Armin Kakas

Revify Analytics

Revify helps mid-market businesses ($10MM - $2B) move from data overload to profitable action. Our RGM-as-a-Service combines accessible, advanced analytics with expert Pricing & Revenue Growth Management advisory, providing a clear roadmap to unlock hidden margin leaks and drive revenue growth without enterprise-level complexity or cost.

Co-Founder

Revology Analytics

Revology Analytics is at the intersection of Advanced Analytics and Revenue Growth Management and specializes in impact and execution. If profitable growth, EBITDA expansion, and higher valuations are your goals, our strategies can help you achieve them.

We help mid-market companies ($10 million to $1 billion in revenues) overcome hurdles and elevate their business with pragmatic solutions focused on three critical areas:

1. Pricing & Revenue Management

2. Sales & Marketing Enablement

3. Commercial Analytics Transformation

Founder | Managing Partner

Pricing Lever

Consulting Partner for boutique Pricing Strategy advisory firm focused on Industrial Manufacturing and Distribution.

Consulting Partner

EBITDA Catalyst

Consulting partner for a specialized Revenue Management consultancy for middle-market and private equity portfolio companies. My advisory work focuses on three primary areas:

1. Margin Analytics & Optimization: Building 90/10 custom solutions for mid-market firms, primarily Manufacturers and Distributors, who want to augment their decision-making capabilities.

2. Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization: From distributors to retailers, provides crucial expertise to maximize ROI in this critical lever of profitability.

3. Sales & Customer Growth Analytics: Building on all-around analytics chops & deep understanding on the human sales execution factor, enables growth with both insights and Sales teams training & playbook development.

Reliancy

Senior Advisor for leading Sales & Marketing Enablement AI/ML advisory firm.

Senior Advisor - Revenue Growth Analytics

American Tire Distributors

I co-founded, built and scaled ATD’s first ever corporate analytics startup, driving incremental profits, valuation and industry profile for parent company ATD. Reporting to subsidiary CEO, I steered the data monetization strategy and execution of customer-facing ML-enabled SaaS solutions, growing the business from 0 to over 2,500 retail locations and manufacturers as customers. Additionally, drove ATD’s analytics transformation by prioritizing and building internal enterprise analytics solutions that augmented organizational decision-making capabilities, shifting the business to a data-driven culture.

A few key accomplishments in this role include:
• Forged key strategic partnerships with 10 of the 15 largest Point-of-Sale (POS) providers in the automotive aftermarket industry. Opened new revenue streams and paved the way for monetization of syndicated, anonymized POS transactional data.
• Led 15-member commercialization team (data translators, business development and sales ops managers) and influenced 50-member technical team to build innovative SaaS solutions that solved key customer pain points in competitive market and pricing insights, inventory management and optimization and profit / sales mix optimization.
• Realized substantial revenue and EBITDA growth for parent company in 3 years after conceptualizing and launching advanced analytics products across supply chain, revenue management and sales. 
• Represented analytics startup at industry conferences and served as trusted advisor and AI-translator to both ATD senior executive team and key clients within tire industry.

Vice President, Advanced Analytics Commercialization: Chief Customer Officer of Analytics Incubator

I was brought on to transition the revenue management function into a data science-driven department. I shifted the department to a Lean framework and expanded pricing capabilities by creating the company’s first in-house machine learning-enabled pricing solution that improved cash flow and liquidity using R, Python and Google Cloud SQL. 

Key accomplishments in this role include:
• Through architecting and deploying clearance price optimization platform, unlocked $300M in liquidity and $15M in gross profits from unproductive inventory despite difficult market.
• Developed and deployed descriptive and diagnostic price and margin analytics dashboards companywide using Tableau.

Director, Advanced Analytics: Head of Pricing and Margin Analytics of $5B Enterprise

Wells Enterprises

Recruited to transform administratively focused pricing team into strategic revenue growth management (RGM) group with analytics and strategy foundation for top 5 manufacturer of frozen desserts. Built RGM function from ground up, delivering volume and profit growth and providing actionable performance insights that optimized decision making. Shapeshifted business strategy and culture by establishing four key capabilities: 1) pay-for-performance mindset for promotions; 2) value-based pricing for private label business; 3) advanced analytics driven pricing architecture; 4) dynamic scenario analyses and optimization.

