Chief Data Scientist

Job description / Role

Our Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) team works with clients to manage their capital agenda to drive competitive advantage and increased returns. As part of a global team of 10,000 professionals in 100 countries you will advise clients on preserving, optimizing, raising or investing capital. Major groups (or, as we call them, sub-service lines and competencies) within TAS include Mergers and Acquisition Services, Project Finance & Infrastructure, Restructuring Services, Operational Transaction Services, Transaction Support, Corporate Finance Strategy, Transaction Tax, Valuation, Business Modelling, Decision Analytics and Economic Advisory.

The Business Modelling (BM) team comprises experienced Business Modellers, Economic Advisory and Decision Analytics professionals. We help clients solve the key business issues and challenges they face in today’s rapidly changing, ever evolving, complex world. You will participate in solving these issues through the model build, review and implementation process. You will focus on performing Decision analytics activities that underpin and drive critical decision making and improve strategic outcomes for our clients. We collaborate extensively with other EY Groups and colleagues around the world, sharing ideas and best practice. Exposure to this extensive global network gives you the opportunity to work alongside and learn from people with a vast array of technical, regional and industry knowledge and experience. Working with the BM Team will give you practical ‘hands-on’ engagement, client and team management experience.

EY is the market leader in the provision of modelling and analytics solutions to support effective decision making, with a business modelling practice of about 500 professionals globally. EY’s TAS Decision Analytics team develops actionable insight from data, supported by advanced skill in Decision analytics and model development. Deploying industry-leading analytics, this practice area provides insight to executives making strategic and operational decisions about their businesses. It forms part of the Valuations & Business Modelling business line, a MENA market leader with a very successful international business. Complementary to decision-based analytics, the team provides consulting services to areas of strategic corporate finance. We are seeking a chief Data Scientist for our MENA region to support our growth plans for the business.

This professional is likely to come from a range of related backgrounds covering Data Research, Statistics and Business or Decision Analytics. We work with major corporate and private equity clients, investment banks, large central government departments and other public sector bodies, advising them on complex strategic, commercial, financial and operational decisions. Our projects often involve managing multiple stakeholders and high degrees of complexity and uncertainty. Decision making in this environment requires strong client management and communication skills, rigorous analytical techniques and excellent data handling skills.

Role and Responsibilities
• Lead team of data scientists, building the capability to execute the firm’s decision analytics executing strategy for MENA, by developing new analytical solutions , developing existing staff and establish a clear personal brand in the market and EY;
• Understand region demand on data and data analytics;
• Develop decision analytics solutions using new methodology and techniques that will bring innovation to the region in terms of analytics;
• Propose innovative and robust solutions to meet clients’ needs;
• Develop decision analytics sales propositions on the solutions that and take these out to the firm’s priority accounts;
• Build broad and deep internal and external networks and leverage these to identify sales opportunities;
• Develop white papers on the analytical space helping on positioning and branding;
• Provide the decisions analytics component to joint propositions with other parts of the firm;
• Generate profitable decision analytics sales against a personal fee billings target of several $millions per annum;
• Frame the scope and challenges, both internally and externally, of the deliverables of complex assignments through expert technical knowledge in a wide range of technical approaches and best practices;
• Deliver overall project direction, including quality and risk management review, for decision analytics assignments;
• Ensure that all engagement administration activities for the team, including engagement economics, document retention, knowledge sharing and client communication are performed in a timely and satisfactory manner, particularly from a quality and risk management perspective;
• Provide counselling and mentoring support to more senior team members;

Requirements

• Approximately 15+ years of data analytics and decision analytics
• The professional has to have experience in delivering decision analytics / Operations Research solutions based on techniques which could include some of the following:
• Operations Research (simulation, optimisation, scheduling, inventory control, queuing theory, risk analysis, decision analysis, system dynamics, etc)
• Statistics (e.g. price elasticity analysis, forecasting, predictive analytics)
• Data mining, data visualisation and data management
• Database modelling including use of emerging Big Data technologies(Hadoop)
• Experience of analytics packages, including statistics packages such as SPSS or SAS, visualisation packages such as Tableau or Spotfire
• Strong knowledge of SQL and relational databases, as well as knowledge of predictive modelling technologies such as SAS Enterprise Miner, SQL Server 2005 DMX etc
• Technically competent in the following areas: data collection and load, data quality assessment, data cleansing, complex data transformation, relationship profiling, sampling and extrapolation, statistical modelling, segmentation, structured data mining, text mining and analytical matching
• Has strong IT skills to programmer level, covering a range of different technologies relating to the techniques above
• Has experience of applying decision analytics to a range of different domains, with particular domains of interest including workforce, commercial, finance, supply chain and risk management
• Also has experience across a range of sectors, which could include healthcare, energy, consumer products, retail, life sciences, TMT, mining or Government
• Has an understanding of the risks associated with the delivery of decision analytics solutions and experience of how to manage them

Key competencies
• Knowledge of Decision Analytics techniques;
• Solid understanding of Data Strategy , including data structure, data organization and access;
• Strong academic record; ideally a professional qualification, Master’s degree, MBA or PhD, from reputable institutions. Financial, Business, Economic, Computer Science, Operations Research, Business Analytics, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Engineering or similar degrees are a significant advantage.
• Strong Analytics knowledge, including tools (SAS, SPSS, R, Hadoop) and methodologies;
• Excellent problem solving, project management, facilitation and interpersonal skills
• Team player with the ability to build effective relationships at all levels
• Client relationship management skills
• Leadership and team building skills
• Demonstrated ability to lead/work in teams, coach people, and inspire teams to achieve excellent results for themselves, their colleagues and their clients.
• Demonstrated ability to build lasting client relationships based on value add, strategic insights, and high quality delivery of advice.
• Willing and able to travel across the region 0-35% of the time

About the Company

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available on our site.

The MENA practice of EY has been operating in the region since 1923. For over 95 years, we have grown to over 7,500 people united across 21 offices and 16 countries, sharing the same values and an unwavering commitment to quality. As an organization, we continue to develop outstanding leaders who deliver exceptional services to our clients and who contribute to our communities. We are proud of our accomplishments over the years, reaffirming our position as the largest and most established professional services organization in the region