Susan Walsh - The Classification Guru

The Classification Guru Ltd

I love improving the quality of procurement spend data, giving teams clarity so they can make better business decisions and cost savings.

Why not let me take the pain out of laborious data issues and make your life easier?

Whether it's a small or large data set, the accuracy can be improved by identifying classification errors, conflicts or gaps. I can provide a data verification service to efficiently find and correct these in a fraction of the time it would take you or a team member.

And a crucial part of having accurate data is also working with a comprehensive taxonomy, something that can be easily overlooked. I can provide a taxonomy development service to ensure you have all the vital areas covered for the greatest visibility - job done!

If you struggle with the time, resources or willingness to tackle your data, why not get in touch to see how I can make your life easier.

Founder/MD (Mistress of Data)

I love improving the quality of procurement spend data, giving teams clarity so they can make better business decisions and cost savings.

Why not let me take the pain out of laborious data issues and make your life easier?

Whether it's a small or large data set, the accuracy can be improved by identifying classification errors, conflicts or gaps.  I can provide a data verification service to efficiently find and correct these in a fraction of the time it would take you or a team member.

And a crucial part of having accurate data is also working with a comprehensive taxonomy, something that can be easily overlooked.  I can provide a taxonomy development service to ensure you have all the vital areas covered for the greatest visibility - job done!

If you struggle with the time, resources or willingness to tackle your data, why not get in touch to see how I can make your life easier.

Founder

Data Collaboration Alliance

I am a member of the Advisory Committee at the Data Collaboration Alliance, a nonprofit organization that’s dedicated to establishing CONTROL as the basis for meaningful Data Ownership and global Collaborative Intelligence. Our approach of eliminating data silos and copy-based data integration is similar to how societies already protect the value of their currency, identities, and intellectual property - and it works for data, too. My fellow advisors include the Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation and the ex-CIO of Dropbox. I'm also a contributor to the Data Collaboration Community which offers open datasets, free tools, and free training in the data-centric skills of the future. Visit: https://www.datacollaboration.org/community

Advisory Committee / Instructor

Facet Publishing

Dirty data is a problem that costs businesses thousands, if not millions, every year. In organisations large and small across the globe you will hear talk of data quality issues. What you will rarely hear about is the consequences or how to fix it.

Between the Spreadsheets: Classifying and Fixing Dirty Data draws on classification expert Susan Walsh's decade of experience in data classification to present a fool-proof method for cleaning and classifying your data. The book covers everything from the very basics of data classification to normalisation, taxonomies and presents the author's proven COAT methodology, helping ensure an organisation's data is Consistent, Organised, Accurate and Trustworthy. A series of data horror stories outlines what can go wrong in managing data, and if it does, how it can be fixed.

After reading this book, regardless of your level of experience, not only will you be able to work with your data more efficiently, but you will also understand the impact the work you do with it has, and how it affects the rest of the organisation.

Written in an engaging and highly practical manner, Between the Spreadsheets gives readers of all levels a deep understanding of the dangers of dirty data and the confidence and skills to work more efficiently and effectively with it.

Author - Between the Spreadsheets

CONSTELLIA LIMITED

Connecting Professional Services Procurement people to the Consultancy Procurement Council

Membership Manager

Simfoni

+ Lead spend analytics project delivery across Europe & Middle East
+ Project Implementation​
+ Delivery of product demos
+ Development and delivery of training for Analytics team
+ Product development support
+ Spend analytics
+ Taxonomy development​

Senior Analytics Project Lead - Europe & Middle East

Highways England

Project Support Officer

Philips

Data Verification

+	Administration of product database
+	Working with cross functional teams to resolve issues
+	Develop and deliver training for business hubs to improve processes

Data Product Researcher

Coupa Software

+	Project managing multiple projects simultaneously ensuring all were delivered within time and on budget
+	Management of a team of 14 QA staff
+	Developed and implemented training plan and best practice documents
+	Recruit and train new staff
+	Ensuring consistent quality of work  produced by team

QA Manager

Spend360

+	QA, classification and review of data
+	Excellent attention to detail
+	Managing workload to tight deadlines

Data Services -QA

Fixer of dirty data ★ Spend data classification, supplier normalisation, and taxonomies ★ DataIQ100 x 2 ★DataIQ Data Champion 2022★ Author "Between the Spreadsheets" ★ Creator of COAT ★ TEDx - say NO to NO ★ DataVenger

Are you struggling to get reliable insights from your data?  Do you have duplicates, multiple versions of the same supplier or customer, and multiple date and address formats?  And is it saved in multiple different systems?

