Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Competency
Continued Education
Personal Information
Timeline
Generic

Werner Brenkman

Centurion

Summary

Leader in banking with 12+ years' experience in data and analytics related fields. Extensive experience in data monetization strategies through analytics and integrations. Methodical people leader of analytics and commercialization leaders, responsible to deliver business growth. Well-rounded skills having both generalist and specialist experience, with the ability to navigate ambiguity. Known for the role of advisor to senior colleagues.

Overview

24
24
years of professional experience

Work History

Head: Advanced Analytics

Absa Group Limited
08.2022 - Current
  • As Head of Advanced Analytics I am responsible for both the Data Analytics and Data Science functions for the Consumer Product department at Absa Group Limited. Our objective is to add commercial value to the bank through the use of data.
  • Transaction Intelligence. We have managed to motive and acquire funding to build a data asset using the transactional data of our customers. The project is in progress, but will be used as a key data source for multiple initiatives. It will enable the granting of credit to thin-file customers, provide personal financial management functionality to the banking app, and improve the personalized offer experiences.
  • Next best offer. We managed to motivate an upgrade to our Next Best Product. The new version will expand our offering beyond acquisition to improve customer engagement and retention. The project is currently underway.
  • BCX Digital Innovation Awards. Winners of the Best in Technology category at the 2023 awards for the development of our Model- and Feature maker frameworks, which has since been open-sourced.
  • Databricks. Played a key role in the implementation of Databricks which is used to democratize data and Data Science in the bank.

Specialist Data Scientist

Absa Group Limited
1 2017 - 08.2022
  • Duties include leading a team of junior Data Scientists in the Wealth, Investment management and Insurance cluster and later Customer Value Management (CVM) cluster as well as working on projects at a technical level
  • Our primary objective is to improve the bottom line of the business by taking on projects that have a direct impact on operations
  • Benefits realised: Absa Advantage is an extension of the current Absa Rewards programme. It aims to reward customers for completing various challenges presented to them on the Absa Banking App. My role was the design and implementation of the data flows using big data technologies. The programme has been very successful and have received numerous rewards.
  • Next Best Product. My responsibility in the Sales Architecture program was the design and implementation of a Next Best Product model. The model results have been integrated into various customer facing platforms and have generated considerable value, in some cases increasing strike rate by 300%.
  • Sales propensity modelling. The aim of this project was to improve the strike rate of call centre sales by providing leads with a higher propensity to buy. From a technical perspective; we built an ensemble of models using engineered features, XGBoost and a neural network. From a soft-skill perspective it was very important to build relationships and communicate findings and results regularly and in layman's terms. This project resulted in an improved strike rate of 30% resulting in 400% return on investment
  • Improved premium collections. This project is a natural next step of sales propensity modelling (mentioned above), because a sale is only valuable once a premium is collected. From a technical perspective we used transactional data and a simple Baysian model to predict the best day to collect a premium. The output resulted in a 200% return on investmen.
  • Predictive underwriting. Underwriting is the process by which a potential customer is accepted or declined based on their health and lifestyle. In this project we aimed to predict the outcome of an application using transactional data. From a technical perspective we used NLP and XGBoost.
  • Feature engineering library. We built a library of features that can be used in future modelling and for insight. It is not merely a library using Data Science techniques, but business users also provide input.

Senior BI Consultant

KPI Management Solutions
01.2011 - 01.2016
  • Duties included gathering of business requirements, design, development, implementation, server setup, administration and support of BI solutions using QlikView
  • We worked mostly in the financial services sector, although some work has been done in other industries
  • Predictive modelling and data science projects started in 2016 using R
  • NOTE: During four of the five years in this role I was situated at Absa Group Limited in the same team where I am currently employed
  • Banking / insurance specific implementations: Single view of customer at Absa Group Limited
  • The model is aimed at promoting and identifying cross selling opportunities across the retail and financial services of the bank
  • The model consists of 1.5bn rows of customer demographic and transactional data
  • This was the first successful project of its kind in the organisation
  • There are 650 users of this model
  • Life lapse rate optimization at Absa Group Limited
  • This is a data science project aiming at reducing the lapse rates of life policies
  • NTU rate optimization at Different Life
  • The term NTU refers to policies that were sold, but not taken up by the customer
  • Originally Different Life had to wait 60-90 days to know if a sold policy will be taken up
  • They are now able to, at the date of sale, predict with 92% accuracy which policies will not be taken up
  • Automation of BA325 & BA350 regulatory returns at Standard Bank.

