Joel Davis is a Clinical Professor in the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida. Joel has 25 years of commercial experience in analytics, AI, and business operations. Most recently he was Chief Strategy Officer at Revenue Management Solutions, a company that assists the restaurant and retail industry identify profitability opportunities through data-driven analytics, where he was responsible for leading the company’s emerging analytics and data strategy discipline. His current research is focused on the integration of analytics and artificial intelligence solutions into business decision-making, and effective AI solution adoption strategies within corporations. In addition to his clinical faculty role, Joel also serves as the Executive Director of the David F. Miller Retail Center at Warrington.

Jim Hoover received his undergraduate degree in Accounting from the University of South Florida. He currently is a Clinical Professor with an extensive commercial background in operations research and business analytics. He also serves as the Director of the Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Center at the University of Florida. He received his Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Florida. He has published in numerous journals, but much of his research has been in Forecasting with supply chain applications. Jim also currently serves as the Chair of the Foresight Advisory Board overseeing the reach of this journal serving the forecasting practitioner community.

Jim’s teaching efforts have been focused on the application of business analytics and artificial intelligence to solve critical tasks across business domains. He teaches an analytics practicum series of courses where student teams receive real world business problems from partner companies and develop analytics, AI and ML solutions to those problems. Then the student teams develop presentations for company leadership to brief their model results and recommend implementation approaches. In addition to the practicum curriculum, Jim also teaches marketing analytics courses to graduate students at the Warrington College of Business at UF.

Prior to joining the faculty at UF, Jim spent 25 years in the U.S. Navy working in Supply Chain Management and Operations Research. Then, he joined the international management and IT consulting firm, Accenture, where he was a Managing Director and Client Account Lead. During his 10 years at Accenture, Jim also served as the head of the Federal Analytics practice where he was responsible for the development of the practice, hiring and training of data scientists, and quality assurance of analytics projects.

Laz Bello is currently the Supervisor of Scientific Computing at ExxonMobil. He is passionate about driving business value through the connection of people and ideas.

Laz earned a Bachelors of Science in Finance (2006) and a Masters of Science in Information Systems and Operations Management (2011), both from the University of Florida. He began working for ExxonMobil Information Technology doing technical work in the Collaborative and Productivity Solutions department in Houston, TX. He then moved to Clinton, NJ to support ExxonMobil Research and Engineering as an IT Advisor (2016) and more recently as Supervisor of Scientific Computing (2020).

Feel free to reach out to Las on LinkedIn.

Roman Zabaleta is a UF MSISOM alumni (class of 2019). Currently, he is a management consultant at KPMG for cloud transformation offerings and product manager for KPMG’s cloud transformation accelerators/tools. He has sold and delivered the following projects to Fortune 500 companies: AWS/Azure cost optimization, AWS/Azure/Google benchmarking, cloud business case, cloud migration planning, private cloud business case, IT operating model, application rationalization, and IT integration.

Justin Horbacz began his journey at UF in Fall 2016, pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Sport Management. During his time in undergrad, he worked as a Technician at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center and attended multiple data and analytics conferences, piquing his interest in technology. During the Summer of 2020, he graduated from with his Bachelors in Sport Management and was accepted into the MSISOM Program.

Upon joining MSISOM, Justin immediately got involved with AIS. In his first Semester, he held the role of Outreach Coordinator in the Community Outreach and Development Committee. Here, he connected with small business in the Gainesville community to provide relief through the COVID-19 Pandemic. At the end of Fall 2020, Justin was elected the Vice President of the Community Outreach and Development, which he transformed into UF AIS Consulting.

During Spring 2021, Justin led a team of MSISOM Students to provide pro-bono consulting work for five non-profits and one small business. He also built partnerships with Miami Bayside Foundation and Smart North Florida. After the Semester, Justin and a team went to the AIS National Conference to Present on Managing Non-Profit IT Projects in Agile Fashion. Following the conference, Justin was elected President of AIS for the Fall 21-Spring 22 Semesters.

As President, Justin led his team with a goal-oriented mindset and a servant leadership approach. His leadership style allowed the Vice President’s to set their own goals, while Justin provided the support and encouragement needed to attain these. His presidency was defined by the dedication he put into the Students of the MSISOM Program. From career search guidance to mock interviews to being a mental health advocate, Justin knew the importance of being a mentor, and took every opportunity to empower all within the Program and beyond.