The Classification Guru can help.

If you’re in procurement, do you find it hard to see how much you are really spending with one supplier, and on what?  Have you got free text descriptions which mean you have multiple versions of the same item, often misspelt and not against the correct GL or categorisation? How can you make the best negotiations with your suppliers, the biggest cost savings, or manage your supplier list if you don’t have the correct information?

Or if you work in sales or marketing, is your CRM full of junk data, poorly formatted and even missing information, and maybe saved in multiple different systems?  Your team could be wasting time contacting redundant leads, or worse you could be sending out expensive print out to the same address twice, or addresses that don’t even exist.

We bring clarity and accuracy to data and help teams work more effectively and efficiently, finding cost savings through spend and time management, supporting better, more informed business decisions, delivering a strong ROI and delivering back to your organisation faster and more cost-effectively than using large consultancies or spend analytics providers.

While most people dread having to classify or cleanse data, my team and I love it! We are hugely passionate about providing clients with accurate and meaningful data, and because I have been doing this for a decade, I can do this much faster and more accurately than people who might look at their data infrequently.

We can help prevent costly mistakes from happening.

There are many solutions available to automate data classification, but these are never 100% accurate. I've developed a method that my team use to efficiently and accurately classify, cleanse and verify data to minimise the errors in the same amount of time.

When working with large volumes of data it's hard to spot these errors even if you know what you're looking for and especially in Excel, let alone if you don't. With my team and I’s knowledge, experience and tools we can do this for you, freeing up your internal resources.

Fix your dirty data now - www.theclassificationguru.com

DevSmart

•	Multicloud and DevOps Bootcamp
•       AWS Practitioner Essentials
•	AWS Security Fundamentals
•	Big Data Complete Course
•	Data Governance
•	Predictive Analytics with Excel
•	DBA Dissertation ln Mobile Social Media Marketing for Small Business
•	Certified Analytics Professional training
•	AWS,Azure, and Google Cloud training
•	Google Data Analytics course	
•	Digital Transformation with NLP
•	Citizen Development Foundation Certification - No-Code, Low-Code (LCNC)
•	IBM Design Thinking Certification
•	Scrum Product Owner Certification
•	SAFe Scrum Master Certification
•	Data Governance Management training
•	Completed doctoral courses and am currently writing my dissertation

Created data for vendor scorecard creating a $300M profit for AholdDelhaize
Managed Data projects with Datadog, Databricks and Azure SQL
Plan and integrate the daily activities of 4 scrum teams teams, allocating resources within defined budgets.
Coordinate the plans and activities of the organization with senior leaders inside and outside IT.
Apply technical and process expertise to address challenging technical and business issues.
Develop rock-solid, scalable systems that will still hold up years from now.
Quickly learn new technologies and evaluate multiple technologies to solve problems.
Manage data migration from mainframe to data lake utilizing Databricks, Python, and SQL.
Creatively administer Jira in the cloud for multiple Scrum teams migrating data for the Center of Excellence.
A deep passion for providing servant leadership at scale to empower multi-functional teams.

