Business Consulting

An Integrator for Tech and Business

I am, unapologetically, a generalist. I know a little about a lot, I investigate learn and tinker, and in the process I find the gaps between specialties that go unfilled. I have a unique combination of people skills—and not just for an autistic person, creativity, and technical knowledge that allow me to "translate" between silos.

I realized that I'm an "integrator"—and that it's both a rare and valuable thing to be—from this Atlantic Monthly article (archive). I discovered towards the end of my time at Chevron that, even in a large corporate environment, the abilities that come from my curiosity and generalism were was what my coworkers valued about working with me—though it wasn't until the last year and a half of my time there that I finally started learning how to lean into it and find new ways to apply my unusual talents.

The services that I am offering center around my ability to see both the big picture/strategic vision and the parts that make it up: I can see both the forest and the trees. I'm focusing my initial offerings on those areas where there's both a strong market demand and I already have a strong background on the technical side of things. For the time-being I am focusing on the following:

  • I talk about why I'm such a good person for the right kind of AI projects in my Substack article "A different kind of AI consultant."

  • My work as a Machine Learning Engineer at Chevron took me to every part of the data science stack and into several adjacent skills and technologies. I also did quite a lot of data analytics work in both Databricks and Synapse and PowerBI. I've also mentored for programs teaching coding and data science, I was able to complete the Data Architecture Development Program.

  • I'm planning on getting certified in cybersecurity both because it synergizes well with my other options and because I learned during the re-org that I was extremely well-qualified for cybersecurity roles already in every respect except formal credentials.

I'm focused on these areas because I already have the ability to do them myself, see the section on each technology for more details. I'm only offering to do the implementation side of these things for extremely small tasks: that's because the principle of comparative advantage usually means it's better off for everyone if I help you find the person who can do the implementation work cheaper, faster, and possibly better. However the fact that I can implement in these areas myself not only has the potential to come in very useful in a pinch: it also allows me to go further into breaking tasks down, and modularity/task decomposition is an essential component of good project management.

That said, even when I don't know the fundamentals of a technology, I'm good at asking the kinds of questions between business users and technical people that let me translate between them—and between different kinds of business and technical users. If that sounds like something you want to hire me for, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Data Science & Analytics Project Design

Successful data science and analytics projects come from the ability to understand what the business users and break down the stories such that the technical team can implement them.

Useful data science and analytics projects come from understanding what can be measured without running afoul of Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

If you want me for your project, it's because I can help you with both these things: I can ensure that your DS&A project is both successfully implemented and useful when implemented, because I can:

  • Translate/mediate between your business and technical people to determine what solutions you might want to build and whether your current team can build them.

  • Tell you when your proposed solution is either a bad measure already or likely to become a target.

  • Propose solutions you might not have thought of—including non-data science alternatives.

  • Work with both your business users and technical people to write manageable and comprehensible user stories and tasks.

  • If you don't already have the people who can implement those stories and tasks, I can help you find the people who can or help your existing team develop the necessary skills.

If this sounds like something you could use, please read how to hire me and then send me an email outlining what you're trying to do. If it sounds like your project could be a good fit, I will set up a free consultation via to discuss your needs with you and your team.

"A Different Kind of AI Consultant"

To understand what I mean when I say I'm "a different kind of AI consultant," I strongly advise reading my Substack post where I go over what my background and thinking is with respect to Gen AI. However, the kinds of services I can offer include:

  • Tell you when an older method, or even a non-technical solution, can solve the problem you’re trying to solve with an LLM.

  • Listen to your business needs and potentially find solutions to things you didn’t know data science, machine learning, or Gen AI could solve.

  • Not just show you not just how to write better prompts but also tell you what problems your prompts will never solve.

  • Translate between your business users and technical people.

  • Help you break your project into sufficiently modular stories that your team understands what they are building and can actually build it.

If this sounds like what you're looking for, please read how to hire me and then send me an email outlining what you're trying to do. If it sounds like your project could be a good fit, I will set up a free consultation via to discuss your needs with you and your team.

Coming: Cybersecurity

Both DS&A and Gen AI projects present data governance and cybersecurity concerns. My skills and talents are already a close match for cybersecurity and my selection rep encouraged me to get certified after I got laid off.

  • My skills and talents are already a close match for cybersecurity work. Indeed, after I got laid off, my selection rep—who knows my background and talents quite well as well as what Chevron's Cyber team was looking for—strongly encouraged me to get cybersecurity-certified.

  • Cybersecurity synergizes well with my current offerings because it is primarily about stopping people from making the same few fundamental mistakes in slightly different forms. (Much like project management, incidentally.)

  • That same human tendency to make a few underlying mistakes in slightly different forms means that it's probably the most automation-proof area of tech—something I plan on writing about on my Substack. (So subscribe if you're interested in reading about it when I do!)

  • Both DS&A and Gen AI projects present data governance and cybersecurity concerns, making a nice complementarity with my current offerings.

  • It'll be useful for my fiction writing, which I paused to prioritize other stuff but still want to return to. There's some remarkable parallels between phishers and faeries—or vampires and Nigerian princes!

I'm not ready to officially market myself as a cybersecurity person, but I can still integrate a good deal of cybersecurity and data governance knowledge into what I'm offering with DS&A and Gen AI solutions above. If that sounds like what you need, please read how to hire me and then send me an email outlining what you're trying to do. If it sounds like your project could be a good fit, I will set up a free consultation via to discuss your needs with you and your team.

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