Dr Julia Keddie

• Taught post graduate course Research Project Module for Honours Students (3 years, ± 20 students per year).
• Supervised 5 students for their industry research projects for Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Software and Media Applications (specialization in Data Analytics and Business Intelligence).
• Lectured Financial Risk Management/Credit Risk Modelling/ Predictive Analytics for Masters Students in Data Science (UWC & NWU ± 40 students per year).
• Taught and coordinated Inference and Regression Module for second year students (3 years, ± 145 students per year).
• Supervised and examined 3 Masters in Data Science industry research projects.
• Externally examined 2 students for MSc (Statistics) degree.
• Consulted ad hoc projects in Data Science / Credit Risk Modelling.

• Solutioned and delivered Data Science and Business Intelligence projects to solve client business problems at major financial institutions in South Africa.
• Educated clients about how data science can add value to their business performance and demonstrating this through proof of concepts.
• Co-authored and/or moderated all project documentation, including final business reports to clients.

Examples of projects

• Model to assist with identification of Corporate Banking clients who are likely to be in financial distress in near future. This will assist with process of offering restructured portfolio and creating awareness of potential risk in bank’s portfolio - enable proactive risk management.
• App to provide users with access to premium news articles which are enhanced with set of tags, business lead indicator, and form of summarisation to explore selection of articles without having to read it all.
• QlikSense dashboard to provide users with access to external company and financial information on selection of their own clients, as well as provide external information on companies that are not their clients, within specific markets and sectors.
• Classification model to infer Balance of Payment (BOP) codes for inward cross border payments, by predicting probability of payment being in one of top ten BOP codes. Primary purposes for model are to infer BOP code with high certainty, increase efficiency of processing payments, improve client experience and free up call centre capacity allowing call centre agents to focus on more complex cases.

• Managed Data Science capability.
• Solutioned Data Science projects with data scientist team to solve client business problems.
• Developed learning and development programs for data science team. With technology and digital disruption so pervasive in our everyday lives and that of our clients, there is need for rapid learning and up skilling to keep abreast of latest developments.
• Evolved as Data Scientist especially with reference to host of open sourced software available for problem solving.
• Educated clients about how data science can add value to their business performance and also demonstrating this through proof of concepts.
• Recruited Data Science team.
• Allocated resources by understanding business problem to be solved, ensuring best data scientist for project.

Key Achievements

• Team that reported into me grew from 2 to 12 members in one year.
• Co-authored and/or moderated all Data Science project documents and business reports that were submitted to client.
• Lead Analytics Capability from loss to sustainable and profitable entity.
• Highly respected by team.
• High energy, happy and engaged team.
• Successful Data Science projects and follow-on projects at leading SA Financial Institutions.

• Measured and reported on KPIs and operational performance metrics.
• Managed project : Business Intelligence Implementation.
• Implemented and owned Qlikview as preferred Business Intelligence and Analytic tool in Barloworld Logistics, including Model development, Business Requirements Specifications, Data Integrity Testing, Model verification.
• Interfaced between business and IT with respect to reports and data analytics.
• Solved business problems using Data Mining within Supply Chain Environment.
• Forecasted Warehouse Capacity for 5 Distribution Centres.

Key Achievements

• Successful implementation of central business intelligence platform and Qlikview Models.
• Barloworld Logistics clients able to answer business questions using their own data.

• Interfaced between Supply Chain Planning and Supply Chain Execution at 5 FMCG Distribution Centres.
• Managed Inventory at 5 FMCG National Distribution Centres as well as Inter Facility inventory movements to ensure high levels of availability.
• Prioritised inbound orders to ensure consistent inflow into FMCG Distribution Centres.
• Managed and expedited orders required for outbound deliveries that cannot be executed because of inventory failures.
• Managed process of ensuring re-distribution of inventory between FMCG distribution centre and ensure optimal transport loads.
• Modelled FMCG warehouse capacity to ensure optimum levels of capacity in various distribution centres and prevent over-capacity, specifically within various warehouse racking types.

Key Achievements

• Enabled “one-source of truth” and reliable performance measurement within FMCG client environment.
• Built Qlikview Model for managing risk, answering business questions, operational reporting and KPI reporting for FMCG client.

• Optimised Supply Chain with specific focus on analysis and interpretation of large volumes of transactional data – included model simulation.
• Engaged with clients directly as part of Virtual Network Consultant team.
• Specified data required and collected data – often engaged directly with IT Divisions of client to ensure accurate data.
• Found “quick wins” for optimisation and longer term gains through data interrogation.
• Engaged as part of execution team to ensure effective roll-out of optimisation plans.

Key Achievements

• Optimised courier delivery environment for Nucleus Supply Chains.
• Built simulation model for business decision making by Nucleus Supply Chains.

• Owned, managed and ensured successful implementation of all Aftersales strategies and projects.
• Managed and implemented restructure process to form highly skilled and motivated team to ensure effective support and leadership of projects and strategies within Aftersales.
• Managed 10 specialist mid-management team.