About Me
Data leader, team builder, and translator between engineers and executives.
Hi, I'm Evan Young — a data leader with 10 years of experience building the teams and infrastructure that organizations rely on to make decisions, ship products, and grow.
My path here is a little unusual: I started in international education, managing academic programs and operations for a social enterprise startup across five countries, before moving fully into data. That background gave me something most technical leaders don't have — a visceral understanding of what it feels like to sit on the business side and not have the information you need. It's made me a better builder.
Over the past eight years, I've led every layer of a modern data organization: data engineering, data science, analytics, ETL, and product delivery. I've built first data functions from scratch, managed cross-functional teams of 15–20, and led a full legacy-to-modern platform migration — without dropping the ball on the products customers depended on.
I'm known for sitting at the intersection of business strategy and technical execution and making both sides better. I can review code and data models in the morning and present a roadmap to a board in the afternoon.
I'm currently consulting while relocating to Seattle. If your organization is solving challenging problems and wants to leverage data to supercharge its solutions, I'd love to connect.
Stack
Experience
Vice President, Data Operations
LS Direct Marketing
- Served as primary interface between senior leadership and technical teams during a high-stakes migration from a legacy stack to a modern cloud-based data platform.
- Led the redesign of the proprietary client reporting portal onto dbt, BigQuery, FastAPI, and React — achieving a 10x reduction in load times and best-in-class business intelligence.
- Developed vendor data pipelines that reduced third-party spend and created new revenue channels for product development.
Director, Data Operations
LS Direct Marketing
- Led delivery of multiple data-driven products supporting a large client base at significant revenue scale, ensuring quality, timeliness, and stakeholder satisfaction.
- Managed and developed cross-functional technical teams across data science, engineering, and delivery - supporting 15+ contributors across disciplines.
- Designed and implemented automated client request intake and task management workflow, leading to sizeable gains in on-time delivery.
Manager, Data Science
LS Direct Marketing
- Owned the technical roadmap for the company's proprietary client-facing analytics portal, delivering real-time ROI reporting, customer segmentation, and opportunity forecasting.
- Established a Monitoring & Evaluation analytics domain combining statistical methods, data visualization, and automated reporting.
- Mentored data scientists and analysts, supporting technical growth while aligning work with organizational priorities.
Manager, Data & Analytics
MESA Charter
- Built and led the organization's first centralized data and analytics function, serving 7 administrative departments and 70+ staff.
- Led program evaluations using quantitative methods; findings contributed to securing $500K+ in grant funding.
- Drove automation of critical workflows across reporting, scheduling, and compliance.
Lead Analyst
NewGlobe Education
- Design networks of tools and dashboards used across all territories to manage the day-to-day operation of schools through every level of the school management vertical – teachers, principals, supervisors, etc.
- Coordinated cross-departmental evaluations with outside scholars; laid groundwork for a 2022 paper documenting the largest learning gains ever recorded in international education.
- Line manager for Analyst(s), helping structure workflow for projects across teams.
Project Associate → Project Manager → Senior Project Manager
NewGlobe Education
- Progressed through project roles spanning Nigeria, Kenya, India, and Liberia.
- Coordinate with Academics leadership on a number of strategic initiatives geared towards (i) ensuring seamless collaboration across markets and departments, (ii) Bridge's continued influence and involvement in the larger ed reform landscape, and (iii) improving data and feedback systems to further improve and inform decisions made on behalf of student outcomes.
- Led a ~800-school literacy and numeracy pilot in Edo State that has since transformed Nigeria's education system.
- Served four months as Acting Academic Director of 39 schools in Liberia.
Education
2021 – 2022
M.S. Data Analytics & Policy
Johns Hopkins University — GPA 4.0
Dual concentration: Statistical Analysis & Public Management. Coursework in data visualization, database systems, probability & statistics, Python, text as data, policy evaluation, and risk management analytics.
2012 – 2015
B.A. International Affairs
The George Washington University — GPA 3.84, Summa Cum Laude
Concentration: International Development.