Product Managers from Three Major Companies Discuss Their Experience

Lauren Glasky

Product managers from three major corporations discussed their experience in a recent panel discussion for 33 students in the Data Analytics and Visualization program at the Katz School of Science Health. The panelists were Ben Berger of Mastercard, Lauren Glasky of Capital One and Amy Jarvis of Zillow Offers.

“These panel discussions are great networking opportunities for current and prospective students, and they highlight the great work our faculty are doing and the depth of our industry connections,” said Jared Hakimi, director of graduate recruitment and admissions at the Katz School. “They’re a valuable part of the Katz experience, along with the day-to-day contact students have with our scholar practitioners and the guest speakers they bring in from industry.”

Berger discussed how he helps lenders see the value in MasterCard’s Small Business Decision Enhancer product, which helps lenders make better decisions using the company’s data. He also worked on a COVID-related analytics project that is automating the process of producing the company’s reports. When infections start rising, his company receives requests from merchants, governments and banks for a variety of analytics related to daily consumer spending and to understand how the demand for consumer products is changing over time.

Benjamin Berger

Amy Jarvis

Glasky discussed how she ensures that individual applicants are, in fact, who they claim to be. She works with engineers, data scientists, designers and business stakeholders to build products, such as machine-learning models, which help Capital One assess and verify the personal information that individuals provide when they apply for a bank account.

Zillow Offers buys homes, renovates them and then resells them. Jarvis, who works on the machine-learning team, said she uses her 10-plus years of construction experience to determine which renovations should be done to different homes to maximize the return on renovation investment. As part of this work, she balances the needs of the home-purchase and home-resale sides of the business to deliver optimal results.