• Achieved 5% and 3% EBITDA growth in FY16 and FY17 despite relatively flat industry. Employed strategic price increases, restructured rebate programs across all channels, implemented rigorous pricing council reviews, and optimized price pack architecture.
• Brought order to chaotic pricing structure process by selecting team of 8 to create and implement standardized pricing strategy and processes and right size price and product positioning based on perceived price-value maps.
• Drove 13% in total Gross Profit $ in FY16 (+11% in unit volume and +2% in GP$ per unit) for anchor brand via tiered pricing strategy and optimized promotion plans that maximized in-store display and advertising support.
• Orchestrated launch of Tableau server and promotional data warehouse migration in MS Azure. Enabled self-serve descriptive and diagnostic price and margin analytics companywide. 
• Harmonized shipment and sellout data to produce macro- and micro-level promotion effectiveness platform that raised ROI from 80% to 92% in 1.5 years.

Director, Revenue Growth Management: Head of RGM and Advanced Analytics of $2B Consumer Goods Co. 

Best Buy

Accelerated dynamic pricing capabilities as lead of data science team in pricing and merchandising strategy analytics. Masterminded strategy and blueprint for pricing strategy across 1K+ stores. Engineered algorithmic framework to implement dynamic pricing for physical and online stores. Led global team to develop innovative solutions that drove business growth.
•	Designed pricing science roadmap, authored descriptive/predictive analytics capabilities, and directly contributed to the evolution and adoption of human capital/resources.
•	Cut 70% of budget by insourcing strategic planning and implementation function enterprise wide. 
•	Produced 30+bps jump in gross margin after introducing adaptive pricing techniques / capabilities.
•	Won Leadership Award for personal impact based on transformational strategies within pricing function.

Head of Price Analytics & Modeling: Building and Implementing Dynamic Pricing for $50B Retailer

MillerCoors

Collaboratively led a talented, tenured team of analytics professionals responsible for all aspects of revenue management for 500+ distributors and approximately 4k Walmart/Sam’s Club stores.

♦ Drafted an organizational roadmap for retail chain revenue management capabilities. Realized category and margin growth with the use of advanced price analytics.
♦ Successfully delivered unique and specific insights through a combination of integrated data and machine learning methods. Improved the quality and sustainability of newly presented insights.

Manager, Pricing Analytics and Strategy: Head of RGM for $700M Walmart / Sam’s Club Business Unit

GE Capital

♦ June 2011 - June 2012: Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE) Leader
♦ June 2008 - June 2011: Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECLP) Participant/Graduate
- 3rd ECLP rotation: Marketing Analytics (GE Capital Retail Consumer Finance - now Synchrony Financial)
- 2nd ECLP rotation: Marketing Analytics & Strategy (Vendor Finance - now part of Wells Fargo)
- 1st ECLP rotation: Price Analytics & Strategy (Equipment Finance - now part of Wells Fargo)
- ECLP Internship: Corporate Finance

Commercial and Consumer Finance Analytics and Strategy (various)

Revenue Growth Analytics advisor to executives in charge of growing Net Revenue, Gross Profit, and Sales Productivity | Posts and articles about Revenue Management + Machine Learning insights, methods, and processes.

As the founder of Revology Analytics, I have the privilege of offering mid-market businesses unparalleled expertise in advanced Revenue Growth Analytics & Management, focusing on three core advisory areas: Pricing & Revenue Management, Sales & Marketing Enablement and Commercial Analytics Transformation efforts. 

Beyond my advisory work, I am the creator of the Revology Analytics Insider, a bi-weekly newsletter offering readers unique insights into the world of Revenue Growth Analytics. You can catch the latest issues on LinkedIn and our website, revologyanalytics.com/articles-insights.

To learn more, please visit revologyanalytics.com

Revology Analytics is a Revenue Growth Analytics consultancy for middle-market companies in the Manufacturing, Retail, and Distribution industries.

We are an impact- and execution-oriented advisory firm founded on Outcome-Based Analytics™, with focused specializations in AI/ML-enabled Margin Analytics & Optimization, Sales & Customer Growth Analytics and Promotion Effectiveness & Optimization.