Upon his graduation at the end of April, Justin will be moving to Atlanta, Georgia to become a Cyber Security Associate at KPMG. He is extremely excited for this opportunity to continue his personal growth with an amazing firm, and is dedicated to continue giving back to this Program as an Alumni.

Ryan is currently a senior pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance and a minor in Computer Science. During his time at UF, Ryan has served as the President and VP of Finance & Sponsorship in GatorTech, as a mentor in BUMP, and as a mentee in FLA. After graduation, Ryan will be moving to New York City where he will be working for Bank of America as a Financial Management Analyst.

Candan Erenguc is the Chief Operating Officer of Anthropologie Group, a global lifestyle brand which specializes in apparel and accessories, intimates, home furniture and décor, beauty and gifts. Candan leads a team that oversees and executes all operations, inventory, and finance across North America, Canada and the EU for Anthropologie, AnthroLiving, Terrain, and BHLDN.

Before joining Anthropologie, Candan served as the Chief Supply Chain Officer at Away, where she led the operations and technology functions for the brand disruptor, responsible for revolutionizing the luggage industry. At Away, Candan was responsible for spearheading supply chain, sourcing, product development, technology, logistics, and fulfillment. Prior to Away, Candan was the Senior Vice President of Operations Excellence at Lululemon in Vancouver where she led a variety of business transformation and growth initiatives including a global margin improvement program and a digital transformation initiative that spanned technology, process, and creative.

She came to retail after 10 years in consulting, serving clients in retail and consumer products at industry leaders Deloitte and IBM. Candan began her career at Ford Motor’s in Detroit, where she learned operations and technology on the factory floor.

Candan graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in Business and a masters in Operations. She resides in Florida with her husband, 11-year-old twins, and her two stepchildren, and is in the process of relocating to Philadelphia.

Saahil has been a leader in transforming organizations and teams by helping them master Agile and Scaled Agile best practices for over 10 years. He is a passionate Agilist whose thirst for continuous improvement led him to his first Agile Transformation in 2013 and has caused him to push the envelope ever since. He has experience working with large-scale Agile initiatives in a variety of contexts. He has worked with start-ups and small businesses, the Federal Government, and Fortune 500 and 100 companies. Saahil has led multiple SAFe® and Agile Transformations, some internationally, providing portfolio, program, team, and leadership coaching and training. Throughout his career, he has launched 40+ ARTs and Solution Trains. In addition to being a Scaled Agilist and SPCT Candidate, Saahil is a certified Enterprise Business Agility Strategist and is determined to help organizations extend their Agility beyond IT. He has degrees in Mathematics, International Business, and Design Thinking, and he started his career as a Data Scientist, so Saahil is still passionate about DevOps and the metrics behind successful transformations. As a former collegiate rugby player for the University of Florida, Saahil bleeds Orange and Blue and is a die-hard fan of Gator Football.

Joel Davis is the Chief Strategy Officer at Revenue Management Solutions, a technology-enabled consulting company specializing in pricing, data analytics, and machine learning and financial insights in the restaurant and retail industry. Joel oversees the Data Engineering, IT, ML/AI and Human Resources teams in the company. This somewhat rare team composition was designed to support our vision that machine learning and analytics is not just a computer science or statistics function, but one that involves significant human interaction.

Caleb Bonsi is a final semester ISOM Graduate Student on the Business Intelligence & Analytics track. Growing up in Ghana, studying abroad in London, and living in the US has allowed him to develop a global perspective on business as it relates to people, operations, and technology. You can always find him roaming the halls of Hough inviting his peers for game nights at his apartment (things get heated where ‘Taboo’ is concerned). Caleb is an avid fan of Lebron James, the Jacksonville Jaguars (unfortunately), and English Premier League club Manchester City. He has worked previously in the IT Consulting and Investment Management industries at Gartner & UBS Wealth respectively, and spent his last summer as an IT Business Analyst Intern at Jabil, an electronic manufacturing company. Upon graduation, he will be joining Accenture in Atlanta as a Consulting Analyst. On campus, Caleb serves as a Career & Academic Peer Mentor in the Hough Graduate School of Business, and works as a Data Analyst at the Harn Museum of Art. He is passionate about forming meaningful relationships with students and faculty alike while continuing to expand the scope of people he learns from. Caleb likes to tell people that he’s been skydiving, but legend has it he had his eyes closed the entire time.

