Experience
7/00 — present		Michael Rothman & Associates, LLC President & Founder MR&A is dedicated to creating intellectual capital in an area, which may be broadly referred to as "data analysis." This has taken the form of: traditional consulting, the filing of patents, and joint ventures in creating, testing, and implementing new products and designs. Over the past two years we have been working with a leading pharmaceutical company to identify the factors which determine the shape of the sales growth curve for drug introduction. The shape of the curve is a key element in determining cash flow and profitability. We also created premier explorer for analysts and executives to be able to browse, to compare, and to understand product characteristics. A shorter term project involved executive consulting services for a credit card association to review proposals for hardware, software, and consulting services. They were building a 10TB Data Warehouse. We also provided a critical review of system structure, design, contracts and cost. In another project we evaluated the assets of a failing dot com in order for a bank to understand which pieces were worth purchasing, and how they might duplicate or compliment existing bank assets. Pro bono work was completed for a guide dog school. We analyzed puppy mortality data based on birth order, birth weight, and labor time. The results changed birthing policies at the school and are expected to be published in an appropriate veterinary journal. Patent filed for 2 new financial services products: Blend Card and CD Card.
11/98 — 6/00		First USA Bank, Wilmington, Delaware Senior Vice President, Strategic Information Key thought leader for the Bank. In this capacity worked with the CEO and EVP of Marketing to establish an approach to interacting with customers, entitled the "Conversation with the Customer."  This will result in consistent, non-duplicative, optimized, learning interactions with customers. Designed and implemented a "Preference Database" (patented), which contains detailed consumer profiles of 50 million First USA customer accounts.  Every two days this database is automatically refreshed, and scans transactions with 15,000 rules, to determine our customers’ interests in any of 2000 preferences. This database also acts to consolidate data from multiple data sources and to transform it into a simple to use, uniform information source for marketing, risk, collections, retention, and other Bank functions. Created a "Match Engine" to effectively determine the appropriate Bank action with the preferences of our customers.  This allows for a customer-focus rather than a product focus in Bank communication. Designed and implemented a database access tool, "Profiler," which enables large numbers of users to access databases via the First USA Intranet, with drag & drop query capability.  The tool generates SQL against a sample of First USA's portfolio, allowing users to bring together data elements regarding credit, account information, preferences, triggers, segments, and card type with response times of less than two minutes.
11/93 — 11/98		IBM Consulting Group Manager and Executive Consultant, Global Business Intelligence Consulted to most of the major banks and financial institutions. In 1998 the practice was the most successful in the IBM Consulting Group. Focus was on business problem solving based on neural and statistical methods. Special emphasis was placed on transforming mathematical results into meaningful business strategies. Specific projects included: Discovering patterns of spending behavior in credit card transactions which could be related to likelihood to default or attrite (for a major Bank) Analyzing patterns of credit line utilization as relates to bankruptcy and write-off (for a major credit card issuer). This discovery used a method, "Time Series Segmentation," developed by the practice. Analyzing patterns of revolving credit utilization (for a major credit bureau) that revealed persistent characteristics of consumer credit usage, and significant opportunities for Banks to refine their marketing efforts Built the major components of a credit card transaction-based targeted marketing system for a major credit card association. We developed specialized segmentation models (overall, regional, travel, retail, brand-driven,...) and scored over 100 million cardholders. The system generated significant lifts in consumer response to targeted campaigns. In the non-financial area: Analysis of sales tax payments for a state government, which identified "types" of payers. This information could be used to direct enforcement efforts. Discovery of patterns of food purchasing behavior (for a major packaged goods company) involving analysis of Nielsen Panel data Market basket analysis (for a major grocery chain) revealing types of shopping trips Analysis of video tape sales (for a major entertainment company) revealing geographic and demographic preferences for different types of videos (e.g. live action, adventure, fairy tale) Analysis of patterns of medical test requests from 10,000 GPs in Australia to create better monitoring programs for appropriate medical practice (for the Australian government). In development customer gained an immediate $1 million return in avoided costs. Developed algorithms later incorporated into IBM's Intelligent Miner product. Also, has been an invited speaker on business applications of neural technology at IEEE symposia. Spoke about emerging technology at the MIT Sloan School of Business. Presented a paper at the 22nd International Conference on Very large Databases, "Applying Data Mining Techniques for Effective Health Insurance Administration."
11/89 — 11/93		IBM Microelectronics Division Senior Engineer / Advisory Engineer, Failure analysis Led a team, which uncovered both manufacturing misalignments and fundamental design flaws with an IBM cache memory chip for the 390 mainframe. As a member of the failure analysis group, developed models, which revealed process sensitivities, and worked with a circuit designer to link these a susceptible circuit. This discovery led to a doubling of chip yields, the creation of a re-designed chip, and its implementation just in time to prevent a forced 10% reduction in the speed of the machine. The machine was a key product at IBM, responsible for billions of dollars of sales.
11/87 — 11/88		IBM T. J. Watson Research Laboratory Advisory Engineer, Computer Science / Artificial Intelligence Investigated neural network applications to decision-making algorithms, wrote LISP code to implement the system, led IBM meetings on neural networks, spoke to IBM customers and at IEEE meetings on neural networks
10/80 — 10/87		IBM General Technology Division Advisory Engineer / Staff Engineer / Senior Associate Engineer, Ceramic Engineering Led a joint engineering / IS team to develop algorithms to control an automated plating line. This work was published in the IEEE Journal of Systems, Man and Cybernetics and had as a key design element the empowering of manufacturing operators in the intelligent running of the tools. It was implemented in the IBM plant in Hopewell Junction, NY and increased throughput and product quality. This was followed by implementation at IBM manufacturing plants in Bromont, Canada, and Manassas, Virginia. Earlier tasks included working with the Process Engineering, IS, and Equipment Engineering groups to see that issues of chemistry was being communicated correctly to IS and Equipment Engineering groups.
Education
9/75 — 10/80		University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry, specialization in quantum chemistry (physical chemistry), Kodak Fellowship, Rackham Fellowship, other fellowships and honors, published in American Journal of Physical Chemistry, Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of Computation Chemistry
9/75 — 10/80		Brown University Providence, RI Sc.M. in chemistry, Sc.B. in chemistry with honors