HELLO "GENTLE READER."
Welcome to my site where you can get to know me better and learn about a handful of brands and projects that I've been a part of. This is the "long version" and so if you're more of a "in and out," or visual person...
Let's Get to know each other
The Backstory
Bienvenido a Miami
Driven by an insatiable curiosity about the future—whether it's societies, connections, data, tech, creativity, or ethics—I’ve embarked on a global adventure from Asia-Pacific to Europe and now, to the United States. I've worn a variety of hats (sometimes stacked on top of each other!) including Chief Technology Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Global Head - Data Science and Analytics.
My core mission? Blending innovation with social cohesion in everything I do. This means orchestrating diverse teams with a kaleidoscope of perspectives, building digital products that challenge the status quo, and crafting solutions that address business challenges while paving the way for future opportunities. In essence, I merge cutting-edge design with smart tech to solve problems, delight users, and create value for clients, communities, and stakeholders.
I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the world’s leading brands, working with government and economic development bureaus, and supporting nonprofit causes.
I’m an active member of the executive leadership network, Chief, and in 2024, I had the honor of being invited by North Miami's Vice Mayor Estimé-lrvin to speak at North Miami’s Women’s History Month event, addressing a crowd of around 200. Mid-year, I proudly represented Miami at Harvard’s Young American Leaders Program—a select group of 140 cross-sector innovators from across the nation working on topics like equitable societies, infrastructure revitalization, and improving schools and healthcare, and was named by Data Science Salon as one of 250 global leaders to watch/follow, for setting standards and breaking barriers in AI. Later this year I will be a panelist at Data Science Salon’s “Using AI & Machine Learning in the Enterprise.”
INDUSTRY FIRSTS, FINDS & FIXES
From FAANG to MAMAA
Let's dive into some standout moments from my career! I’ve had the chance to partner with industry giants like Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook) as a beta contributor, shaping cool products such as Google’s travel engine and their DMP (now Google Marketing Platform), as well as Facebook’s audience insights tools.
At Publicis Groupe, I worked with Microsoft on Marcel.AI, pushing the boundaries of cognitive intelligence as we both expanded our AI capabilities. Plus, I teamed up with MediaMath and Cision to launch the first-ever pixeled press release tool, blending paid, owned, and earned media into one powerful package. And let’s not forget my work with DBS Bank, where I pioneered programmatic media strategies that boosted ROI—some of which even made it into McKinsey’s book "Rewired."
When it comes to finding and fixing things, I’ve had some real wins. For instance, I uncovered game-changing data for global healthcare leader Sanofi through a multi-touch attribution and site content analysis, revealing a lucrative market opportunity in Asia that added millions in revenue. And in 2022, when a global ad server from a MAMAA brand faced a major outage, I swooped in to consult and troubleshoot. Within hours, I identified the root cause, proposed solutions, and within 24 hours, delivered recommendations that revamped their operating model, QA process, and technical support.
From industry firsts to fixing critical issues, it’s been an exciting journey of innovation and problem-solving!
Early CAREER
Advertising | Journalism | Marketing | Technology | Research | Data Science & Analytics
Rewind to the early 2000s, and my career was a whirlwind of business and digital transformation, from advertising to editorial and then into marketing technology and enterprise. Launching this journey was a pile of dusty boxes and files being used by a marketing team, and a lack of automation between sales and logistics at an early employer. This wouldn’t do! That’s when I kicked off my data, tech and marketing journey by commissioning the first international CRM database, CMS, and logistics management tool. This catapulted my career into the heart of digital transformation, where I designed and rolled out enterprise infrastructure programs, automating everything imaginable—end-to-end business and marketing segmentation, customer workflows, supply chains, payment gateways, event systems, and beyond.
The tech world quickly became my playground, filled with acronyms and gadgets like DSPs, DMPs (for that programmatic media magic), CRMs, CMSs, CDPs, mass commuications tools and an ever-changing search and social media landscape. Managing teams from five to fifty and juggling budgets from thousands to millions, I pulled optimization levers and navigated it all with project management tools. My days were a thrilling mix of experimentation tools, tagging, pixeling, and business intelligence dashboards.
In a nutshell, I turned chaos into clarity, using tech and strategy to create streamlined, efficient, and impactful solutions, wrapping it in strategy and marketing communications program that consistently saw success.
Moving into a Focus on Data & Technology
Let’s dive into my data and tech adventure! I’m all about delivering near-time reporting, analytics, and data visualization, steering projects across digital products, recommender systems, cognitive intelligence, websites, and app development. Whether it’s A/B testing, multivariate analysis, Shapley Values, or Markov chains, I’ve had my hands on a lot—from app stability to battling HTTP floods and crafting brand strategies. Naturally, data lakes, data cubes and graph databases have a part of the journey!
Two standout pieces of feedback that always make me smile are: "Rebecca teaches you how to fish," and "Although Rebecca is a leader, she’ll roll up her sleeves and get in there with you." I guess that’s a nice way of saying I’m both a mentor and a doer!
Now, you might wonder how I ended up in this data-driven tech space. Well, my journey wasn’t exactly traditional. With a background in sociology and consumer behavior, plus an MBA and a Master of Research, I find both qualitative and quantitative data naturally fascinating. Yep, I get a real kick out of running focus groups, surveys, ethnographic studies, and using repertory grids. Data and tech are my playgrounds, and I’m here for every exciting challenge they bring!
that's a wrap
And last but not least, I’ve had a blast leading Data Science, DataOps, DevOps teams as we’ve addressed data privacy and governance related to GDPR, COPPA, and CCPA with legal teams (considering what this means for models and bias); tackled semantic search; developed algorithms and personalization with DE&I and ethical AI as principal considerations; and deployed URL, site tagging, and pixel strategies to support these CI/CD endeavors.
Not to mention all of this as it intersection with my work leading strategy and integrated marketing communications to drive awareness, acquisition and retention, helping brands stay ahead of the curve in today's and tomorrow's digital landscape, but I did say this was a wrap...
Now that you’ve gotten to know me, please skip ahead to the Connect page if you want me to get to know you!
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