Gloria Ashiya Katuka is a combined degree student in the ISOM program on Information Technology track. She is the founder of Techarge, a platform that aims to spark the interest of middle and high school students in IT related careers by developing a project-based curriculum to provide them hands-on experience with the goal of integrating an IT curriculum in the middle and high school curriculum within Alachua County. Originally from Northern Nigeria, she is always looking to making an impact on her community through various outreach programs, both in Nigeria or in Gainesville. You can find her at Gainesville every Tuesday for the “Tech Tuesdays” afterschool program or packing a bag to travel to Nigeria for a weekend Hackathon. She currently works with Africa Teen Geeks on hosting regional and global events under the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Education for Justice initiative, which is sponsored by companies like Symantec, Facebook and Google. Gloria has worked in IT Strategy, Planning and Business Operations, and IT ERP and Databases Services with Symantec for the past two summers, and is returning next summer as an IT Telecommunication and Network Security Intern. On campus, she is a Programming Director for Freshman Leadership Council and the VP of Community Development and Outreach with AIS. She is very passionate about IT education for middle and high school students everywhere and works incessantly to provide every student with the right access to the specific skills to be successful. When she is not studying, advocating for tech education, and shaping the minds of freshmen, she is working on a startup company called Attyc.

Madison Ross is a fourth-year, UF student studying Information Systems and Economics. Her roles on campus include career coaching as a Career & Academic Peer (CAP) Mentor and facilitating content on topics such as data analytics, cybersecurity, and web development as President of GatorTech. In her free time, she records episodes of ‘The Cheddar’ podcast to establish a support system to encourage more women to pursue careers in technology. Upon graduation, she will start full time with Protiviti as a Technology Consultant.

Gary McGill is the Director of the Fisher School of Accounting, an Associate Dean in the Warrington College of Business, and holds the J. Roy Duggan Endowed Professorship in Accounting. He held the PwC Endowed Professorship from 1999 to 2011. Professor McGill is a CPA and spent several years in practice at Ernst & Whinney in Dallas before earning his PhD at Texas Tech University in 1988 and joining the faculty at the University of Florida. He teaches various graduate and undergraduate tax and accounting courses, including a graduate course in international taxation. Professor McGill has published over 50 journal articles, book chapters, or research reports. He provided invited testimony to the Senate Finance Committee hearings on Enron in 2003, is the co-author of several books, including U.S. Tax Aspects of Doing Business Abroad (AICPA), and is the recipient of competitive research grants from Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Price Waterhouse, the AICPA, the Andrus Foundation, Fannie Mae’s Housing Policy Research Division, the National Association of Realtors, and the National Homebuilder’s Association. He received the JATA Outstanding Paper Award in 2012 (with M. Donohoe) and the ATA Outstanding Manuscript Award in 2005 (with E. Outslay). Professor McGill has served on the editorial boards of The Journal of the American Taxation Association and Advances in Taxation and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Accounting Literature. He has served on the boards of several national academic organizations and is past President of the Federation of Schools of Accountancy (FSA). He was awarded the FSA/Joseph A. Silvoso Faculty Merit Award in 2015 and he was the inaugural recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Faculty Award in 2015 from the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. Professor McGill has received numerous teaching awards at UF and he is a frequent lecturer on international tax, federal tax, and accounting for income taxes for academic, government, and professional organizations.

Jim Hoover brings deep expertise in decision information sciences, analytics and supply chain combined with an experience-based understanding of the Navy’s mission to his role as lead for Accenture Federal Services Navy account.

He served for 25 years in the Navy, retiring as a Captain in the Navy Supply Corps in 2009. During his Navy Career, he served operationally in a surface ship, at an air station and in a submarine. His military specialty was Operations Research, leading Operations Research teams solving supply chain and logistics problems at Headquarters levels in OPNAV, the Defense Logistics Agency, NAVSUP Headquarters, and the Naval Inventory Control Point.

Hoover joined Accenture in August 2009. Since that time, he initially worked on several projects supporting the Defense Logistics Agency including: advanced analytics for inventory and supply chain; business case analysis for distribution operations; and procurement optimization and procurement risk analysis. He was promoted to Managing Director at Accenture in 2012, and currently serves as the Navy Account lead for Accenture Federal Services. His teams work with Navy clients supporting Financial Auditability, Navy ERP SAP sustainment/build efforts, Naval Shipyard Maintenance applications, IT strategy, analytics and training.

In January 2014, he also became the analytics lead for Accenture Federal Services encompassing the technical big data solutions, business intelligence, visual analytics and also the advanced analytics teams supporting Federal clients. This work encompasses oversight of analytics projects across the Federal Government that include: Human Capital Analytics, Fraud Detection, Intelligence Analytics, and Big Data applications.

