Full-time MBA |

In 2008, Konstantin Makarov became, for the second time in his life, a pioneer. He left a secure job at Morgan Stanley in New York to found StratLink-Africa, Ltd., a financial advisory firm based in Nairobi, Kenya. The company's mission is to originate financing transactions in emerging and frontier markets, with a focus on Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), for investment banks, private equity firms, and family offices.

A Q&A with Jack Hanlon
Master of Science in Business Analytics,
Class of 2014

January 7, 2014

Recently named one of Forbes 2014 30 under 30: Marketing and Advertising, Jack Hanlon, Co-Founder of Kinetic Social and NYU Stern MS in Business Analytics student, shares how the program has already advanced his career as a pioneer in Big Data.

What has been your general experience with the MSBA program thus far?

“In early January, I was speaking to a data scientist as a prospective customer,” Craig recalls.  “His company wants to develop a machine learning approach to analyze ongoing data streams from a wide array of environmental sensors (e.g., collecting CO2 levels), a relatively difficult analytical challenge.  Based on much of what I learned in Stern’s MSBA program, I was able to articulate why the algorithms that my company, Numenta, offers fits their business problem and has numerous advantages over other classical statistical approaches.”
 

Cristie is a manager in charge of strategy at David Jones, a leading Australian department store retailer. As such, she spearheads the company’s efforts across a number of strategic initiatives. An accountant by training, with a commerce degree from the University of New South Wales, she says her belief that numbers tell the story—and that Big Data complements the numbers—is what led her to pursue the NYU Stern Master in Business Analytics degree.

Portia has a passion for big data analytics. At 27, the Memphis, Tenn., native works at Google, where she’s currently an account manager for large customer solutions, focusing on the telecom industry. Having had an undergraduate degree in international relations from Stanford and two years at AT&T under her belt before joining Google in 2010, she recognized that the Stern MSBA program would round out her skill set. “I just happened to come across the MSBA program and I knew at once it was the perfect fit for me,” she says.

Shingai describes her experience in NYU Stern’s Master’s in Business Analytics program as “the exciting and intellectually stimulating pursuit of knowledge punctuated with hair-raising deadlines and high-speed epiphanies.” That is high praise from a self-described avid adventurer who has dived with sharks and bungee-jumped off the highest jump in the world.

“The management and analysis of the large amounts of data—including the ability to convert and manipulate this data into meaningful insights for senior management—will be one of the key business skills in the future.” This conviction led Wajahat Ali to apply to the NYU Stern Master’s Program in Business Analytics.

Nick Nishimura hails from Kyushu, in western Japan, but since 2010 has been posted in New Jersey in the North American division of Panasonic Corp. Currently he is a Senior Coordinator and Data Analyst in the company’s Business Analytics Group. NYU Stern’s MSBA program is right up his alley.

When Natalia Migal was seeking to expand her knowledge in risk management, she found a new and unique program—the NYU Stern Master of Science in Risk Management.

The new program, launched in 2009, was a specialized one-year risk management program. At that time, two out of five class modules were offered at NYU Stern, with the remaining three taught in Amsterdam.

Justin Lerner has been professionally involved with risk management in a variety of roles since 1998. Currently charged with risk and policy at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which he joined in 2011, Justin previously spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs in risk roles ranging from managing derivatives risk on the NYMEX and AMEX exchange floors to dealing with Hedge Funds in prime brokerage and clearing.