Analytics Q&A Panel

Join us as we get perspective from local analytics leaders through an interactive Q&A panel interview session. We will begin the session asking the panelists about the work they are involved in, challenges they face and how their companies are leveraging analytics solutions to provide value to the business. Patrick Harrison, Lucky Pamula and Chris Stephens are our panelists - check out their bios below!

Patrick Harrison - Director of AI Engineering at S&P Global

Patrick Harrison serves as Director of AI Engineering at S&P Global, a financial data & technology company. He started S&P Global’s AI Engineering group, a group of data scientists and machine learning engineers who design, build, and operate AI-powered software in production settings. Outside of S&P, he has also served as adjunct faculty at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, where he co-taught the course Data Science in Business. He is a founding organizer of the Applied Machine Learning Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is actively involved in building both regional and global data science communities.

Lucky Pamula - Head of Cognitive Automation (A.I.) at PNC Bank

Lucky Pamula(real name Vishnu) currently Heading the Cognitive Automation(A.I.) within Intelligent Automation CoE at PNC Bank.

Prior to joining PNC, Lucky worked for Bayer for 12 years where he built a reputation by growing his roles and responsibilities by using analytical platforms to support research and innovation. Lucky was deployed in Mountain View on a special assignment in 2017 where he received Bayer Global Digital Innovation award for his research on Emotional Intelligence with Artificial Intelligence.

Lucky holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Statistics and an Executive MBA.

Lucky has an amazing journey to share... he was born and raised in a tiny 15 home remote village in India and successfully navigated socio-economic and cultural challenges to achieve successful education that includes winning a Gold Medal for outstanding academic performance. After completing his education he worked briefly in India, Malaysia before migrating to the US in 2004. He likes to set tougher goals for himself and consistently demonstrates a never give up attitude to accomplish those goals.

Lucky is also going through his entrepreneurship journey with a startup that is developing an AI enabled Cognitive Diabetes Assistant.

Christopher Stephens - VP, Data Technology at American Eagle Outfitters Inc.

Chris Stephens is the Vice President of Data Technology at American Eagle Outfitters. He is responsible for all things data across the end-to-end value chain of the $4B retailer. Chris’ team leads with a Product mindset facilitated by his Data Product organization. The Data Product team aligns priorities and value creation for every line of business at AEO. Chris’ Engineering, Analytics, Data Science and Governance teams collectively work toward the advancement in analytics maturity for every associate in the company. Chris came to AEO from Pivotal where he led the Data Science team in the field from 2012 (when Data Science was barely a term). Prior to that Chris led product teams at SAS bringing to market in-memory distributed versions of SAS’ core platforms. Chris and his wife have 5 teenage children, none of whom cared about Chris’ career until he joined American Eagle in Nov 2017.

How to find the conference room:
The Microsoft Office is in the Federated Building, which is one of two towers in Liberty Center (the other is the Westin). Once inside Liberty Center, walk to the Federated Building sign-in desk and tell the administrator that you are visiting the Microsoft office for a MeetUp. They will issue you a visitor badge and direct you to the elevators that you should take up to the 14th floor.

Parking recommendations:
David L. Lawrence Convention Center Parking Garage (pay to park)
Smithfield-Liberty Garage (pay to park)
Street parking (if you're lucky)