Hoover is 2017 graduate of the University of Florida, receiving a Doctor of Business Administration degree with research focused on Analytics. He also holds an MBA with a concentration in Decision Information Sciences and an undergraduate business degree in Accounting.

Outside of his work with Accenture, he has briefed analytics projects and approaches at various conferences including INFORMS and SAS, and was the Industry Co-Chair of the ACT-IAC Analytics and Big Data Committee from January 2014 to December 2015.

Matthew McCarville currently works at PwC in a strategic, analytical and managerial role that involves everything from managing a highly educated L&D analytics team, developing automated reports, interactive dashboards, and data visualizations with SPSS/SAS/MicroStrategy/R Studio/Excel Power BI tools/Tableau, to data mining with SQL/Teradata, pioneering informal learning analytics with Watershed, JSON and xAPI, designing/developing new L&D approaches and metrics, and designing research methods to evaluate a broad range of adult learning interventions.

Matthew is also a dedicated educator and adjunct professor for multiple distinguished universities in analytics, marketing and economics. He is currently finishing his Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) in Strategy and Business Intelligence Analytics and earned an MS in Business Intelligence Analytics (BIA), an MBA in Management and I.T., as well as a Masters Certificate in Agile and Waterfall Project Management all at Creighton University. He has also completed a Professional Certificate in Big Data at M.I.T., a Professional Certificate in Descriptive Data Analytics at Boise State and completed the Business Analytics: Leveraging Data Executive Education Program at Georgia Tech.

Recently, Matthew and his wife, Katie, relocated to Gainesville from the Midwest so she could accept an Associate Director position for MBA Business Career Services after a career in recruiting, human resources and higher education. Together, they enjoy spending time with their four dogs, 25+ family members in Florida, traveling, boating, and escaping to the beach whenever possible.

Paul Prusakowski has been in the field of orthotics and prosthetics for over 20 years and he is the owner of an O&P clinical practice with offices in Gainesville, Florida and Chattanooga, Tennessee. His practices work closely with the local medical communities to provide a well-coordinated, patient centered approach to care for the amputee and disabled populations that they serve.

Paul has been very active in his professional career, serving as president of the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists, and currently serving as immediate past president of the National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics and Prosthetics. He is an active participant in a variety of committees across a number of organizations.

In addition to clinical care, Paul’s ultimate goal is to improve the orthotics and prosthetics profession through a multi-pronged, technology-based approach.

In 1995, he launched OANDP-L – a moderated global discussion forum connecting thousands of clinicians and researchers.

In 1995, he established the O&P profession’s information portal (www.oandp.com).

In 1999 he founded O&P Digital Technologies, which developed the industry standard electronic medical records and workflow management system. The product, OPIE Software, establishes a high level of standardized clinical documentation workflow that integrates outcome measures and tools.

He is currently conducting research on 3D printing of orthotic components and mining data from clinics across the country to tease out the most cost-saving methods of workflow management.

By establishing an industry/professional standard of documentation and workflow management, and testing it in his own clinic, Paul seeks to create the ability to measure outcomes and establish benchmarks across the profession that have never been measurable before. This outcomes data is essential for establishing justification of clinical significance of treatment protocols. It will also be required by insurance companies and government agencies to support reimbursement in the future for the amputee population.

The goals and underlying philosophy of the OPIE Software Company are to promote a truly Person Centered / Outcome Driven approach to patient care within the Orthotic and Prosthetics profession. The effectiveness and potential of this platform to influence change across a profession has resulted in ongoing collaborative projects with the Amputee Coalition as well as with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Paul is committed to integrating more Patient Centered tools and resources into this application, and educating more than 1,700 clinical facilities across the US, Canada, and Australia on new models of care that will result in better clinical outcomes for the patients served by the O&P profession.

Bhavya Setia is currently a graduate student in the Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM) Program at the University of Florida. She began her studies in Fall 2017. Bhavya quickly got involved in Association for Information System (AIS), which is a graduate student run organization. She first joined as a member for the Professional Development and Leadership committees and is currently serving as AIS President. Bhavya has also served as an Executive Secretary for Toastmasters International Club and was awarded the Competent Leader Award. She has gathered relevant experience in multi-disciplinary technical and management domains. Bhavya has taken up roles across Business Analysis, Cloud ERP Consulting, Pre-sales, System design and Data Analysis during her time with Tata Consultancy Service before pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Florida.

