Venture Leader - Data Science & AI

Venture Leader – Data Science & AI

The Company

1848 Ventures meets business owners where they are; collaborating to develop digital solutions that target the broad range of uncertainties they face every day. 

Westfield, a leading provider of commercial insurance, established 1848 Ventures in 2018 to lead the company’s efforts to expand beyond conventional insurance by understanding and addressing the broader risks that customers face. We deliver tangible customer growth and financial results by developing and monetizing a portfolio of customer-centered innovations, which may or may not involve insurance, but are consistent with Westfield’s brand and reinforce our right to win in various markets.

Based in Northeast Ohio (near Cleveland,) 1848 Ventures offers team members the opportunity to apply their creative talents and entrepreneurial drive to a wide range of portfolio concepts while taking advantage of the stability and total rewards that are made possible by the backing of a strong, leading company. Our cultural emphasis on values like work-life balance, recognition, learning and career development are all a reflection of our belief – true innovation and entrepreneurship require the right balance of support, freedom and growth opportunities.

We’re looking for experienced, results-driven critical thinkers with a sense of urgency from a diverse array of personal and professional backgrounds to join 1848 Ventures’ highly collaborative team. 

The Opportunity

The Venture Leader: Data Science & AI is a highly varied and multi-faceted role, providing thought-leadership and execution support across all stages of the venture development process (i.e., ideation through product development and launch). A strong collaborator with a toolbelt of data science and AI methods and practices that can be combined with human-centered design techniques to build intelligent solutions that improve the operations of businesses. The role requires a hands-on consultant who can bridge the gap between creative design and quantitative analysis as well as between 1848 Ventures team members and external partners. 

The Venture Leader: Data Science & AI will lead efforts to identify, gather and analyze data sets, surveys, patterns, etc. to refine and validate innovation opportunities as well as generate and test data-centric solution concepts. In addition, as a core member of the venture development team, the Venture Leader will develop machine learning prototypes, design automated processes to cleanse large datasets, and generate meaningful insights in support of the creation, validation, and launch of these solutions.

This role will be foundational to the design, development, implementation and operation of the tools, methods and systems that will form the backbone 1848 Ventures’ emerging Data and AI practice. 

The Day to Day

Responsibilities:

• Operate at the intersection of 1848 Ventures’ strategy and design, translate innovation opportunities into data-driven solutions using human-centered design and lead the product roadmap accordingly 
• Establish the technical direction for data science from the ground up; opportunity to select the tools and technologies that form the basis of 1848 Ventures’ innovation process and new solution development 
• Identify and analyze exploratory data sets, craft surveys and evaluate responses, and prototype intelligent system maps in service of early-stage opportunity analysis as well as concept development and refinement 
• Execute through seamless collaboration – create shared understanding between data scientists and designers, integrate various viewpoints with different skills and expertise to help the team launch innovative small business solutions in unison
• Create a data collection strategy for future predictive modeling and automated product improvements; identify data requirements, determine accessibility constraints, and develop a “no-data” contingency plan
• Prototype new machine learning methods and tools, and design a variety of different data driven experiments to validate assumptions and build compelling features that lead to commercial development 
• Set the direction for and nurture third party relationships delivering data science expertise, perform due diligence and quality assurance throughout each stage of product development 
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders, align data projects with organizational goals, and increase the capacity of 1848 Ventures team members through education on relevant Data Science topics
• Continue to grow knowledge of machine learning tools, maintain up to date knowledge on regulations and standard methodologies as they relate to data privacy
• Oversee technical documentation, outlining assumptions, approaches and solutions, definition of high value data insights to inform 1848 Ventures’ decision-making process

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of applying advanced analytical and statistical methods and proven experience as a high performer, while executing with speed and agility while applying creativity to the work
• 2+ years of leadership work experience in fields such as data science, digital product development, analytics, platform design/architecture, or quantitative research, including applying broad strategic knowledge and experience to effectively address complex issues and make timely, high quality decisions
• Commercial experience applying data and AI methods to drive innovation and/ or generate business value is a must
• Strong presentation and communication skills, with demonstrated ability to explain complex analytical concepts to people from other fields; ability to achieve buy-in among disparate audiences and to deliver results in a variety of settings
• Exposure to or an appreciation of human-centered design methodologies and innovation philosophy
• Proficient and proven experience working with a scripting language like Python and/or R (or equivalent), familiar with machine learning libraries and experience building statistical models
• Prior experience working with Data Engineers, IT, and DevOps teams to set up appropriate technical resources to perform Data Science work and translating prototypes to production
• Familiarity with at least one cloud-based platform (Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure)
• Prior experience working with data from a variety of sources (databases, JSON, text-based, image, and unstructured data, among others…)
• Prior experience developing and deploying Business Intelligence and self-service reporting solutions using tools like (Microsoft PowerBI, Tableau, QlikView, among others…)

Interested in this opportunity?   Connect with us on LinkedIn to explore all our opportunities.

We are an equal opportunity employer / minority / female / disability / protected veteran.