PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS GUIDE - Key Persons

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.

Job Titles:

• Adjunct Professor in Business at St. John Fisher College

Role: Head of Data, Analytics AI PMO and Governance Erika McBride, CPA, Ed.D., oversees AI project management and establishes data and AI governance at Paychex, Inc. a leading national provider of human resource, payroll, benefits, and insurance solutions. Re-joining Paychex in 2023, Erika enables organizational efforts to accelerate the mission of translating data into profit. Prior to Paychex, Erika was VP of Data and Analytics at Tenerity, a customer loyalty digital native. Erika previously spent 8 years at Dow, Inc. as Global Director of Data and Analytics. Erika previously spent 17 years at Paychex, where she championed predictive modeling and led development of the Paychex Small Business Employment Watch for national consumption. Erika is an adjunct professor in business at St. John Fisher College, and a previous presenter Predictive Analytics World Conferences in New York, Toronto, Dusseldorf, and Berlin. Erika holds an Ed.D. in Executive Leadership from St. John Fisher College, and an MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology.

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.

Job Titles:

• Chief Technology Officer at Tapestry

Ravi Jain is the Chief Technology Officer at Tapestry, a project at X, Alphabet's innovation lab. Tapestry is building AI-powered tools for a greener and more reliable future grid. Before joining Tapestry, Ravi held several roles developing groundbreaking technological products, including leading AI for AR and Metaverse at Meta and Search AI and the ML Platform for Alexa at Amazon. He also served as Chief Technology Officer at Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., Director of Mobile Advertising at Google, and Senior Scientist at Bellcore. Ravi is an IEEE Fellow, which recognizes achievements in electrical engineering, and is an advisor to venture capital firms and startups.