Intervju med Ardeshir Razmyar
Program: Master's program in Management
Specialization: Management
Start of education: 2009
Title: Senior Analyst, Analytics Data Operations
Current employer and country of residence:
I live in the United States and currently working at Lowe's Companies, Inc., a fortune 47 American company that operates a chain of retail home improvement and appliances stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Founded in 1946 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, Lowe's has 1,840 stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico and since 2010 the Head Quarter moved to Mooresville, NC, just about 32 miles (51 km) up from Charlotte, NC, the biggest city in the state of North Carolina. Lowe's is the second-largest home improvement, hardware and appliances company both globally and in the United States.
A few words about your work tasks and responsibilities:
As a senior analyst in Analytics Data Operation group, I am in charge of leading data science and analytics projects to support different parts of the business. For example, to maximize the turnover of a marketing campaign, our group sends the marketing team a list of customers with the highest purchasing probability.
Then the marketing team will send a customized campaign message (a personalized message for each individual) to each of these customers.
Another example, the project that I am leading now, is to support our enterprise analytics team in finding the main factors that drive traffic to our stores and increase the conversion (conversion = total number of sales in a day / total number of people came to the store at the same day)
On a daily bases, skills and knowledge in business, project management, computer programming and statistics helps me to do my job.
Why you chose the Master’s program that you studied at USBE:
I studied Master in Management at USBE and I loved every part of it. Before applying to USBE, I researched on the courses offered for the Master’s program and I realized that all are the courses that I am passionate about and I wanted to learn.
I've always enjoyed critical and analytical thinking and have always been fascinated by approaching a problem from different perspectives and being able to solve it.
The master program at USBE helped me to acquire the critical thinking skill, approach a problem from different perspectives and the most important helped me to understand different options and opinions
What your specialty was during your Bachelor studies:
I started my bachelor study in Mathematics, however later I switched my discipline to Public Management.
A few words about how you got your current job for example which previous employments were the stepping stones in reaching your current position:
I remember when my professor, at USBE, in project management course told us about Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. I also recall that we had guess lecturers from PMI chapter in Sweden and they told us about the benefits of PMP. Time passed and after graduation, I immigrated to the U.S. and as a new immigrant who had studied outside of the U.S. I had difficulties in finding a job.
I had a few years of project management experience and took all the courses required for project management at USBE, therefore, I was qualified to obtain the PMP certificate. I studied for the exam and then got the certification and that was the gate opener for me to land on my first job at IBM.
After being with IBM for a year and half, with more experience in the realm of analytics and I found out about analytics and data science which has the exact mixture of skills and knowledge that I like very much as a career. Having a degree in business and management, background in programming, and two years of studies in Mathematics made me a person with enough knowledge and capabilities for the position that I have at Lowe's currently.
Any advice you would like to give to current students at USBE:
In general, I believe life is like crossing a wild river. As long as you hold onto a rope and don't lose your believes and perspectives, you'll pass the river safe and sound, though moving up and down during its crossing. We don't know what will be our next step, but if we have a framework, stick to our beliefs, and accept feedbacks to improve on our frameworks and beliefs, we are in good hands. In particular, listen more and talk less. Be kind to others and enjoy your time especially living in Umea and at USBE now.
You all are welcome to send me email if you have further questions: arazmyar@gmail.com