Driving the widespread use of data in decision-making

I have spent my career helping organizations leverage advanced analytics to improve decision-making in measurable ways. As a data science professional with over 25 years of practical experience, I deliver results at every stage of the analytic lifecycle – from data acquisition and preparation to the deployment of analytical results into decision-making.

​I have hands‑on experience with advanced techniques such as classification algorithms, ensemble models, clustering, regression analysis, advanced forecasting, market basket analysis, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and more. I have worked with multiple data, programming and analytical environments on premises or on cloud as well as hybrid models.

Beyond my technical abilities, I can bridge advanced analytics and business realities by working closely with business stakeholders, including executives. These characteristics make me uniquely qualified to help organizations accelerate and expand their application of analytics. 

My background

Achieving business transformation with predictive analytics

Projects

Check out some of my previous work

I have worked on numerous projects and in almost every industry and vertical throughout my career, and you can find a list below of the most interesting projects and those that have been published as Case Studies or otherwise made public.

This is by no means a complete nor exhaustive list of my work, but I hope that it allows for a sense of the type of work that I enjoy.

Professional experience

Senior Manager, Data Analytics & Insights

Arctera US LLC

December 2024 — Present

Arctera was split off from Veritas Technologies in December 2024.

Tasked with increasing the use of data in the decision-making across the organization.

• Developed a solution to predict the end-of-quarter revenue based on the distribution of open opportunities each week. The new method is based on machine learning models and doubled the accuracy of the predictions compared to the previous method.

• Gathering requirements prior to the implementation of a new suite of operational systems for Marketing, CRM, and ERP.

• Guiding the development of a modernized data warehouse to be used as the shared basis for dashboards, reports, and analytics of all kinds.

Chicago, IL US

Senior Manager, Customer Data Analytics

Veritas Technologies, LLC (now part of Cohesity, Inc.)

September 2022 — December 2024

Chicago, IL US

Drove the companywide view of customer engagement, product adoption, and leading indicators of customer defection to shape the customer strategy.

• Focused the churn risk mitigation effort through the development and of a machine learning model that both estimated the churn risk and identified the most impact drivers of that churn risk.

• Increased the cross-sell opportunities for a business-critical services offering by identifying the most likely prospects for the offering using a machine learning model to describe the describe the profile of the current customers.

Solutions Consultant

Alteryx

November 2021 — September 2022

Chicago, IL US

Data science specialist in the Center of Competence responsible for working with and enabling Sales Engineers to talk about data science and machine learning using the suite of Alteryx tools and products.

Senior Data Science Manager

Braviant Holdings

November 2020 — November 2021

Chicago, IL US

Led a team that developed and deployed predictive models for use in direct marketing campaigns. Worked directly with executive stakeholders to craft and implement campaign strategies that balanced response rates and customer lifetime values.

• Spearheaded an effort to implement a data science methodology that increases the speed at which new predictive models are developed and allows for more frequent retraining of existing models.

• Implemented a series of process improvements that allowed for increasingly targeted campaign selection without additional resource requirements.

• Improved the accuracy of campaign performance projections by making the process more data-driven.

Senior Data & AI Scientist

EY

May 2017 — September 2020

Chicago, IL US

EY Consulting | Technology | Data & Analytics

Directed consultants in project coordination and execution with a focus on data, analytics, and machine learning. Oversaw project economics, recruited and hired staff for projects, and ensured timely project delivery. Communicated with leadership and project stakeholders to identify requirements and analyze various forms of data.

• Led a team of data science specialist tasked with adding a machine learning framework to EY’s PX360 solution, which combined operational and experience data, to provide real‑time insights otherwise not easily available.

• Developed an internal forecasting solution to improve the management of chargeable hours and resource assignments.

• Improved accounts receivable forecasting accuracy for a major retailer by more than 90%.

• Managed multiple direct reports including their regular performance reviews, career guidance, and promotions.

Advanced Analytics Specialist

IBM Corp.

September 2014 — May 2017

Chicago, IL US

IBM Corporate Marketing | Digital Business Group

Created, managed, and optimized data science solutions. Managed projects and collaborated with other data scientists to create solutions and verify sustainability, repeatability, and scalability.

• Increased revenue by more than $600MM through a unique and highly scalable cross‑sell solution that provided recommendations to sellers around the world and across IBM’s 1,000s of products.

• Created analytical models to identify at‑risk customers for an IBM Cloud offering, which dramatically increased the understanding of the issue and supported a significant reduction in customer defection.

• Led a team that developed a solution using machine learning to identify webpage traffic generated by bots and spiders as opposed to humans to ensure that sales and marketing only reported and acted on traffic from real prospects.

Senior Managing Consultant

IBM Corp.

November 2009 — August 2014

Chicago, IL US

IBM Global Business Services | Advanced Analytics & Optimization

Served as the analytical lead for various integration and innovation projects. Acted as an internal expert for analytical solutions, developed training guidelines, and established predictive analytics best practices. Identified, mentored, and trained new talent. Hired experienced data scientists to enhance functions and operations.

• Responsible for the development of the “Keys to the Match” for the four major tennis tournaments and used by ESPN in their live broadcasts.

• Identified hundreds of millions of dollars in potential savings for multinational oil and gas company with a series of proof‑of‑concept implementations based on the utilization of big data, data science, and MPP technology.

• Achieved a 403% ROI for a client in auto insurance through the deployment of a solution that allowed for early detection of fraudulent claims and subrogation opportunities.

• Served as a leader in helping to identify and foster new talent and in hiring experienced data scientists.

• Functioned as an internal expert to develop training on the deployment of analytical solutions and best practices in predictive analytics.

Senior Consultant

SPSS, Inc. (now part of IBM Corp.)

March 2009 — October 2009

Chicago, IL US

Professional Services | Predictive Analytics

Relocated from SPSS Denmark to work at the SPSS, Inc. headquarters in Chicago, IL, in early 2009 as an intra-company transfer.

• Served as a principal data science consultant with a deep expertise in deployment of real-time scoring solutions before SPSS, Inc. was acquired by IBM Corp. in October 2009.

Consultant, Sales Engineer, and Training Instructor

SPSS Denmark (now part of IBM Corp.)

March 1999 — February 2009

Primarily served as a statistical and predictive analytics consultant, but also frequently participated in sales calls and delivered end-user training in both statistics, data mining, survey methodology, and how to use the SPSS software.

Copenhagen, Denmark

“My association with Kenneth has spanned more than 10 years and is rooted in the foundation of data mining. Kenneth and I worked together at SPSS answering some of industries most difficult questions. Kenneth's skills were then superior and his ability to decompose business ambiguity was unmatched. We recently had the opportunity to develop and deploy an innovation lab for a global oil and gas corporation. Kenneth led the deep analytic function of the team and was focused on solving some very difficult problems by blending stochastic and physical models. Stochastic modeling is relatively new to petroleum engineering professionals yet Kenneth was able to bridge that gap and deliver significant results to a typically skeptical audience. His work lead specifically to process changes in the manufacturing of alternative fuels, operational changes during casing operations, and timely operational shifts in oilfield operational models.
Kenneth embodies the best qualities of a data scientist whilst being truly adaptive to the dynamic industrial environment. ”

Jeff Pohlman
Associate Partner, Petroleum Strategy and Analytics
IBM Corp.

Testimonial

Project Approach

CRISP-DM is a project methodology tailored for data mining and predictive analytics initiatives and I use this with some modifications for nearly all projects.