Mark Richards

Mark Richards Email and Phone Number

Director of Data Science @ The Walt Disney Company
Mark Richards's Location
Bainbridge Island, Washington, United States, United States
Mark Richards's Contact Details
About Mark Richards

My passion is unlocking business value by building teams that develop quick and iterative solutions that free our business partners from their data gathering and reporting challenges helping them move to higher value analytics supported by big data. I am a proven leader who can build highly effective teams across the IT and Finance space. I have Fortune 500 experience at Disney, Amazon, Walmart, Atlantic Richfield, and Associates First Capital. Big data and analytics leader with Walmart responsible for teams in sourcing, pricing, marketing, customer, internet of things, and financials. I have lead project implementations ranging from Oracle Hyperion Financial Management consolidation applications to SAP Business Objects for reporting to SAP HANA for analytics and visualizations. Deep finance and accounting experience ranging from revenue accounting and leading an accounts payable team with ARCO Oil & Gas to building and leading the team responsible for the corporate consolidation and closing, budgeting and forecasting applications used across Walmart Operations Finance.

Mark Richards's Current Company Details
The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company

View
Director of Data Science
Mark Richards Work Experience Details
  • The Walt Disney Company
    Director Of Data Science
    The Walt Disney Company Feb 2020 - Present
    Burbank, Ca, Us
    I built a 10 person Data Science and Analytics team responsible for development of dynamic add forecast modeling and analytics for the digital entertainment and sports businesses including ABC, FreeForm, FX, and ESPN. Forecast Modeling - The team focused on delivering self-service solutions including web based front ends for the forecast models so the business stakeholders could take greater control of the forecasting process themselves. Continuing to automate and drive out manual processes around data queries and analysis allowed the business stakeholders to focus on higher value analytics. Analytics - The team developed interactive Tableau views on consumption and traffic metrics across the digital portfolio including entertainment, news and sports allowing users to slice through the data at different levels to answer questions. Setup quarterly engagement meetings with key stakeholders to get feedback on changes to their business and how we can drive additional insight through our data. Data - I setup a "Data Czar" role on the team to act as the point person to ensure that data flow and storage was optimized in Snowflake for use in both forecasting and reporting. The team developed extracts of Adobe data using the Adobe API for use in quality checking the data.We built out a data quality process that leveraged existing high level data loading checks along with report level checks to catch new meta data items or busts in the data at a more granular level.
  • Amazon
    Big Data And Analytics Leader
    Amazon Jan 2016 - Jan 2020
    Seattle, Wa, Us
    Hired and developed a team of Business Intelligence Engineers, Data Engineers and Data Scientists that are responsible for the providing the architecture, data, analytics and machine learning necessary to support the Health, Safety, Security and Sustainability organizations at Amazon.
  • Walmart
    Director Of Innovations - Big Data, Analytic & Visualizations Leader
    Walmart 2014 - 2015
    Bentonville, Arkansas, Us
    I built and lead teams across the big data & analytics and financials space. This included leading teams building new application platforms for customer, marketing, pricing, sourcing, and internet of things. I had responsibility for setting up the Data Café’s that became a hub for analytics and visualizations from these new platforms. The Data Café also features analytics built for Omni channel, Sam’s Club membership, weather, and marketing. My team included 9 direct reports, 110 associates (70 onshore/ 40 Offshore) and 200 contractors representing disciplines across data science, statistics/analytics, machine learning, finance, visualizations and data staging.
  • Walmart
    Sr. Director Of Finance – Leader Of Bi And Finance
    Walmart 2010 - 2014
    Bentonville, Arkansas, Us
    Responsible for leading the second phase of the Walmart Financial systems redevelopment project. The focus of the second phase was around BI, planning and analytics. I ran the SAP BI team that was responsible for supporting the BI needs of the new SAP ledger that was implemented to replace our home grown system. The SAP BI team also was responsible for supporting the BI needs of all of the new modules such as SAP Treasury that were deployed. I was also responsible for running the project to implement SAP Business Objects. I also had responsibility for the Finance team and tools that supported the Walmart Inc. consolidation and close. I ran an effort to select a new planning tool and Oracle planning was chosen as the planning tool of choice. The Finance team began to deploy Oracle Planning as the tool for annual budgeting for the 4,000 Walmart stores. I was also the IT lead in the multiyear effort to deploy Oracle Hyperion Financial Management as the consolidation application for Walmart globally. Created a position on the team to act as the advocate for Tableau. The advocate worked with IT to get licensing; worked with the vendor on enhancements; and created a user group from the business to share best practices.
  • Walmart
    Director Of Finance - Budget, Forecasting & Closing
    Walmart 2004 - 2010
    Bentonville, Arkansas, Us
    Lead the Finance team responsible for the close consolidation, budget, forecast and actuals reporting for all of the operating areas of Walmart including Walmart stores, Sam’s Clubs, Logistics, Health & Wellness and Corporate. Drove the deployment of Oracle Essbase from a few hundred users to over 5,000 users. Built the first Oracle Essbase database for annual budgeting of the 4,000 US Walmart stores including developing an input Excel template with VBA. Direct responsibilities for Sam’s and Walmart Oracle Essbase database development and support for budgeting, forecasting and closing in Essbase. Oversaw the implementation of Oracle Hyperion Financial Management as a replacement for the home grown Oracle Essbase and Excel consolidation solution for reporting consolidated Walmart Inc. results to the street. Developed training materials and gave classes to hundreds of Oracle Essbase users from the home office and the field. Oversaw the addition of Oracle Planning to replace the home grown budgeting system for the 18k associates at the Walmart home office.
  • Celera Corporation
    Oracle Essbase Dba
    Celera Corporation 2000 - 2004
    Lead reporting and BI team with responsibilities for setting up the Oracle Essbase databases for financial reporting. Developed the monthly and quarterly close packages for reporting variance analysis of actual, plan and forecast. Responsible for setting up and maintaining projects in Essbase to get recapture of dollars where we would partner with the government or other companies for the mapping of different genome models. Brought in Oracle Planning to move to a purpose built planning tool for the annual budget.
  • Associates First Capital Corp
    Oracle Essbase Dba
    Associates First Capital Corp 1999 - 2000
    Lead Oracle Essbase database administrator responsible for helping to move from a home grown reporting platform to Essbase as the BI solution for the company across five primary business units: U.S. credit card, U.S. consumer branch, U.S. home equity, commercial and international finance.
  • Arco International Oil & Gas
    Finance Planning & Analysis Lead
    Arco International Oil & Gas 1993 - 1999
    Responsible for building and analyzing the annual budget for total International revenue and exploration costs. This involved working directly with the Controller, VP of Exploration and the finance leads in country to consolidate all of the exploration programs and other projects. Prepared and delivered variance analysis on the budget to the Controller and executive management. Based on feedback from the presentations I would make changes to the budget working directly with the in country finance leads to generate multiple budget options for executive management to consider. Responsible for generating the monthly forecast by working closely with exploration managers to analyze the exploration portfolio to come up with dry hole estimates across the total portfolio. Generated all analytic and presentation packages for analysis of forecast to actuals on a monthly and quarterly basis for review the Controller, other home office executives and in country finance & exploration leads. Oracle Essbase database administrator responsible for building and managing the first Essbase database for budget, actual and forecasting for all of International reporting and analysis. Admin responsibilities include building the database, calc scripts, security, and developing and giving training to all users. Accounts payable team lead with a team of 6 people responsible for global payments related to the oil & gas properties including international wire transfers, a petty cash office, and 1099 generation for vendors.
  • Arco Oil & Gas
    Revenue Accountant
    Arco Oil & Gas 1988 - 1993
    Managed a set of oil & gas properties in Southern California and West Texas. My responsibilities included recording revenue, paying lease holders, researching ownership issues with our Land and Title resources to insure correct property ownership. I also visited properties with engineers to determine if the schematics for meter locations matched the settlement statements from our gas buyers on our leases and pipelines. I did a 3 month assignment in our Bakersfield CA office to review contracts for properties purchased from Tenneco to setup accounting procedures. Built and maintained Excel spreadsheets for each property showing incoming and outgoing flows of gas and conversion to different pressure bases.

