Analytics, Corp.
Session: Self-Organizing Job Paths: Markov Chains, Predictive Models and More
Thomas Schleicher
Sr. Director, Measurement Science
National Consumer Panel
Thomas Schleicher is a results-focused executive with nearly 20 years of experience in delivering actionable, data-based insights and profit-optimizing results for various high-profile clients across multifaceted, competitive industries. He is currently Senior Director of Measurement Science at National Consumer Panel, a joint venture of Nielsen and IRI. NCP is the largest longitudinal consumer panel in the world, and it provides the quality data its parent companies leverage to share consumer insights with their respective clients.
Prior to his current role, Tom has had stints at Ipsos-ASI, Bayer HealthCare (Pharmaceuticals), and smaller analytic shops including Symphony Marketing Solutions and Spire, a Loyalty Marketing Analytics firm. Trained as an Experimental Social Psychologist (Ph.D. earned at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee), he is currently augmenting his statistical and social research methods expertise as he nears completion of his online Certificate in Predictive Analytics at UC-Irvine.
Session: Using Predictive Analytics to Optimize Organizational KPI's: A Panel Market Research Case Study
Babacar Seck
President
LEADS AEROSPACE
I'm currently leading a high technology company specialized in developing innovative and secure mobile communications solutions using the most advanced satellites constellations and ground networks. Our primary market is Aviation - Air transportations Industry, Defense and Aerospace.
With nearly 18 years developing strategic innovative projects applied to Information technology, mobile telecom services and critical satellites communications solutions for leading European companies, my experience ranges from business planning to strategic implementation through cross-functional leadership positions.
Satadru Sengupta
General Manager of Insurance
DataRobot
Satadru Sengupta is a Senior Engagement Director, Data Science at DataRobot. In this role, Satadru leads the data science engagement team in the US East Region and he works hands-on with the organizations in the NYC area (healthcare, financial and insurance industry) to integrate DataRobot machine learning platform in their problem-solving environment. Previously, Satadru worked with AIG Science Team as a Senior Manager leading quantitative modeling for global distribution. Prior to that, he worked with Liberty Mutual Insurance and Deloitte Consulting. Satadru holds a Master of Science in Actuarial Science and a Master of Science in Statistics. Satadru lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife.
Expert Panel: Data Prep: Overcoming the Bottleneck and Nailing It
Dr. Eric Siegel
Conference Founder
Machine Learning Week
Eric Siegel, Ph.D., is a former Columbia University professor who helps companies deploy machine learning. He is the cofounder and CEO of Gooder AI, the founder of the long-running Machine Learning Week conference series, the instructor of the acclaimed online course “Machine Learning Leadership and Practice – End-to-End Mastery,” executive editor of The Machine Learning Times, and a frequent keynote speaker. He wrote the bestselling Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die, which has been used in courses at hundreds of universities, as well as The AI Playbook: Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment. Eric’s interdisciplinary work bridges the stubborn technology/business gap. At Columbia, he won the Distinguished Faculty award when teaching the graduate computer science courses in ML and AI. Later, he served as a business school professor at UVA Darden. A Forbes contributor, Eric publishes op-eds on analytics and social justice.
Eric has appeared on Bloomberg TV and Radio, BNN (Canada), Israel National Radio, National Geographic Breakthrough, NPR Marketplace, Radio National (Australia), and TheStreet. A Forbes contributor, Eric and his books have been featured in BBC, Big Think, Businessweek, CBS MoneyWatch, Contagious Magazine, The European Business Review, Fast Company, The Financial Times, Fortune, GQ, Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Luckbox Magazine, MIT Sloan Management Review, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Newsweek, Quartz, Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Trailblazers with Walter Isaacson, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and WSJ MarketWatch.
Keynote: Weird Science: How to Know Your Predictive Discovery Is Not BS
Moderator: Data Prep: Overcoming the Bottleneck and Nailing It
Naveen Singla
Director of Analytics
Monsanto
Naveen has been with Monsanto for 5 year and has worked on development and deployment of a predictive pipeline for R&D organization and has grown the IT analytics capabilities to impact Supply Chain, Commercial and Customer.
Prior to joining Monsanto, he worked on development of HPC systems for high-frequency securities trading, algorithms for high-speed text mining and machine learning solutions for human biometric recognition.
Naveen received his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, India and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University with focus on designing Bayesian inference algorithms for data transmission over noisy communication channels. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters and likes reading books on the history and evolution of Mathematics.
Bob Wood
Senior Director, Advanced Analytics & Research
Merkle
Bob Wood serves as Merkle's Senior Director â€" Advanced Analytics & Research. He and his team have been involved in numerous analytic and insights projects to support global brands such as MetLife, UnderArmour, Dell, Warner Brothers and Assurant, to help them market more effectively and more efficiently. In addition to having 17 years of leadership experience in research and analytics, Bob has a BS in Math & MS in Applied Math from BYU, MS in Statistics from Wichita State, an MBA from the Marriott School of Management, and is currently a doctoral candidate focusing on consumer psychology at Wichita State University.
Session: A Better Approach to Driver Analysis
Toshi Yumoto
Director, Data Science, Enterprise Business Intelligence
Comcast
Toshi has over 15 years of experience in quantitative research, measurement and psychometrics with emphasis on research design, program evaluation, data mining and predictive modeling to help marketing organizations better utilize research and analytics to drive their customer-centric strategies. Dr. Yumoto has been published and presented in over 50 academic journals and currently serves as a professional reviewer for PLoS ONE, Journal of Alzheimer's and Dementia, and Journal of Research in Nursing and Health. Dr. Yumoto has a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland College Park in Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation and a master's from Adler School of Professional Psychology in Counseling Psychology.
Session: A Better Approach to Driver Analysis
Boris Zibitsker, Ph.D.
CEO
BEZNext
• Capacity management departments at FNBC and CNA Insurance company in Chicago
• Founder, CEO, CTO and Chairman of BEZ Systems (1983 - 2010), acquired by Compuware in 2010
• CTO of Modeling and Optimization at Compuware (2010-2013)
• Founder and CEO of BEZNext (2011 - present)
• Manage development of the modeling and optimization software supporting capacity management of mix workloads in multi-tier, distributed, virtualized, parallel processing systems, including Big Data Clusters, Teradata, Oracle, DB2 and Application servers
• Applied Machine Learning algorithms for performance and availability problem detection, root cause analysis and risk prediction for internet and cloud computing applications
• Consulted many of Fortune 500 companies
• Taught seminars and presented at conferences in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa
• Current focus is on developing technology and providing services and education in Performance Assurance for Big Data Applications and Data Warehouses. It includes Software Performance Engineering for new applications and Dynamic Capacity Management for production environment.
• MS and PhD research at BSUIR and NIIEVM
• Taught graduate courses on Modeling of Computer Systems, Queueing Theory with Computer Applications, Computer Communication Systems Design and Analysis at DePaul University in Chicago
• Taught seminars at Northwestern University, University of Chicago and Relational Institute
• Author of papers on modeling, performance prediction, workload characterization, performance management, workload management and capacity plan.
Expert Panel: Data Prep: Overcoming the Bottleneck and Nailing It
Tanya Zyabkina
Director of Marketing Analytics
Time Warner Cable
Session: Sales Attribution, Lessons from the Non-Digital World