SAP Business One add-on development manager

xtendBI (PTY) LTD
01.2010 - 01.2011
  • Managed a team of 3 developers developing add-on functionality to enhance the standard SAP Business One software
  • Translate business requirements into technical requirements, planning and managing of projects
  • The SAP Business One SDK is cumbersome to work with
  • The learning curve is around 9 months
  • I developed a library to reduce the time it takes to learn to work with the SDK
  • New developers were up and running in around 4 months.

SAP Business One and QlikView Consultant

xtendBI (PTY) LTD
01.2008 - 01.2010
  • Duties included gathering of business requirements, setup and implementation of SAP Business One software
  • This role consisted mostly of support and maintenance
  • Being mainly a technical environment my experience in accounting and auditing came in very handy when dealing with real business problems
  • I coached other consultants in accounting, which led to the development of a budgeting add-on.

Financial Manager

Bitflow Real Estate
01.2006 - 01.2007
  • Managed a team of 3 accounting clerks
  • Duties included VAT & PAYE, Expenses, Budgets, Bank recons, Invoicing, Debtors and Creditors
  • The standard accounting software wasn't sufficient to manage a rental book
  • I developed a rental management program in C# to assist with managing rentals
  • The time taken to finalise bank recons and pay out rent to lessors were reduced from a 7 days to 2 days.

Internal Auditor/due diligence officer

Capitec Bank LTD
01.2000 - 01.2006
  • Duties included audit of policies and procedures within the organization, fraud investigations, conversion audits, auditing of cash and bank statements, verifying of information, auditing of electronic payment systems, auditing and evaluation of bad debt follow-up and handover, reporting of audit findings and risk analyses.

Education

Post Graduate Diploma - Management Science

Henley Business School
Sandton, South Africa
07.2024

No Degree - Data Monetization Strategy

MIT Sloan School of Management
07.2024

Bachelor of Science - Applied Mathematics & Statistics

University of South Africa
Pretoria, South Africa
04.2020

No Degree - Data Science Bootcamp

NYC Data Science Academy
New York
12.2018

Online Programme - Statistical Learning

Stanford
Online
04.2016

Skills

  • Python, Scala, SQL, Spark, QlikView

  • Decision-Making

  • Relationship Building

  • Analytical and Critical Thinking

  • Verbal Communication

  • Cultural Awareness

  • Fluent in English, Afrikaans

Competency

C#, MSSQL, QlikView, QlikSense, R, Python, Spark, Scala, Hadoop, Hive, C++, SAS JMP, VB.net, Stakeholder management, communication and presentation at senior levels., Data engineering, Feature engineering and modelling using machine learning techniques., Data visualisation and exploratory data analysis., Data gathering, extraction, manipulation and integration., Design, development and implementation of Data Science and Business Intelligence solutions., Scoping client projects, gathering business requirements and managing the implementation of solutions.

Continued Education

  • NYC Data Science Academy - Data Science Bootcamp (2018)
  • Stanford - Statistical Learning (Statement of accomplishment - Apr '16)
  • Various MOOC's: Hadoop / Spark, Python, Exploratory data analysis, Machine learning, Bayesian statistics

Personal Information

ID Number: 790605 5003 082

Timeline

Head: Advanced Analytics

Absa Group Limited
08.2022 - Current

Senior BI Consultant

KPI Management Solutions
01.2011 - 01.2016

SAP Business One add-on development manager

xtendBI (PTY) LTD
01.2010 - 01.2011

SAP Business One and QlikView Consultant

xtendBI (PTY) LTD
01.2008 - 01.2010

Financial Manager

Bitflow Real Estate
01.2006 - 01.2007

Internal Auditor/due diligence officer

Capitec Bank LTD
01.2000 - 01.2006

Specialist Data Scientist

Absa Group Limited
1 2017 - 08.2022

Post Graduate Diploma - Management Science

Henley Business School

No Degree - Data Monetization Strategy

MIT Sloan School of Management

Bachelor of Science - Applied Mathematics & Statistics

University of South Africa

No Degree - Data Science Bootcamp

NYC Data Science Academy

Online Programme - Statistical Learning

Stanford

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Werner Brenkman