Mark Richards Skills

Store Management Retail Customer Service Merchandising Leadership Management Forecasting Business Intelligence Finance Analysis Financial Reporting Financial Analysis Essbase Team Building Business Strategy Sap Budgets Analytics Variance Analysis Budgeting And Forecasting Big Data Analytics People Management Sap Hana Hyperion Financial Reporting Hyperion Planning Customer Focused Service

Mark Richards Education Details

  • The University Of Texas At Arlington
    The University Of Texas At Arlington
    Finance

Frequently Asked Questions about Mark Richards

What company does Mark Richards work for?

Mark Richards works for The Walt Disney Company

What is Mark Richards's role at the current company?

Mark Richards's current role is Director of Data Science.

What is Mark Richards's email address?

Mark Richards's email address is ma****@****art.com

What schools did Mark Richards attend?

Mark Richards attended The University Of Texas At Arlington.

What are some of Mark Richards's interests?

Mark Richards has interest in Children.

What skills is Mark Richards known for?

Mark Richards has skills like Store Management, Retail, Customer Service, Merchandising, Leadership, Management, Forecasting, Business Intelligence, Finance, Analysis, Financial Reporting, Financial Analysis.

Free Chrome Extension

Find emails, phones & company data instantly

Find verified emails from LinkedIn profiles
Get direct phone numbers & mobile contacts
Access company data & employee information
Works directly on LinkedIn - no copy/paste needed
Get Chrome Extension - Free

Aero Online

Your AI prospecting assistant

Download 750 million emails and 100 million phone numbers

Access emails and phone numbers of over 750 million business users. Instantly download verified profiles using 20+ filters, including location, job title, company, function, and industry.