Kurt Thearling www.thearling.com

kurt@thearling.com
Summary Executive with over fifteen years of experience and leadership in analytics and data mining.  Background includes work in a variety of areas, including financial services, life sciences, insurance, utilities, and telecommunications.  I focus on delivering value at the intersection of business and analytic technology.
Experience 2008 to Present: Vertex Data Science, Richmond, VA, Head of Decision Sciences.
Creating and leading the analytics organization for Vertex, a multi-national business process outsourcing company.

2003 to 2008: Capital One, Richmond, VA, Vice President of Strategic Technology.
Led Capital One's advanced technology organization, with a specific focus on accelerating the use of new analytic technologies. Accomplishments:

  • Led the development of Capital One's corporate-wide analytic infrastructure plan, driving over $95M in value though critical improvements to our data analysis capabilities. Efforts cover the full range of the analytic process, including databases, modeling tools, process & work product governance, analyst collaboration & knowledge management, and production execution environments.
  • Managed relationships with key analytic service providers; represented Capital One on advisory boards for analytic vendors including the SAS Institute and SPSS.
  • Outside of analytics, managed efforts to identify, evaluate, and introduce high-value emerging technologies across all aspects of Capital One's financial service businesses.  In 2005 Capital One was ranked #1 by Information Week magazine in their assessment of "the most innovative users of technology."
  • Executive lead for Capital One's patent program.  Implemented a targeted process to capture key intellectual property, resulting in Capital One ranking second only to American Express (in the financial services space) in terms of the number of published patent applications.

2002 to 2003: AnVil, Burlington, MA, Director of Engineering.
Managed the technology organization at AnVil, an in silico drug discovery company focused on the commercial analysis of biological and clinical datasets. Accomplishments:

  • Led the development of AnVil's data analysis platform technology (ADAPT), a system of data management and mining tools used to automate the analysis of life science datasets. The ADAPT software was awarded best-of-show at BIO-IT World 2003, beating industry veterans such as the SAS Institute.
  • Worked on client and partner (e.g., Aetna) large scale data analysis projects.
  • Managed AnVil's IT infrastructure (desktops, servers, networks, databases, etc.).
  • As a member of the senior management team, I participated in business development activities, partnership evaluation & negotiation, and client engagements.

2000 to 2002: Wheelhouse, Burlington, MA, Chief Scientist.
Managed R&D for Wheelhouse, a CRM technology and services company. Accomplishments:

  • Grew the technology organization from the ground up and led the development of Wheelhouse's CRM platform, supporting a trio of interlocking business models (consulting, application hosting, and software licensing). 
  • Worked with clients (e.g., The Washington Post, MathSoft, etc.) on strategic evaluation of data analysis technology.
  • As a member of the Wheelhouse senior management team, I performed numerous corporate duties including engaging clients, sales calls, evaluating technologies, public speaking, fundraising (including a $52M investment round), etc.

1997 to 2000: Xchange, Boston, MA, Director of Analytics. 
Spearheaded the incorporation of analytic functionality into Xchange's suite of CRM software applications. Accomplishments: 

  • Led the development of integrated data mining, campaign optimization, and business intelligence (BI) capabilities within the Xchange software suite.
  • Managed the software development team that released VALEX 2.1, Xchange's core marketing campaign management application.
  • Worked with clients (e.g., Ford Motor Credit, Fleet, etc.) on data analysis projects and the design of analytic infrastructures.

1994 to 1997: Dun & Bradstreet, Cambridge, MA, Manager.
Founded a corporate-wide resource in data mining and analytics for the entire Dun & Bradstreet organization (30 companies).  Accomplishments:

  • Consultant to various D&B companies, including IMS, A.C. Nielsen, and Moody's, regarding data mining and analytic technologies.
  • Working with the Pilot Software division of D&B, created the Pilot Discovery Server, one of the first commercial data mining applications to tightly integrate with business intelligence (BI) and relational database technology. Developed applications focusing on fraud detection and customer attrition modeling for clients.

1990 to 1994: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA, Senior Scientist.  Researched new algorithms (data mining, time series analysis, artificial intelligence) that would leverage TMC's massively parallel supercomputer platform. Accomplishments:

  • Created the Darwin data mining software application. Darwin was one of the first commercial data mining software applications able to analyze extremely large databases (100 GB to 1 TB) using high-performance parallel computers. 
  • Worked with clients (e.g., American Express, AT&T Universal Card, etc.) on data analysis projects.
Other

Advisory board member for the SAS Institute (analytics), SPSS (analytics), and ActivePrime (data quality).
Adjunct faculty member, School of Business, Virginia Commonwealth University.
Data mining consultant to companies such as Abbot Laboratories, Hyperion, Banamex, Sequent, EduCap, MIT's Whitehead Institute (pro bono), and GlaxoSmithKline.
Speaker at numerous industry events: Data Warehousing Institute, SAS Institute, National Center for Database Marketing, MIT Sloan School of Business, Babson University, KDD Data Mining Conference, the Santa Fe Institute, etc.
Education Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois.
Dual B.S. degrees with honors, in Computer and Electrical Engineering, University of Michigan.
Selected
Publications		 “Data Mining for CRM,” in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery Handbook: A Complete Guide for Practitioners and Researchers, Kluwer, 2005.
“Campaign Optimization: Maximizing the Value of Interacting with Your Customers,” Relationship Marketing Report, August 2001
“Visualizing Data Mining Models,” in Information Visualization in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, edited by Fayyad et al, Morgan Kaufmann, 2001, (with B. Becker, D. DeCoste, B. Mawby, M. Pilote, and D. Sommerfield).
Book: Building Data Mining Applications for CRM, McGraw-Hill, 1999 (with A. Berson and S. Smith).  Recently translated into Korean and Chinese
“Data Mining and CRM: Zeroing in on Your Best Customers,” DM Direct, December 20, 1999.
“Data Mining Can Bring Pinpoint Accuracy to Sales,” Mass High Tech, March 29, 1999.
“Increasing Customer Value by Integrating Data Mining and Campaign Management Software,” Direct Marketing Magazine, February 1999.
“Data Mining and Privacy: A conflict in the making?,” DS*, March 17, 1998.
“Some Thoughts on the Current State of Data Mining Software Applications,” DS*, January 13, 1998.
“Understanding Data Mining: It's All In the Interaction,” DS*, December 9, 1997.
“From Data Mining to Database Marketing,” White Paper 95/02, October 1995.
“An Overview of Data Mining at Dun & Bradstreet," White Paper 95/01, September 1995.
"Massively Parallel Architectures and Algorithms for Time-Series Analysis,” 1993 Lectures in Complex Systems, L. Nadel and D. Stein (eds.), 1995.
“Non-Linear Time-Series Prediction by Systematic Data Exploration on a Massively Parallel Computer,” Santa Fe Institute Technical Report 94-07-045, July 1994, (with X. Zhang).
“Tablet: A Personal Computer for the Year 2000,” Communications of the ACM, June 1988, (with S. Wolfram, S. Omohundro, S. Skiena, B. Mel, and L. Young).
For a complete list of my publications, click here.