Eric Prideaux

Background

About Eric Prideaux

I’m Director of Data Intelligence at Expana, which annually releases millions of data points, empowering negotiators and helping transform the procurement process. Our partners include producers, traders, public sources and industry experts who help us ensure the quality of our live market time series, as well as the intelligence reporting and analytics they inform. The role of Data Intelligence is to surface strategic insights from Expana's ocean of data for senior colleagues in Sales, Marketing and Editorial. In Data Intelligence's first month alone, we changed the way our company can exploit signals emerging from across multiple data streams. I previously managed a team of coders and data-capture analysts whose functions include quantitative analysis and support for forecasting, data science, automation, data quality, data insight, internal UX, data-quality KPIs, support for marketing and sales-team support for customer acquisition and retention. During my tenure at Expana, I have lead introduction of the company's first data-science (machine learning for anomaly detection), its first artificial intelligence (to support the sales team as well as quality control) and the first statistical analysis of time series (for quality control, task optimisation and customer support). We introduced MySQL-driven Django as a framework for tracking data anomalies and managing issues, with R- and Python-based analytics layered above for statistical quality control and task prioritisation (which evolved into systems supporting sales as well as other internal insight analytics); introduced analytics and internal front end for price-trend analysis; coded R-based analytics to optimise team management; built customised systems to manage automation workflow, using API; and built a data culture to promote idea sharing and innovation (an example of which is AI for sales support). Based in London since 2008, I have worked at several respected UK firms in senior data-analytics and editorial roles. Before 2008, I spent more than a decade in Japan as a wire and newspaper features writer, reporting-in Japanese-on commodity markets, corporations, energy, society, politics and culture. I doubled as photographer. In 2013, I earned a certificate (with distinction) in data analysis from Johns Hopkins University/Coursera. This survey course in data science employed the powerful R language specifically designed for statistical data analysis. I later learned Python. My team and I today use Python, R, SQL/MySQL/PostgreSQL, Mongo and Neo4j to harness data.