When working for large corporations, employees rarely step foot in offices other than their own. But last Friday, Nabeel Azar from Verisk Analytics introduced our CDS students to their Data Science Excellence Program, an exciting graduate scheme that allows employees to travel and work full-time at different Verisk offices across the US for five years.
Verisk is a leading data analytics provider serving clients in insurance, natural resources, financial services, government, and risk management. Key to their position as a top player in the data science industry today is their massive data repository.
Verisk’s data repository operates as a consortium: several companies share their depersonalized data with Verisk to form a large data pool. For example, Argos, their financial services offshoot company, has over 19 billion depersonalized credit and debit card records provided by several major banks across the world.
Companies generally have data about their own performance, but Verisk’s unbeatable data pools mean that its data scientists can analyze how their client companies measure up with other competitors. This crucial ‘Give-to-Get’ philosophy has been in place since the company’s founding in 1971, meaning that they have had over 40 years to collect data.
Their data centers currently hold an astounding 14 petabytes (that’s 14,000,000 gigabytes!) of data, which is why Verisk’s data scientists often perform large-scale data integration, multispectral data capture, and data visualization. To train future employees how to handle this work, Verisk has rolled out a unique five-year Data Science Excellence Program.
Data science graduates like those at CDS will undergo three eighteen-month rotations in different Verisk offices across the country to bolster their technical skills, business acumen, and leadership experience–all while receiving a full-time salary. The rotations are uniquely stretched out so that graduates can contribute, learn, and network meaningfully in each office, building long-term relationships and experiences that will support their careers for years to come.
By the end of the program, graduates can move into a full-time leadership position. Last year, Verisk recruited two CDS students into their cohort; undoubtedly, this year’s savvy group of CDS students are also well-positioned to be a part of Verisk’s next intake.
by Cherrie Kwok