Yali Wu
Mississauga
Summary
Accomplished Data Scientist with nine years of experience specializing in loyalty programs, machine learning, and business analytics. Proven leadership in managing teams and projects for over five years, driving high-impact results through strategic data analysis, and innovative solutions. Expert in working with large, complex datasets to uncover actionable insights, and solve advanced business challenges. Skilled in predictive modeling, data mining, and hypothesis testing, with a deep understanding of data-driven decision-making.
Highly self-motivated, quick to adapt, and a strong problem solver with excellent time management skills, consistently meeting deadlines across multiple projects. Strong communicator and collaborator with excellent interpersonal and presentation skills, able to translate complex data insights into clear, business-friendly recommendations.
Overview
13
13
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior Team Lead, Data Science
Geotab
Oakville
05.2022 - Current
- Expanded and led a high-performing team, growing from 4 to 11 members. Led the hiring, mentoring, and development of team members to foster a productive, collaborative work environment. Meanwhile, actively contributing to technical tasks and development by working on Jira tickets. Balanced leadership duties with hands-on involvement in the day-to-day operations, ensuring the timely delivery of critical data products and solutions.
- Led a team of data scientists and analytics engineers in the development of data pipelines, machine learning solutions, and data products. Conducted in-depth performance analysis of products, created insightful dashboards and monitoring systems, and proactively identified performance issues.
- Streamlined and automated processes to enhance team productivity. Developed strategies to eliminate knowledge silos and boost team engagement, resulting in a 40% improvement in team engagement scores (Quarter 3 survey), and a 45% increase in productivity (JIRA metrics).
- Led initiatives to investigate and incorporate AI technologies and Large Language Models (LLMs) into the analytics workflows, and other innovative projects, to automate work processes and provide self-service tools. Acted as product owner and project manager to ensure the delivery of the best data products on the planned roadmap.
- Collaborated with cross-functional stakeholders to amplify the value of data by delivering reliable data, insightful dashboards, self-service tools, and key performance metrics. Focused on providing actionable insights that drove data-driven decision-making, and delivered measurable business results.
Sr. Manager, Data Science (Health)
Loblaw Companies Limited
Brampton
11.2019 - 04.2022
- Designed the framework for the early risk diabetes detection project by working closely with the data acquisition and data engineering teams.
- Involved in ETL design – loading data from the Teradata warehouse to the Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery and Cloud Storage).
- Led a team of three data scientists who performed essential EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis) work for the early risk detection project.
- Designed the infrastructure of the performance measure engine for health data products and service teams.
- Presented the results of the performance measure engine by using Google Data Studio.
- This engine solved two business problems of measuring product performance and performing A/B tests, which saved 70% of the team's time and efforts.
- Led a team of two co-ops to implement the performance measure engine.
- Worked closely with the project manager and business stakeholders on the patient attrition project.
- Finalized the definition of churn, and implemented the churn-measuring process.
Manager, Data Science (Health)
Loblaw Companies Limited
Brampton
08.2019 - 11.2019
- Led a team of three data scientists, cooperatively worked with the data acquisition team, data engineering team, and MicroStrategy team to develop and implement a project.
- Set up a data pipeline, designed an ETL process, and implemented several models to predict abnormal store narcotics behavior.
- The final selected model reduced red flags by 90%.
- Created a model health tracking dashboard to keep track of model status and continuously implement improvements to the model by working closely with stakeholders.
- Generated SQL scripts to model patients' adherence scores, which are the core part of setting up a value-based pharmacy plan.
Manager, Data Science (Finance)
Loblaw Companies Limited
Brampton
01.2019 - 07.2019
- Created a pilot risk model-based framework for each store cycle count activity, which saves store staff 70% of the time on cycle counting and 30% of the associated costs.
- Designed and implemented an R/Shiny web app from end to end for the Loblaw real estate finance team to forecast the cash flow of stores' lease, renewal, and closure activities, which saves 90% of the team's working hours and was nominated for the Q2 CFO award.
- Created a dashboard to visualize the forecasted weekly, quarterly, and annual inventory for 385 Loblaw stores.
Manager, Advanced Data Analytics
Loblaw Companies Limited
Brampton
08.2016 - 01.2019
- Collaborated with different teams to solve complex business problems by applying superior analytic skills with various quantitative and qualitative customer data.
- In addition, I provided the best and most actionable solutions or insights to stakeholders.
- Improved time-consuming data processes and automated manual processes to work effectively and efficiently.
- Meantime, ensuring data quality by conducting the necessary investigation.
- I initiated and designed several projects to enhance member engagement with the PCPlus/PCOptimum loyalty program, analyzed the results using SQL and SAS, and communicated the results with various business teams.
- Constructed and delivered useful PCPlus/PC Optimum campaign measurement metrics on a weekly basis
- Performed customer segmentation analysis, cost forecasting for the promotion team, customer shopping behavior analysis, basket analysis, etc.
- To better understand customers and to achieve different business goals.
- Utilized Azure Databricks platform, by using PySpark, set up an offer recommendation engine to recommend weekly Shoppers Drug Mart offer to the 15 million active PC Optimum members
Senior Data Analyst, Advanced Data Analytics
Loblaw Companies Limited
Brampton
07.2013 - 07.2016
- Delivered prompt, accurate, regular, and ad hoc data reports by exploring various databases using SQL tools.
- Constructed weekly special offers for PC Plus loyalty members, and weekly program operation status reports for stakeholders to review.
- Performed various statistical analyses by leveraging loyalty data to fully understand customers' behavior, and provided useful and actionable insights to increase ROI and improve consumers' engagement levels with the business.
- Based on customers' shopping behavior, we segmented customers into high, medium, and low-value groups.
- In addition, I applied the segmentation methodologies to national, market, discount, and hard discount banners.
Statistical Analyst
TDT Business Solution Inc
Thornhill
06.2012 - 03.2013
- Analyzed data sets utilizing SAS and SAS Enterprise Guide, applying analysis methodologies that include linear and logistic regression, decision trees, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis.
- Executed data cleaning, variable reduction, customer segmentation, predictive model building, and successfully delivered expected results.
Education
Master of Science Degree - Statistics
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON06.2012
Bachelor of Honors Mathematics - Actuarial Science & Statistics
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON10.2010
Skills
Programming and Scripting Languages
- Python, PySpark, SQL
Data Engineering and ETL Tools
- Airflow, DBT, Git, GitLab, GitLab CI/CD
Data Platforms and Databases
- Teradata, Google BigQuery, Azure Synapse Analytics
Cloud Platforms
- Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure
Data Visualization and Business Intelligence Tools
- Plotly, Dash, R-Shiny, ReDash, Google Looker, Superset
Software Development and Data Management
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
References
References available upon request.
Timeline
Senior Team Lead, Data Science
Geotab
05.2022 - Current
Sr. Manager, Data Science (Health)
Loblaw Companies Limited
11.2019 - 04.2022
Manager, Data Science (Health)
Loblaw Companies Limited
08.2019 - 11.2019
Manager, Data Science (Finance)
Loblaw Companies Limited
01.2019 - 07.2019
Manager, Advanced Data Analytics
Loblaw Companies Limited
08.2016 - 01.2019
Senior Data Analyst, Advanced Data Analytics
Loblaw Companies Limited
07.2013 - 07.2016
Statistical Analyst
TDT Business Solution Inc
06.2012 - 03.2013
Master of Science Degree - Statistics
McMaster University
Bachelor of Honors Mathematics - Actuarial Science & Statistics
University of Waterloo
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