Christopher Rooks Email & Phone Number

Austin, Texas, United States

I strategically addressed market gaps by identifying incentive program waste within automotive OEMs, leading a cross-functional team to innovate and deliver effective solutions. Currently, I am driving enhancements to our core SaaS offering, catering to the growing demand for enterprise-level business intelligence in the evolving automotive dealership landscape.New Product Innovation:Automotive OEMs invest $50-$60 billion annually in incentive programs, with at least 5% wasted on ineffective programs. In an interview with Reuters, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley stated, “I know we are wasting money on incentives. I don’t know where.” Embracing incentive program waste as a market opportunity, I led a cross-functional team of data scientists, product managers, and UX experts to:1.) research the underserved and unmet needs of OEM teams responsible for creating incentive programs,2.) deliver new product concepts that could enable OEMs to develop effective incentive programs, and3.) realign our data assets and expertise to support proof of concept development.Our research and solution discovery culminated into a larger strategic initiative to diversify our product portfolio and revenue sources.Continuous Product Improvement:The automotive dealership network is witnessing continuous consolidation among dealer groups. With the expansion of these groups, there is an increasing demand for enterprise-level business intelligence over the insights of a single dealership. Presently, I am leading initiatives aimed at enhancing the enterprise functionality of our core SaaS offering. This strategic effort is geared towards elevating customer satisfaction and preserving monthly recurring revenue.

Detroit

Managing the development of an Electric Vehicle Insights Platform (EViP). This multifaceted platform addresses challenges such as range anxiety and vehicle-to-home | vehicle-to-grid integration.Lead analyst growing GM adjacency businesses through the design, development, and deployment of KPI metrics, reporting suites, and data-driven marketing campaigns. Launched first of its kind, test and learn campaign for GM adjacency business, realizing incremental subscription and revenue growth and acquiring vital market intelligence. Campaign validated the effects of targeted messaging and of inactivity on reactivation.

Greater Detroit Area

Portfolio Planning Analyst responsible for building procedures to automate key performance indicator reporting and for developing machine learned Bayesian networks to support portfolio optimization.

Greater Detroit Area

Lead data scientist developing feature selection methods (mutual information classification) and predictive statistical models (KNN, GP) to estimate concept vehicles’ potential market acceptance and success using primary research data.Market researcher conducting primary clinic research (qualitative and quantitative) for two concept vehicles.

Detroit

Chevrolet Brand Insights Analyst leading research and implementation of the best measure of new vehicle shopping behavior related to path to purchase funnel measures.Identified and operationalized alternative source of online shopping data resulting in an annual cost savings of $120+ thousand.

Greater Detroit Area

Senior Systems Analyst leading the development and implementation of Department of Defense enterprise information system, Virtual Contracting Enterprise (VCE).Identified and reallocated $12 billion in misallocated expenditures to the correct Project Management Office (PMO) and reported findings to ACC Headquarters.Selected as one of four senior analysts responsible for training 477 contract officers and specialists on the capabilities of VCE information system. Achieved perfect instructor ratings for two consecutive years and nominated for 2015 Customer Service of the Year Award.

Greater Detroit Area

Lead Procurement Analyst constructing and analyzing performance metrics. Conducted studies on management and procurement issues and advised senior directors on the best courses of action.Implemented risk mitigation strategy (Carter Better Buying Initiatives) that shifted taxpayer dollars to lower risk contracts resulting in a 19% ($105 million) increase in incentive contracts and a 36% ($1.5 billion) reduction in fixed price contracts. Drafted senior leadership briefing for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Procurement (DASA(P)) on topics of procurement strategy and performance.

Greater Detroit Area

Cost and Price Analyst for $6 billion Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBTC) supporting the primary weapons system in Iraq and Afghanistan. Analyzed critical elements of contractor proposals to ensure fair and reasonable expenditure of taxpayer funds without undermining Army objectives.Negotiated $31 million in emergency production activities and achieved an average cost reduction of 5.1% ($1.6 million) by identifying and removing unsubstantiated contractor expenditures.

Greater Detroit Area

Contract Specialist for the Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBTC) responsible for developing effective contractual instruments that adheres to Federal Acquisition Regulations and serves the interest of both taxpayers and soldiers Drafted $13.4 million contract proposal to initiate Phase II of the Stryker Systems Integration Laboratory (SIL).Successfully executed a $1.5 million delivery order requiring shipment of nine thousands parts over a 300-day period to service six conflicting military efforts.Realized $1.1 million in taxpayer savings as a result of corrective actions taken in contracting processes.

Greater Detroit Area

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) policy expert in the Acquisition Process Management Division drafting local policies to implement ARRA in the military procurement process.Drafted the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Private Security Contract Report, under the direction of Senator Carl Levin, to inform SASC of relevant information pertaining to contract activity in Iraq and Afghanistan.Developed the quarterly census reporting process to track civilians deployed in Southwest Asia (SWA).

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Area

Center of Excellence team was established as the central point for standardized BI reporting and portfolio strategy development.We successfully developed the official product catalog of specialty grades, which was used for global performance tracking and for sales commission awards.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Area

The Financial Controller Office oversaw intra-company payment processes and administration of the global account reconciliation program.Leading a global team of seven finance managers, I eliminated a $300 thousand intra-company account balance, minimized exchange rate exposure through timely contract execution, and managed month-end closeout.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Area

As the Lead Financial Analyst for the Cycolac, Geloy, Petrochemicals product line, I headed efforts to reduce financial reporting costs and to develop cash cost models that allowed business leaders to assess the extent to which variable costs could be leveraged to realized incremental material production.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts Area

Commercial Center of Excellence (CoE) led the development of a sales pipeline application designed to increase managerial visibility of commercial sales and to mitigate inconsistencies in target reporting. In this role, I developed novel BI tools and partnered with global IT to develop production ready BI applications.

Mt. Vernon, Indiana

Plant Finance was responsible for measuring, predicting, and controlling utility costs. In this role, we spearheaded a project to determine the baseline utility costs of the Lexan production facility, with a focus on electricity usage. We developed regression models to understand the drivers of utility costs and deployed these models for use in FP&A cost planning.

Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area

The Business Focused Audit Team (BFAT) led moderate to high risk and complexity audits of operational processes to ensure compliance and to drive process efficiencies. In May 2004, BFAT audited the Cottage Grove production facility, where I led the fixed asset and capital expenditure audit.

Master Of Science (M.S.), Business Analytics

Activities and Societies: State News Board of Directors

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Finance, General