Stephen Mcdaniel Email & Phone Number

Research and content for peak developer ROI. Real-world solutions for efficient, streamlined data and analytics pipelines—no fluff, just results.

Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, Us

Designing & building data applications that empower overwhelmed decision-makers to maximize ROI.Audience APIs & Analytic Dashboards using SAMBA real-time audience data, core company data assets around worldwide ads, closed caption text and other 3rd party consumer behavior data sources.Audience Analytics & Data Platforms: Developed audience APIs and analytic dashboards leveraging SAMBA real-time audience data, global ad performance metrics, closed caption text, and 3rd-party consumer behavior data.Optimized US Audience Platform: Built a Python-based data pipeline integrating Snowflake and Clickhouse, enabling per-second viewership analysis across all US channels. Delivered minute-by-minute insights for a full day of TV within 1-3 seconds in Tableau.Ad Media Value Modeling: Addressing discrepancies in reported ad costs by developing a predictive model using historical data to estimate 30-second ad slot values. The model factors in sport type, event timing (e.g., playoffs, championships), and seasonality to improve media valuation accuracy.Sponsorship Valuation: Built a 3rd-gen Sponsorship Media Valuation pipeline (Python + Snowflake) with advanced Tableau dashboards to quantify earned and organic media impact.Currently working half-time due to cost-containment measures. Open to strategic opportunities to design impactful data solutions.

Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, Us

• Built data applications to drive impact and maximize ROI by combining data engineering, data science, and advanced analytics.• Automated a Snowflake pipeline processing 100B+ records from various sources, including advertising data and AI-driven brand detection.• Delivered advanced analytics and POCs for new product capabilities, supporting key clients and sales opportunities.• First data science and advanced analytics hire. 20+ projects delivered in first two years.

Santa Monica, California, Us

Successfully developed an innovative system for leading retailers and consumer goods companies to determine the ROI of their major sports team branding investments.FanAI went through a multi-month furlough while pursuing acquisition by several companies. After losing our CTO, I realized I needed to pursue other opportunities. The team I worked with at FanAI was excellent, and I wish it had been a quick acquisition so we could have continued our significant progress on a new platform. Regardless, we landed a multi-year 7 figure project based on my work with the data team in the first few months. Built and refined advanced causal inference models using detailed household purchase data, internet activity, mobile phone geolocation, fan apparel orders, and retail partner data sources. Designed and delivered slide decks and dynamic dashboards to share investment recommendations. FanAI clients could explore detailed investment performance at the daily level based on location, depth of sports team engagement, customer demographics, and seasonal variability. Rave reviews from the CTO, "Stephen came into FanAI and immediately started improving our methodologies and data science results within the first week. … He is a one-stop shop for everything you need for data. It's hard to put into words how impressed I've been …" Recommended by the Chief Product Officer, "Stephen was able to produce metrics and visualizations that we hadn't envisioned before" and "brings a calm and focused energy to meetings backed by a strong work ethic to achieve our goals."Tech stack included R, RStudio, tidyverse, Google BigQuery, Google Compute (massive servers), and Tableau. Optimization around scaling high-performance Google BigQuery reading and writing from R for near real-time updates.Engaged with the CTO, CPO, Engineering, and UX teams to design, streamline and optimize our product experience for a wide range of self-service ROI and consumer spend data exploration capabilities.

Forecasting and scenario modeling for $1B+ product line acquisition by a global top 20 pharma company. Complex scenario modeling, forecasting, and data enrichment behind the scenes. Complete slide decks and advanced dashboards iteratively developed. Built with R, SQL Server, and Spotfire.Customer lifetime valuation program, data acquisition, quality checks, models developed and built with R and Redshift, dashboards deployed on R ShinyProxy Server. Cyber awareness data warehouse architecture, development, data reconciliation, and awareness dashboard development with the first major iteration. It was built with Teradata, SAS, R, Tableau, and Informatica. Market share awareness dashboard for a large pharma association. Data lake developed with R and Redshift, data cleansing with R, forecasting with R, and dashboards deployed on R ShinyProxy Server. Developer of YakData SmartManager for ShinyProxyThe production-ready way to securely share R shiny web apps & RMarkdown documents. On GitHub and on the AWS Marketplace.Developer of YakData SmartDesktop with RStudio Server Open Source The smart, portable, reproducible way to develop R programs, Shiny web apps & RMarkdown docs on your desktop. On GitHub.I developed a state-level student performance dashboard system with Tableau and back-end acquisition and data cleansing with R and PostgreSQL. Data science toolkit includes data wrangling in R, data wrangling in SQL, R expert programmer, linear regression, mixed models, decision trees, neural networks, logistic regression, k-means clustering, random forest, complex forecasting scenarios, text mining, R shiny apps & dashboards, SQL Server, Redshift, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, data wrangling in SAS, Informatica, Go language, exploratory analysis with R, exploratory analysis & dashboards with Tableau and Spotfire, D3, Vega JS charts, Data Tables JS, JMP, JQuery, Javascript, CSS, automated trading models, Laravel and Python Flask.