Data Analytics Project Manager/Scrum Master

	Create a data dictionary and data governance guidelines for new software being created with the data team.
	Closely follow risk mitigation and reporting guidelines for executive management.
	Manage two agile teams of 25 resources for a SAFe release train of 12 teams successfully.
	Led the team in developing a single enterprise submission software replacing over 20 disparaging systems.
	Develop and maintain a solid partnership with key project and business stakeholders and work collaboratively towards a common goal.
     Improved team velocities from 35 to 80 in 8 weeks

SAFe Scrum Master

Modis at Lincoln Financial

	Developed and maintained a solid partnership with key project and business stakeholders and work collaboratively towards a common goal.
	Perform Agile Maturity assessments for the team, providing coaching and input to reach higher levels of maturity and continuous improvement.
	Led developers, BA, and QA contractors to migrate Liberty Mutual telephony via Genesys WDE and microservices to meet TSA Exit date utilizing continuous integration and DevOps with microservices and GitHub saving millions in penalties.
	Assessed team maturity and implementing concepts to bring to a high-performing mature team.
	Continuously challenged the ways of working with the team to become more mature and self-managed.

Iris Software at Citi

	Managed the Agile software development team creating a web-based replacement for a 15-year-old forecasting system.
	Worked closely with developers to ensure they are not blocked and can execute the process administered by the Scrum Master.
	Collaborated with other project and program managers for infrastructure, network, and data analysis.

	Coached both onshore and offshore teams to deliver value to the business through a new application.
	With the assistance of Agile Coach, provide proactive coaching to the team and recommend improvements.

Scrum Master / Agile Project Manager

Matlen Silver at Bank of America

	Managed and delivered high-quality projects and reporting to senior executives.
	Managed Scrum/Agile ceremonies for Retail and Commercial Credit Risk teams utilizing Kanban.
	Managed Commercial and Consumer Credit Risk projects by utilizing Jira and JQL.
	Managed the first credit risk robotics automation Scrum team for the bank utilizing robotics.

Prodapt at Windstream

	Managed 22 application team Scrum Masters in Scrum of Scrums from Enterprise COMMs Model implementation to complete project four months early, realizing improved customer service and reduced costs.
	Ran Daily Standups, Scrum of Scrums, Sprint Planning, and Sprint Review ceremonies, including Kanban.
	Supported development teams in executing of Sprints to successful completion.
	Supported teams in the execution of sprints resulting in successful story completion and a 70% increase in velocity.

Sr Scrum Master / Sr Agile Project Manager

Collabera at TIAA

	Managed EverBank acquisition, coordinating Cybersecurity, and Infrastructure activities.
	Supervised deep-dive comparison with ten service areas between EverBank and TIAA.
	Implemented two new processes involved with M&A activities at TIAA.

Cyber Security Project Manager

Signature Consultants at Bank of America

•	Managed 4 Verizon consultants bringing project back to green status; first time in five months.
•	Coordinated internal bank resources for PCI Audit compliance, eliminating two penalty areas.
•	Implemented 4 new processes eliminating 40-50 hours of rework and unnecessary meetings.
•	Interviewed 20 bank resources and designed SharePoint workflow increasing efficiencies.

Cyber Security Specialist

DISYS at TIAA

•	Retirement domain experience with 401K, IRA and 529
•      Brought 8 unassigned projects back from failure status to successful completion.
•	Directed four teams, 18 developers/QA onshore and offshore from the proposal, through design and implementation for three years with 0% turnover.
•	Facilitated iterative fast-paced application development projects with budgets of $4-10M.
•	Web applications contributed to TIAA’s site winning the Dalbar award all three years.

Sr Technical Project Manager | Scrum Master

Data Strategist | Data Analytics | Data Enablement | Strategic Thinker

With over 30 years of experience in managing complex IT solutions, I am a seasoned Data Analytics Project Manager and Scrum Master at CRG, a leading provider of IT services and solutions. I have a proven track record of delivering data-driven value for clients across various domains and industries, such as AholdDelhaize, AIG, Lincoln Financial, Citi, and Bank of America. I hold PMP and ITIL certifications, as well as multiple credentials in data analytics, cloud computing, NLP, and LCNC.

My mission is to lead data projects with excellence, creativity, and agility, leveraging cutting-edge technologies and methodologies, such as Datadog, Databricks, Azure SQL, Python, Jira, SAFe, and Scrum. I am passionate about empowering and enabling my teams to explore, solve, decide, and create, while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and learning. I am also committed to advancing my knowledge and skills in the field of data analytics, as I am currently pursuing a DBA degree with a focus on data ethics.

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Susan Walsh - The Classification Guru

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