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Data Scientist

Combining business, technology, and human behavior

Data science can tell a lot about our digital footprints
Data scientists collect raw information, organize and log it in a comprehensible manner, and present it to companies to help them understand their consumers’ behaviors and how to make better business decisions. Data analytic skills can be broadly applied to roles in any sector, including healthcare, media, banking, sports, and even public policy.

People working in data science can collect raw information and present it to companies to help them understand their consumers’ behaviors and also how to make better business decisions.

“In the last decade, economists have stressed the significance of processing, understanding, visualizing, and communicating insights from data, and how that’s going to affect our immediate future. And the ability to do so effectively, is what gives the most successful companies out there, their competitive advantage today,” says Melissa Matalon, a technical program manager with Facebook.

A background in STEM-related education plus computer programming or modeling is one way to get into a data science job. Online learning opportunities, including classes and bootcamps are available to those who want to learn about the field.

Data analytic skills can be broadly applied to related roles in any industry. Matalon names a few, including health care, media, banking, and sports.

She adds, “Everyone is viewing content or purchasing items with a digital footprint. So all of these actions can now be tracked in almost real time using the latest technologies that are being created to process vast amounts of data. With all of this infrastructure in place now, what makes it so valuable is the people that have acquired the skills to translate this information from a jumble of numbers to actionable insights. I think this is why data scientists are so in demand across every industry.”

Eric Bradlow, vice dean of analytics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, says the field of data analytics is recession-proof.

“Every industry needs people that can learn how to ingest data, analyze data, help companies, make business decisions through data. It’s a set of skills that you would think, ‘Wow, you hear all these people doing data science.’ No, there’s actually a shortage of people that can do data science. So as data science becomes a deeper and even more rich field, I think even more companies are going to have need for data scientists.”

In 2019, the median annual wage for a category that includes data scientists and mathematical science occupations was $94,280. This from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.