Faculty at The Data Warehouse Institute, INFORMS (Operations Research, AI and Analytics society), and the American Marketing Association. Co-developed and taught courses on Marketing Analytics with Tableau, Excel, and Access; Visual Analytics with SAP Lumira, Spotfire and Tableau and Data Visualization with R, Vega, and open source technologies. https://freakalytics.com/blog/2013/09/09/a-brief-history-freakalytics-and-tableau-since-2008/Co-author of multiple books, including "SAS for Dummies," "Rapid Graphs with Tableau," and "The Accidental Analyst."Optimizing systems performance for data consumers. Systems design, architecture, UI, workflow, and development lead.Multiple strategic consulting projects, including data mining, forecasting, dashboard design, product planning, strategic product acquisition forecasting, and projections modeling.Co-author of a successful four-day Tableau training course on business analytics and a two-day AMA course on Customer Analytics, Segmentation, Valuation, and Dashboards.Featured dashboard instructor at the Tableau 2010, 2011, and 2012 World Conferences andTableau European Customer Conference 2011 and 2012.Co-founder of Freakalytics, the founding Tableau Software Education partner- training people in over 36 cities worldwide and helping drive multi-year solid growth as a trusted partner. https://freakalytics.com/blog/2013/09/09/a-brief-history-freakalytics-and-tableau-since-2008/As an expert consultant, I developed a guided, automated forecasting system to examine thousands of SKUs for a potential acquisition by a pharmaceutical company. This information was shared with the Board of Directors as drug acquisition negotiations commenced. This system enabled complex scenario simulations and predicted revenues by country for the next five years. YakData, LLC was previously Freakalytics, LLC (2008-2016.)

Orlando, Fl, Us

Advise the Executive team of this $50M/year non-profit serving the greater Orlando area. Offer strategy and best practices for data warehousing, analytics, AI and a diverse range of technology needs

Renton, Wa, Us

Gave multiple talks at TDWI Worldwide conferences on Big Data Visualization, Dashboard Design, and Executive Buy-in and The Future of Data Warehousing.In this workshop, learn how to use R and RStudio to create high-quality data visualizations for your use or to communicate key insights to colleagues and clients.• Learn cutting-edge R packages that enable the creation of customizable data visualizations for yourself or to share• How to build essential chart types based on a case study approach• How to create compelling data visualizations and explore possibilities to make them dynamic and interactiveCourse details at one conference: https://web.archive.org/web/20151009052452/https://events.tdwi.org/Events/Orlando-2015/Sessions/Wednesday/Hands-on-Data-Visualization.aspx

Menlo Park, California, Us

Recruited by the CEO and Marketing VP to write a launch white paper and lead a keynote with VP of Tech and VP of Marketing at Strata. From the press release, “On October 29, ClearStory Data Founder, Vaibhav Nivargi, VP Technology and Products, Brian Zotter, and VP Marketing, Stephanie McReynolds, will introduce the ClearStory Data solution alongside co-presenter, Stephen McDaniel, Author of The Accidental Analyst. The presentation will unveil ClearStory and demonstrate a new integrated Application and Platform that enables businesses to speed access and analysis across disparate data sources -- both internal and external, and allows more people to interact and consume insights across the organization. McDaniel will also share his perspective on the next era of data analysis based on his 25 years of data science experience.”

Seattle, Wa, Us

Developed next-generation strategic road-map for co-founder/CDO of Tableau. Redesigned and updated all Tableau examples that ship with the product. Some of these workbooks appear on my Tableau Public profile at https://public.tableau.com/profile/stephenmcdaniel/Most of the projects I championed or contributed to in this roadmap have been implemented in Tableau over several years. The Research team used our book, The Accidental Analyst, as part of their team readings/study.Worked closely with research and UX teams on future features from ideation, selection, and implementation decisionsCreated/revamped all analytic samples included in Tableau 8 in collaboration with the CDO and CEO.Learning of my decision to return to my company, CDO/Co-Founder thanked me in an email, "We have benefited greatly from your input, guidance, and effort in the last year, and I really appreciate the work you did to help define the product vision. I learned a lot from (and really enjoyed) our discussions and brainstorms."In his only talk at the 2012 Tableau World Conference, Chief Scientific Officer Pat Hanrahan discussed our book, The Accidental Analyst, as a foundation of his presentation. He said our book changed how he thought about analytics and inspired him to change his approach to teaching courses at Stanford. At a dinner, Pat said that "our early partnership with Tableau, writing the first book and building an independent training program, was the most significant external event to help Tableau gain legitimacy at larger companies."