Genpact

Leads vision, strategy, and execution for all facets of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at this global professional services firm.  Developed a roadmap to evolve the OneAI practice into a world-class billion dollar line of business, developing and delivering innovations in data strategy, MLOPS, computer vision, natural language processing/LLMs and neural networks/deep learning to meet the unique needs of clients in Consumer Goods, Retail, Industrial , Tech/Media/Telecom and Supply Chain sectors.

Vice President of Artificial Intelligence

Stealth Startup

Retained by pre-Series A Logistics and Transportation startup to build architectures and methods for near-real-time MLOPS-based production machine learning and prescriptive analytics products.  Positioned the company to scale into a data-driven provider of industry-changing AI & Analytics service to improve safety, driver utilization, dock and yard, predictive maintenance, and fleet / asset management.
	Provided guidance and direction to the business on data strategy, governance, engagement with venture capitalists, and strategic customer acquisition.
	Served as the architect of a groundbreaking data governance architecture and process to manage risk and the provenance of data assets.
	Developed a framework to train and gather data sets, synthetic data, IOT/sensor data, and image/video data for Computer Vision (CV) applications, as well as textual log data for NLP applications.

EVP, Chief Data & Analytics Officer

Capgemini

•	Global role advancing the Perform AI portfolio including AI Activation & Reimagination; Custom Data Science, MLOPS & Data Engineering at scale; Intelligent Applications & Intelligent Process Automation for North America F500 & European customers. 

•	CxO-facing champion for strategic AI & Analytics pursuits in global target industries including Telecommunications, Media & Technology; Industrial Markets; Energy, Utilities & Natural Resources / Chemical; Consumer Products, Retail & Distribution; & Public Sector. 

•	Focused on Analytics Advisory to CAO/s/CDOs including: establishing Analytics Centers of Excellence (CoE); Advanced Data Strategy & Governance for AI/ML/Big Data; MLOps/DataOps-based Delivery Models and emerging AI use cases, technologies & frameworks.

• Managed relationships and programs with strategic partners including AWS, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Snowflake and others 

•	Subject matter lead on Resilient Supply Chains & Supply Chain Analytics offerings

•	Defined key components of Smart COVID Response offering and managed key partnerships with AWS, Snowflake and others

Vice President, Artificial Intelligence & Analytics

DXC Technology

Coordinated and led AI/ML engagements with clients in multiple industries, with accountability for strategic planning, CoE and governance establishment,  solutions architectures, organizational capacity, and technical delivery.

	Led end to end product development for offerings spanning Revenue Analytics, Reliability Analytics and Innovation Analytics, supervising teams and delivering value propositions, Go to Market strategies, AI/ML designs, operating models, and UX design. Oversaw 12 very senior data science leaders with teams of 16-150 delivery resources.

	Successfully met the needs of clients in the Retail/CG, Freight, Rail, and Logistics industries, providing solutions to maximize the performance of Supply Risk Analytics, Network Optimization, Cube/Load/Lane Analytics, and Cross-Dock operations.

	Worked with clients to create and reboot 34 Analytics Center of Excellence.  Appointed as the North American Lead for the company’s Analytics CoE for the Travel, Transportation, and Hospitality industries.

Lead Data Scientist, AI & Advanced Analytics  

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Customer-facing leader of global data science teams for a wide range of Fortune 100 clients. 

•	Shaped predictive analytics solutions with senior leaders of client enterprises. Conducted client workshops, executive briefings and capability demonstrations. Presented results at conferences.

•	Architected & led development of clustering, segmentation, survey design, market basket analysis, attribution modeling, marketing models for Retail, CPG and Grocery clients using census/ACS, market & syndicated consumer intelligence data. Combined customer profiling with user experience optimization including A/B Testing, clickstream and log flow analysis.

•	Designed Natural Language Processing (NLP), Anomaly Detection, Fraud Discovery and Credit Scoring solutions for start-up and non-traditional financial services and payments providers,

•       Delivered predictive models for Health & Life Sciences/Pharmaceutical customers.

•	Built optimization models featuring linear programming, stochastic optimization and evolutionary optimization for manufacturing (MES using PLC), car and equipment rental clients.

