Abstract: 

In a 2022 global survey by the Anaconda foundation, Business Skills came out as the most critical area of expertise missing from the data science / ML areas of organizations. This is really no surprise when we think about how analytics professionals today are complaining, not about the difficulty of the math or computing tasks, but rather about business aspects—office politics, boring tasks, moving targets, difficult colleagues, and unclear expectations. At the same time, managers are complaining about data scientists who cannot effectively communicate, manage projects, relate to stakeholders, or build trust, and companies are insisting that recruiters bring in data scientists who are able to produce business value and work well with colleagues.

The purpose of this talk is to explain which business skills are most needed by analytics professionals, illustrate why each is so critical, and help analytics leaders to foster these skills within their teams. We will progress through the skills roughly in the order they are needed—from skills for the first year out of university up through skills needed to run an entire analytics program. In this talk, Dr. Stephenson will draw on best practices, case studies, research, and personal anecdotes from his twenty years of hands-on analytic leadership of teams of analytics professionals spanning six continents, as well as several years helping design and teach executive programs as an adjunct at the Amsterdam Business School.

Bio: 

David Stephenson has over 20 years of experience leading analytics initiatives, including as Head of Global Business Analytics at eBay Classifieds Group. Since founding DSI Analytics in 2014, he has worked directly with dozens of companies across a wide range of industries (Adidas, Miro, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, ABN Amro, Sky Broadcasting, etc). Dr. Stephenson also serves as part time faculty at the University of Amsterdam Business School, has published two books, and has developed and delivered data science trainings for hundreds of analytics professionals around the globe.