Ryan Sheppard is a graduate Information Systems and Operations Management student. He has previously interned at Nielsen in software development roles. Ryan has served on the executive board of Data Science and Informatics and has served as various roles for GatorTech, including VP of Technology and currently President. After graduation, Ryan will be working as a Site Reliability Engineer at Nielsen in New York City.

Megha is a Manager in Protiviti’s Information Security and Privacy practice in Orlando, Florida. She has a strong background in Information Security and IT consulting experience across multiple industries, including Healthcare, Theme Parks and Entertainment, Hospitality, Banking, Retail, and Insurance.

Megha manages and leads IT Security and Privacy engagements, specializing in topics such as end-to-end encryption, tokenization, EMV chip card technology, mobile device management solutions, network architecture, identity and access management, vulnerability assessments and penetration testing, social engineering, vendor management, and incident response. Megha has experience in conducting assignments based on various industry standards, which include Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Unified Compliance Framework (UCF), Software Assurance Maturity Model (SAMM), and Sarbanes – Oxley Compliance (SOX). She is a member of ISSA and ISACA, and is a frequent speaker for a variety of audiences and organization at the University of Florida.

Jim is a former JC Penney buyer. He managed or bought key categories in Men’s, Children’s and Home Textiles throughout his 20+ year career. Recognizing a trend that retailers were increasing their expectations of the supplier base, Jim founded ERS in 2002 to help improve the retail business acumen of suppliers. Jim has been featured or quoted in several publications including Apparel, Toy Licensing, HFN and The Washington Times. He has conducted seminars at industry associations and trade shows including MAGIC and Retail Smarter. Jim is frequently asked to guest lecture at his alma mater, The University of Florida at the Miller Center for Retailing and was selected to join its Executive Advisory Board.

Doug is currently the manager of ExxonMobil’s Service Desk offerings, with a world-class omni-channel offering that leverages people, knowledge, and technologies to automate the routine and deliver value beyond traditional Help Desk offerings. With over 100,000 internal customers distributed across the globe, ExxonMobil IT has been a leader in delivering solutions that enable business performance in an increasingly competitive industry. Doug has been one of these customers himself throughout his 22 year career, joining Exxon in 1995 and initially applying his engineering skills to solve subsurface imaging challenges – utilizing the world’s largest private supercomputing cluster and innovative algorithms to perform complex time-depth migrations. Since then, he has held a variety of positions in the Upstream, Downstream, and IT components of the business in Houston and Fairfax before bringing his customer perspectives to the Service Desk.

Roger Matias is a Technical Clinical Specialist with Werfen Group. He has a Bachelor’s of Science in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Global Technological Leadership from Michigan Technological University. He possesses highly developed technical skills as well as keen business and strategic planning skills. According to StrengthsFinder, Roger’s top five themes are Strategic, Analytical, Ideation, Responsibility, and Competition.

Awais Shah graduated with a double major in Economics and Finance followed by a Masters in Information Systems and Operations Management with a specialization in Data Analytics from UF in April 2016. Shah has been working as a Database Consultant for the Department of Transportation and as a Financial Consultant for various companies in Florida, implementing Oracle Fusion solutions. Additionally, during Shah Master’s program, he worked with Luxottica for a project that was aimed at reducing shrink. The results of which were implemented and showed a positive impact on average.

Harshpreet Khurana (Isha) received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from the University of Florida. She joined the Master’s in Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM) in Fall 2015. While in the ISOM program, Isha quickly got involved with Associated Information System (AIS), which is a graduate student run organization. As part of AIS, Isha served as Vice President of Alumni Relations in Spring 2016, and later as President in Fall 2016. Outside of school, Isha has a passion for music and dancing. Though she has never had any formal training, Isha is able sing and compose music on the harmonium. Currently, Isha is choreographing a Punjabi folk dance called “Bhangra” for an upcoming community festival. She is a thrill seeker who loves roller-coasters and most adventurous activities. Isha will be graduating this April and is looking forward to beginning her career with Citi’s Technology Leadership Program. Go Gators!

Rachel is a fourth year Information Systems major with a minor in International Development & Humanitarian Assistance. She has previously held internships ranging from technology to strategy roles at General Electric, Nielsen Media, and the United Nations. She served on the executive board of the Campus Diplomats; the advisory board of the Florida Leadership Academy; a Cap Mentor, and as the co-founder and current president of GatorTech, the first undergraduate information systems organization. Post-graduation, Rachel will start as a Business Technology Analyst at Deloitte Federal Consulting in Washington, DC.