•	Responsible for executing & supervising data profiling, integration (ETL/ELT), transformation, data wrangling and feature engineering and predictive modeling using R (tidyverse, caret), Python (pandas, numpy/scipy, sci-kit learn, spaCy, seaborn, matplotlib), Spark (SparkSQL, MLlib), various deep learning frameworks (CNTK, Keras, TensorFlow, PyTorch) and cloud platforms and tools (Azure ML, Data Factory, App Services, SQL DB & SQLServer; AWS ML, SageMaker; Google GCP & AutoML).

AMS Team Lead | Analytics Solution Principal | Master Level Data Scientist

Ericsson

Served as the architect and data scientist for this telecommunication company’s EnVision platform, which integrated AI/ML, predictive models, forecasts and simulations with blended data from legacy and source systems in a Big Data environment.  Built an innovation team from the ground up and defined the Minimum Viable Product.  Leveraged the use of R, Python, and SQL to extract and scrub source data.

	Optimized annual project streams for north American deployments ranging up to $1B. 

	Advised the team and business on experimental design, feature selection/engineering, choice of algorithm and other factors to optimize models and algorithms.

	Developed prototypes of machine learning models in R as well as dashboards providing insight into project finance and governance, supply chain and network performance.

Program Director | Principal Data Scientist

NearMediaLLC

Leveraged the use of AI, Big Data, Social Media, Mobile, and Cloud architecture to build and scale global business ecosystems.  Worked with clients to explore proofs of concepts centered on risk, compliance, and monetization.  Responsible for $20M in annual revenue.

Client engagements included developing a vision, strategy and architecture for a global analytics platform for UPI, as well as the creation of a global business and data strategy for the leading news agency in Afghanistan.  Used NLP and text mining to help the news agency perform sentiment analysis and multilingual validity checking across online and social media sources.

Executive Vice President  | Chief Data & Analytics Officer

    

Senior Data Scientist, Cox Communications, Atlanta GA

Chief Strategist and Executive Vice President, Multiple Companies in Afghanistan, Egypt, Timor Leste and others.

Chief Executive Officer, webStrategic, Seattle, WA

Senior Vice President, TanData (Acquired by UPS), Seattle WA / Tulsa OK

Vice President, Analytics, E-Commerce & Data Management, USWeb/CKS, WA / CA

Director, Platforms/Technology Alliances, iCat E-commerce (Acquired by Intel), Seattle WA

Principal | Group Product Manager, Business Intelligence Solutions, FourGen (Supply Chain) Software, Seattle, WA

Early Career

National Science Foundation

Analyst and modeling specialist on government-sponsored research projects while pursuing interdisciplinary mathematical modeling PhD under National Science Foundation Fellowship. 

•	Completed graduate courses/independent study in research design and formal methodology, game theory, optimization, social network analysis, modeling, data analysis, statistics and simulation.
 
•	Completed advanced training in SQL, SPSS, SAS, MATLAB and other applications.  

•	Gathered, cleansed, refined, integrated and performed extensive analyses on large multi-country data sets about informal sector economies for the World Bank. 

•	Developed operations models and agent-based simulations in C/C++ for Defense Department.
 
•	Contributed to faculty research using statistical models, including linear and logistic regression, clustering and classification algorithms for data mining, Monte Carlo and Markov Chain simulations.

Graduate Fellow / Independent Consultant

75th Ranger Regiment / Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)

U.S. Army Ranger / Special Operations NCO

	Experienced executive skilled in orchestrating business strategy and operational excellence with a focus on the development of analytics and AI/ML solutions for leading companies in multiple industries.  Holds a broad and deep command of topics in the Data Science, AI/ML and Analytics space.

	Offers a progressive record of results, with the ability to build and lead data, analytics and governance programs for business value that empower companies to enact informed, evidence-based strategic decisions and processes at scale.   Career history encompasses evolution from R&D technologist to delivery lead and solutioning lead, culminating in general and executive management.

	Excels in executive leadership and implementation of planning and execution while developing strategies to meet future challenges. Leads strategic initiatives focused on growth and collaboration, as well as internal process improvement and efficiency.

Areas of Expertise:
* Leadership & Executive Management
* AI/ML/IoT Innovations
* Strategic Planning & Execution
* Data Science / Analytics
* Intelligent Automation
* Process Improvement

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