Chicago, Il, Us

Authored and taught a two-day course at multiple locations, "Customer Behavior Insights through Marketing Dashboards." The course is interactive and hands-on, using the case study approach. It will show you a simple yet solidpath to obtain hidden value from your data, including the ability to combine key datasets, efficientlyanalyze data using simple tables and graphs, and develop simple yet compelling dashboards thataddress tactical business needs and communicate ongoing results. Most importantly, all of this work canbe updated with new data and changing conditions to manage ongoing needs in your marketing program.Course flyer: https://web.archive.org/web/20110708135204/http://www.marketingpower.com/Calendar/Documents/F%2712%20Training%20Series/face_to_face_CustomerBehavior.pdf

I led efforts to improve data infrastructure for large-scale data warehousing, advanced threat detection, and systems to react to real-time threats to Navy assets worldwide.Helped review and select additional technologies to improve system performance and time to develop new analytic initiatives. Designed and led initial Teradata, Informatica, and Tableau projects to supplement and build upon SAS, Oracle, and Business Objects infrastructure. Massive-scale improvements in speed (10-100x) and data volume capabilities.With several colleagues at NCDOC, I significantly expanded access to their multi-million dollar server infrastructure, introduced and guided the acquisition of a multi-million dollar Teradata investment, and introduced them to Tableau.Two one-year contracts.Top Secret Clearance

Los Gatos, Ca, Us

As requested by the CMO, I architected and implemented a framework for estimating lifetime value at the customer level. Part of this effort included pioneering an advanced, integrated view of every customer using a wide array of metrics and key indicators. A second part included segmentation and leveraging this information to refine channel acquisition and customer management strategies. This allowed Netflix to justify investing more in marketing to and acquiring customers with a much higher lifetime value.I provided quantitative leadership across the entire organization by introducing and refining new analytic techniques that drove the business forward, often solving multi-million dollar problems that had stymied other efforts in a matter of days or weeks. Among some of the ad-hoc projects I solved, traced the origins of repeated DVD failures to one studio, which allowed them to negotiate $7M in contract concessions. I also championed detailed modeling of prepaid credit card customers, determining they should be allowed as payment, but only beyond the first month, resulting in savings of $1-2M. I also introduced a data science and BI lunch and learned each week to broaden the adoption of the data warehouse directly with a line of business analysts and offer tutorials on SAS and Tableau.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Part of an extended team seeking to improve Ad Sales visibility into client metrics at scale. Helped develop a vision to augment internal systems with external best-of-breed analytics and data warehouse tools, despite an ingrained culture of "not invented here." This enabled executives in Southern California to justify extensive proof of concept projects to democratize access to data with user-friendly tools for the sales teams. Total investment recommendation by myself to her, approximately $12M.Bridged the gap between search engineering teams and ad sales teams to help them reach a mutual understanding of why some systems should remain internally developed and others externally purchased. This may sound simple, but it was very much against the build-everything culture.

Cary, Nc, Us

I led a team of 40 in the development and testing of the next-generation analytic businessintelligence products at SAS. Our products generated approximately $100M/year in my last year working with this wonderful, talented group of people.My team was responsible for SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. Revenue growth of products developed by my team far outpaced many traditional SAS and competitor products - growing at rates of 40-80% per year. We adopted an agile approach to planning projects, designing features, building, and testing. In particular, I aggressively rolled out necessary document requirements in SharePoint for each significant feature set available to the UI team member, the dev team members, the test team members, and the doc team member to proactively collaborate together from inception to completion, building a greater sense of team ownership and accomplishment.My first year at SAS was working with Finance and Aerospace Premier Account teams in Sales as a Senior Technical Architect.

Us

I led and hired the team, from the ground up, that built the first data warehouse, businessintelligence infrastructure and advanced web analytics environment.Bala Ganesh, my manager, stated in a written review, “Stephen built a successful business intelligence team and data warehouse in world record time!” and “He was a great team player capable of wowing even the most demanding of internal and external customers!”

Austin, Texas, Us

I worked closely with the founder (Katherine Glassey) and head of product (John Rotherham) to help define, create and manage the vision and feature-set around Brio's planned next generation of zero-client, web-based BI products. I also managed the feature set and large sale presentations for the core server products responsible for approximately 45% of company revenue ($45M)- Brio Broadcast and Brio On-Demand Server. Brio was acquired by Hyperion, which was acquired by Oracle.

Tokyo, Jp

TAP was a joint subsidiary of Takeda & Abbott. It is now Takeda US.As an independent consultant, championed and led the development of the first widely-used clinical trials data warehouse and business intelligence environment. This resulted in a radical change in the availability of critical data across all areas of drug development, finance and marketing.

Durham, North Carolina, Us

Lead statistician for AIDS trials with multiple client companies- design, analysis and presentation of trial results. Designed and developed data management systems from scratch using SAS and Oracle.Was PharmaResearch Corporation, now Chiltern International.

Brentford, Middlesex, Gb

Analysis and statistical programming for multiple research areas including Congestive Heart Failure, AIDS and Alzheimers Automation of reporting systems with SAS- greatly reducing time to disseminate analytic insights and drug submission.

Durham, North Carolina, Us

Analysis and statistical programming for multiple research areas including CHF, AIDS and Alzheimers. Automation of reporting systems with SAS. Worked with the early SAS Ph Clinical team on their automated reporting solution.

Brentford, Middlesex, Gb

Manufacturing QC- data capture, systems, and analysis. Helped introduce six sigma to the manufacturing line workers and convince them of the importance of consistently using the methodology to maximize purity and hit their bonus targets.

Ba, Economics, Math & History

Doctoral Studies, Statistics

Doctoral Studies, Econometrics & Accounting