Dave
Operations Research Analyst, Philadelphia Office
Education
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
B.A. in Mathematics, 2006
B.A. in Economics, 2006
Activities at Penn: Ultimate Frisbee Club team
Memories of Penn: I really enjoyed being able to go downtown so easily from Penn. I had so much fun going out to restaurants with my friends or going down to Rittenhouse Square just to relax for a few hours when the weather turned nice.
Hometown
Media, PA
ZS Career Path
Operations Research Analyst Intern, 2005
Operations Research Analyst, 2006
- Moved to the Philadelphia office, 2007
On the work
"My first project at ZS involved an initiative for the globalization of a sales force for a major pharmaceutical company. My role on the project was to create a tool using Excel and VBA which allows different countries to provide a self-assessment/evaluation based on different principles and metrics. In addition to collecting information from countries, the tool also provides summary evaluations of the performance metrics for a country’s sales force relative to regional and global counterparts. My role on the project concluded with the completion of the tool; however, it served the client as a starting point, and since that time it has undergone many additional improvements and refinements at the client's request. I took away from this project a much better sense of both Excel and VBA as well as the experience of having the opportunity to design a complex tool from scratch.
"My second project involves providing incentive compensation (IC) administration for a pharmaceutical company. My role consists of analyzing sales data and using these figures to calculate payouts for each sales representative on the company’s sales force. This project involves providing the client with deliverables on a monthly basis, and so, while it is still ongoing, it is broken up nicely into monthly intervals. This project has helped me to become much better at quality control (QC), and I'm sure it will continue to do so while I'm still staffed on it."
On ZS values
Treat People Right: "I had been working at ZS for a couple of weeks, and I was still getting to know all the members of my project team. The team organized a bowling event one evening, and the entire team ended up going. It was a great way for me to get to know the people I was working with better, and it shows how the people at ZS really do enjoy being around each other."
On life outside work
"I enjoy playing ultimate Frisbee and also going running outside when the weather permits. I also love to travel—my most recent trip was this past summer where I spent a week in Guatemala and a week in El Salvador."