Sara Soltanizadeh

Took planned time off to care for young children and relocate internationally from Canada to the United States. During this period, remained professionally engaged by advising an early-stage tech startup on strategy and operations, and continued developing data and business skills through online learning and professional networking.

• Designed alternative data framework for the group, got senior management buy-in, and evaluated 100+ alternative datasets from 50+ vendors for potential acquisition.
• Created an NLP-based methodology to identify technology-based industry disruptors by sector with high growth and return potential. Used Pyspark, NLTK, and GenSim extensively.
• Educated the quant group on alternative data and ML applications in systematic investing.

• Created a new signal based on dividend signaling and the ability to pay with 1% annualized alpha.
• Diagnosed and enhanced underperforming accounting factors such as value, quality, and profitability.
• Evaluated alternatives to GICS stock-sector classification methodology.

• Used NLP techniques for accounting research.

• Response of bank deposits to macroeconomic environment changes. I performed the data collection and analysis (WRDS, GeoFred, RateWatch, and Federal Reserve Banks).

• We analyzed US consumer spending patterns. I did the data collection and wranggling from disparate sources (U.S. Census, American Fact Finder, ArcGIS, and all US states and major cities’ departments of revenue).

• Outperformed the benchmark by 232 bps for 2015, while following a balanced portfolio mandate.

• Developed a new working system that reduced fixed costs by 9%.
• Provided market research and financial analysis, resulting in a geographic expansion in one additional country.