Babak Abbaschian Email & Phone Number

California, United States

Louisville, KY, US

• Forged a fundamental change in how Churchill Downs conducts business by spearheading digital transformation and introducing AI/ML-based and data-driven practices.
• Achieved robust stakeholder and end-user engagement with high adoption rates, effectively mitigating change resistance by employing the OKR framework and a strategic approach of active involvement and comprehensive.
• Formed and led the Data Strategy Organization with 3 departments of software development, data engineering, and data science and data analytics.
• Hosted the 1st Virtual Derby ever and developed a proprietary multi-agent RL-based AI model to simulate the horse racing game, outcomes, and states, and raised $1.5Mil for 3 nonprofit & public funds.
• Supervised and directed the implementation of CRM, marketing automation, and the 1st customer 360 enterprise solutions by building the required master data management systems and advanced analytics pipelines.
• Architected an integration gateway to centralize customer profiles, integrating Ticketmaster, Salesforce, Marketing Cloud, Tableau, Social Media Aggregator, Demographics databases, and AWS SQL and NoSQL data warehouses.

At Noble Cortex, I lead the end-to-end technology strategy for AI ventures, driving scalable architecture, seamless onboarding, and high-impact solutions from day one. I work hand-in-hand with founders and investors, crafting ambitious roadmaps, aligning cutting-edge AI with business objectives, and leveraging our private family-backed resources to.

Louisville, Kentucky, US

• Co-Architected multiple end-to-end user-facing machine learning-based products.
• Directed product development lifecycle from idea to maintenance, resulting in two revenue-generating products.
• Built a competent technical team focused on growth, transparency, and team values, resulting in a self-organizing team.
• Effectively executed and delivered a portfolio of eight short-term projects, employing a blend of dedicated full-time resources and highly skilled freelancers.
• Co-developed a petabyte/day Network Netflow Anomaly detection system using C++ and R in a restricted environment.
• Co-developed a cloud-based big data cybersecurity situational awareness solution on AWS, utilizing Python, Spark, HBase, Hive, and Metron, streaming petabytes of data into the digestion system. Resulting in 4000x.

Louisville, KY, US

• Awarded Gift for Life Honor of Excellence at 2015 ICON honors for RM Datalink.
• Started a successful track of delivering backlogged goals by introducing and internalizing SMART concepts and KPIs and implementing a balanced reward and responsibility-based leadership approach.
• Built a confident organization by redefining engineering strategy, bringing modern and emerging technologies, introducing agile development, and focusing on human capital and team values.
• Restarted project and product deliveries by implementing Scrum, CI/CD practices, and strategically positioning product managers as intermediaries between engineering and sales/service teams. Effectively curtailed scope.
• Led 5 teams of 25 managers, and engineers, in-house and offshore, spread around 3 continents.
• Established dedicated product teams with distinct expertise and specialization, focusing on end-to-end development, testing, delivery, and support of their respective products.

• Chief Designer & Manager for the Engineering Unit and IT department.
• Formed and grew Engineering Unit to a profitable SBU in two years, implementing an agile paradigm and focus on customer-engaged iterative delivery.
• Improved workforce stability, controlled turnover rate by overseeing staffing & employee promotions/terminations and strategic human resource planning, introducing transparent daily office routines and administrative.
• Expanded R&D team (5x) through strategic hires and mentoring team members in technical and soft skills.
• Designed and implemented lab info management system and CRM.
• Design & development of more than ten digital testing/analyzing devices for new products.

• Finished two stalled projects and brought the revenue back to the company.
• Designed multiple systems and worked with operational colleagues to finish implementation.
• Redefined all project Milestones and schedules and started tracking progress based on the plans.

Business Administration And Executive Excellence, Business Administration And Management, General

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Computer Engineering

Master Of Science (M.Sc.), Electrical, Electronics And Computer Engineering

Bachelor Of Science (B.Sc.), Electrical, Electronics And Communications Engineering