Women In Data Science

After she earned her BA, MA, and PhD in economics from the University of Maryland, Menglin Cao spent six years at Fannie Mae before joining Wells Fargo. Over the past 15 years, she has seen a major shift in how financial institutions use data to drive business decisions. In the past, many business decisions were based upon the experience and judgement of senior executives, but today every decision must be backed up by data and analytics. Many aspects of the financial services that leverage data are great candidates for AI and ML models, such as customer experience, revenue generation, and risk management. She wants to ensure they build models that are fair, explainable, interpretable, and able to generate value.She offers several examples about best practices for success.To be useful, the data must first be focused on a foundational business question. “Data can tell many stories, but until you bring the story to the businesses and they can relate the story to a question, experience or concern that they have,