From Big Legacy Data to Insight: Lessons Learned Creating New Value from a Billion Low Quality Records Per Year

For decades, credit card transactions have generated mountains of data about consumer spending habits, but the data formats were designed for archiving and reporting rather than for data mining and pattern discovery. For example, the merchant's name is embedded in a text field, which also contains other information, without any standard format.

Bundle.com is a new startup that is building a business on the extraction of value from this legacy data source. To create powerful insights about consumer spending behavior, the analytics team must first "tame" large data sets of poorly structured, low quality, inconsistent data, using a variety of methods including text analytics, clustering analysis, and linking open data sources with internal proprietary data sets.

The Founder and Managing Partner of Fitzgerald Analytics, Jaime has developed a distinctively quantitative, fact-based, and transparent approach to solving high stakes problems and improving results. His approach enables translation of Data to Dollars™ using methodologies clients can repeat again and again. He is equally passionate about the “human side of the equation,” and is known for his ability to link the human and the quantitative, both of which are needed to achieve optimal results. During more than 15 years serving clients as a strategy consultant, Jaime has focused on customer experience and loyalty, customer profitability, technology strategy, information management, and business process improvement. Jaime has advised market-leading banks, retailers, manufacturers, media companies, and non-profit organizations in the United States, Canada, and Singapore, combining strategic analysis with hands-on implementation of technology and operations enhancements.

Alexander Hasha is the lead Data Scientist at Bundle.com, the definitive source for information on how people spend, save, and invest their money. Alex is responsible for everything data-related -- from data architecture to MDM to assuring the accuracy of day-to-day statistical analysis. With his team he converts data from diverse sources, including Citigroup, the US Department of Labor, and other third parties, into unique insights available nowhere else. Bundle Corporation is an innovative joint venture of Citi, Morningstar, and MSN Money, and operates the website www.bundle.com. Prior to joining Bundle, Alex worked in analytic modeling at Citigroup in the company's mortgage division, where he also wrote articles for publication. He is a graduate of M.I.T. and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from NYU's Courant Institute. He also holds an advanced certificate in mathematics from Cambridge University.