An in-depth look at the data science career: Defining roles, assessing skills: Strata Data Conference, September 23-26, New York

Usama Fayyad is a cofounder and chief technology officer at OODA Health, a VC-funded company founded in 2017 to bring AI and automation to create a retail-like experience in payments and processing to healthcare delivery, and founder and chairman at Open Insights, a technology and strategic consulting firm founded in 2008 to help enterprises deploy data-driven solutions to grow revenue from data assets. In addition to big data strategy and building new business models on data assets, Open Insights deploys data science, AI and ML, and big data solutions for large enterprises. Previously, he served as global chief data officer at Barclays in London after he launched the largest tech startup accelerator in MENA as executive chairman of Oasis500 in Jordan; held chairman and CEO roles at several startups, including Blue Kangaroo, DMX Group, and DigiMine; was the first person to hold the chief data officer title when Yahoo acquired his second startup in 2004, where he built the Strategic Data Solutions Group and founded Yahoo Research Labs; held leadership roles at Microsoft and founded the Machine Learning Systems Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where his work on machine learning resulted in the top Excellence in Research award from Caltech and a US government medal from NASA. Usama has published over 100 technical articles on data mining, data science, AI and ML, and databases. He holds over 30 patents and is a fellow of both the AAAI and the ACM. Usama earned his PhD in engineering in AI and machine learning from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He’s edited two influential books on data mining and served as editor-in-chief on two key industry journals. He also served on the boards or advisory boards of several private and public companies including Criteo, InvenSense, RapidMiner, Stella, Virsec, Silniva, Abe AI, NetSeer, ChoiceStream, Medio, and others. On the academic front, he’s on advisory boards of the Data Science Institute at Imperial College, AAI at UTS, and the University of Michigan College of Engineering National advisory Board.

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Hamit Hamutcu is a cofounder of Analytics Center, a company focused on the use of data and analytics in business and an advisor or investor in several analytics-related initiatives that work in developing vertical machine learning solutions for industries such as advertising and ecommerce. He has over 20 years of industry and consulting experience in the areas of analytics, customer relationship management, and marketing strategies driven by data. Previously, Hamit was a founding partner for EMEA offices for Peppers & Rogers Group and led the development of the firm in the region by serving clients across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe; was a partner for the firm’s US office, heading up its global Analytics Group, where he oversaw the growth of the analytics practice and helped his clients develop analytics functions, build data infrastructure, and deploy analytical models to support business goals; and he held several positions within FedEx in Memphis in marketing analytics and technology, where he led IT and business teams to leverage the enormous amount of data the company generated to serve its customers better. Hamit is also a frequent speaker, writer, and board member at various startups and nonprofit organizations. He earned his BSc degree in electronics engineering at Bogazici University in Istanbul and his MBA degree at University of Florida.