2024 Business Analytics Competition

Shrimanth Reddy Adla

Shrimanth Reddy Adla is an accomplished business analytics leader with an expertise in developing innovative solutions for financial products. Currently serving as the Director of Credit Risk Analytics at Comcast, he spearheads efforts to enhance risk analytics for mobile business and enterprise-wide cross-sell programs. His background includes overseeing multi-million-dollar portfolios at top tier financial institutions where he played a pivotal role in developing predictive algorithms which contributed to business growth while mitigating credit and fraud risks. Notably, he has served as a judge on industry panels, evaluating international and U.S. business initiatives. Shrimanth’s commitment to business excellence establishes him as a respected figure in the field of data analytics-based product management.

Robert Tyler Braun

As an Assistant Professor, Tyler's current research focuses on the organization of the health care system, with a particular interest in the evolution of changes in the organization and financing of physician practices and providers of end-of-life and long-term care. As principal investigator on several grants, from funders such as the National Institute on Aging and Arnold Ventures, their team is in the process of examining physician and long-term care organization, financing, and behavior within the U.S. health delivery system. Currently, Tyler's research interests are related to mergers and acquisitions of physician practices, hospices, and nursing homes by various types of institutional investment. Tyler's research is published in prominent journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Internal Medicine, and Health Affairs. Tyler's research on the consolidation of physician practices and long-term care organizations has received coverage from major media outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Yorker Magazine. Furthermore, Tyler's research has received substantial attention from policymakers, including The White House, Senate Finance Committee, and the House Ways and Means Committee.

Tyler primarily teaches in the Executive M.B.A./M.S. Healthcare Leadership program, a joint program by Cornell's Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. Additionally, Tyler teaches and mentors students in Weill Cornell's Health Policy and Economics M.S. program and the M.D. program.

Mi Guo

Mi has been a dynamic data analytics professional with extensive experience in fintech, venture capital, healthcare, and gaming sectors. Currently serving as the Director of Growth Data at Rocket Money (formerly Truebill), Mi leads analytics projects collaborating closely with Growth Marketing and Data teams. She has previously held various roles at Current, CB Insights, Aetna, and Mohegan Sun. Mi has a Master of Science in Statistics from Baruch College and a Bachelor of Arts in English Studies from Chengdu Institute of Sichuan International Studies University.

Jayant Kumar

Jayant Kumar is an experienced data science professional with experience in analyzing complex online systems. Jayant has solved problems related to measuring and enhancing performance of large recommender systems, experimentation for social networks, product analytics and signal research for measuring and detecting abuse in social networks. Jayant's work has helped to grow top-line revenue and catch thousands of instances of online frauds. Jayant currently works as a Senior Data Scientist at a social media company

In the past, Jayant has also worked with startups developing custom algorithms for forecasting intermittent demand - adding several basis points to profit margin for a large perishable food supplier.

Jayant holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from BITS Pilani, India and a Master's degree in Enterprise Business Analytics from National University of Singapore.

George Mathew

George Mathew, M.D. M.B.A. FACP, serves as a clinical expert and healthcare thought leader with experience in transforming healthcare marketplaces in payer, provider, life sciences and federal, state and local government healthcare businesses.

His experience includes consulting, technology development, and business development work at GE, Goldman, Sachs and Co., WebMD, Pfizer, Medidata Solutions, Aetna/CVS, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services and DXC Technology. Dr. Mathew brings a strong technology innovation focus to this role having founded a healthcare technology start-up earlier in his career, and advises several healthcare IT startups through the Health 2.0-NYC community.

Nneka Penniston

Nneka Penniston has worked in business analytics for over 15 years in various industries including, healthcare, education, financial, and most recently pharmaceutical. Nneka is currently a data science Sr. Manager at Bristol Myers Squibb supporting Gen AI and LLM related projects. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, she lent digital engagement support to the financial sector within search, live agents, and chatbots. For the past four years, Nneka worked as an adjunct faculty at Columbia University for the M.S in Applied Analytics program. Nneka received a BS in Statistics from Hunter College and M.S in Business Analytics from NYU Stern School of Business. 

She is also a fashion enthusiast, and owns a women’s online clothing store JP MAROU.

