Chess Player. Yogi. Lead Data Analyst.

Name: Apoorva G.
Job Title: Lead Data Analyst, Credit Operations and Decision Management

Combining passions
I’ve always had an inclination towards math, science and data mining. The analyst role at Discover allows me to combine all my passions (and hone them further). Although, I also like to play chess, practice yoga, cook and eat— we’ll see if that’s ever relevant to my role here!

Gaining exposure
My journey at Discover started as a Data Scientist. I initially worked for the Deposits Pricing and Portfolio Analytics team. There, I gained critical business knowledge on how Discover operates. I learned about our new customer acquisition and existing customer retention strategies. Additionally, I gained experience in analyzing data to set competitive interest rates.

Seeking holistic knowledge
I later moved to the Credit Operations and Decision Management (CODM) team where I got promoted to Lead Data Analyst. My decision to move to a different team to gain more holistic knowledge was widely encouraged. My new team is responsible for developing machine learning models for all the consumer banking and lending products, such as savings accounts, CD accounts, personal loans, student loans, etc. For example, we work on predicting delinquent customers and targeting customers who are likely to open a new product with us.

Finding my way
I now collaborate across multiple teams to ideate new process automation strategies and increase machine learning model efficiency. I’ve explored all the latest technologies and packages, which has greatly strengthened my technical skills. I’ve created effective visualization tools to track the existing models. I’ve worked on automating procedures to improve operating efficiency (and ultimately reduce time spent on monthly/quarterly reports). I’ve brainstormed new techniques to further increase Discover’s product reach. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had so many opportunities to find my own little way at Discover.

Presenting to leadership
Though I was quite new to Discover, within a few months of starting, I was put on a business critical project. The project involved understanding the customer’s behavioral patterns to help us deliver better customer service. I created a study and presented it to our leadership team and business partners. This experience gave me more confidence and honed my storytelling skills. The fact that such a major task was completely trusted to me, at such an early stage in my career at Discover, was truly rewarding.

Feeling trusted
Though I am relatively new to Discover, I was never made to feel out of place or unwelcome. My opinions and thoughts were encouraged from day one. I was actually really surprised by the level of importance given to self-development. Because there’s a culture of learning and growing as a team, self-development feels natural. There are a lot of talented, motivated, and friendly individuals at Discover. It’s the diverse workforce and openness to plurality in thoughts and actions that makes Discover stand out from other companies.