Paul Thompson

Paul Thompson is the VP, Industry Strategy for Health Plans. In this role, he is responsible for the formation and execution of DXC Technology’s Commercial Health Plan segment vision through technology innovation and implementation, and strategy execution. Prior to assuming this role, Paul was the Chief Revenue Officer and Industry Sales Leader for the Health and Life Sciences Group. His focus was on aligning the broad capabilities of DXC Technology to address healthcare industry needs. He also managed strategic partnerships and identified business development opportunities. Paul also served as Chief Strategy Officer for DXC Technology/Hewlett Packard Health and Life Sciences Group.

Before joining DXC Technology, he was the Vice President of product development for Clinical Cost and Quality Improvement at Cigna. Paul was responsible for driving the development of member engagement programs designed to reduce medical costs and improve health outcomes. He also served as a regional director of underwriting for Commercial Healthcare products in 15 markets across the United States. Previously, Paul was with Aetna for 14 years in a variety of leadership roles including healthcare sales and underwriting, investment management/product development, and internal audit and investigation.

He graduated from Fairfield University with a BA in economics and from University of Connecticut with an MBA in marketing/finance. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for University of Connecticut Venture and Technology Incubator.

Paul serves as a Commissioner on the Town of Wethersfield Planning and Zoning Commission and is a Special Olympics Tennis coach.

Jasmine L. Travers

Jasmine L. Travers is an assistant professor of nursing at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. Her career is dedicated to designing and conducting research to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities in vulnerable older adult groups using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Her current work focuses on mitigating disparities in appropriate access and use of in-home and facility-based long-term care for older adults (i.e., home & community-based settings, nursing homes, and assisted living).

Currently, Travers is the principal investigator of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation four-year Career Development Award through the Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program which she is examining the association of neighborhood disadvantage with nursing home outcomes using large-scale nursing home data and a Paul B. Beeson Emerging Leader five-year K76 Award through the National Institute on Aging which in this mixed-method study she will develop a survey instrument aimed to identify unmet needs that are disproportionately driving avoidable nursing home placements. Most recently, Travers served on the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine Committee on the Quality of Care in Nursing Homes which on April 6, 2022, released the widely anticipated report titled, The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality.

Travers has published widely on the topics of aging, long-term care, health disparities and inequities, workforce diversity and workforce issues, vaccinations, and infections. She has presented her work at regional and national health services research, gerontological, nursing, and public health conferences.

Prior to joining the faculty at NYU, Travers completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the National Clinician Scholars Program at Yale University and a T32-funded postdoctoral fellowship at the New Courtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Travers received her Ph.D. at Columbia University School of Nursing, MHS at Yale University, MSN in Adult-Gerontological Health at Stony Brook University, and BSN at Adelphi University.

Arjun Vishwanath

Arjun Vishwanath is the Vice President of Analytics at Evalueserve, where he leads dynamic teams in driving impactful insights across Marketing, eCommerce, Digital, and Customer Analytics. In this role, Arjun leverages his analytical expertise to spearhead innovative analytics solutioning, deliver measurable revenue and profit growth, and ensure operational excellence.

Prior to Evalueserve, Arjun held senior positions at leading analytics firms, including Senior Engagement Manager at LatentView Analytics and Senior Consultant roles at PricewaterHouse Coopers and Mu Sigma. His mastery of analytics has been recognized, with him being named Evalueserve's Solution Architect of the Year from 2018 to 2020, and again in 2023.

Academically, Arjun holds a Master of Science in Engineering Management from Syracuse University. Beyond his professional accomplishments, he serves as an advisor for startups in the Seattle area and is an avid photographer.

Svetlana Reznik

Svetlana Reznik leads the Data and AI Customer Success Team of Microsoft’s Northeast Region, primarily focusing on Media, Entertainment, and Professional Services industries. Her organization’s focus is on implementing Data, Analytics, and AI technology solutions to modernize businesses and to empower their employees. Prior to joining Microsoft, she held sales leadership roles at IBM and AWS. Svetlana is very excited about the to be a part of the emerging Open AI conversations.  She lives in NYC and in her free time enjoys skiing, chasing after her seven year old son, and co-leading the NY/NJ Women’s ERG at Microsoft.

2024 Competitors