SCAREDY-CAT INSIGHTS

Nikisha Alcindor is a Data scientist who specializes in Artificial Intelligence and has 20 years of investing and fundraising experience. She is a Managing Director at Riverside Management Group, a merchant bank, where she raises capital and advises clients on M&A transactions. Nikisha is also pursuing her Ph.D. in Business - Strategic Management at the Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY), Baruch College - Zicklin School of Business. She specializes in Strategic Management and her research area is in mergers and acquisitions. Nikisha is interested in examining the success rates of M&A transactions by applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to decision and risk analysis. She has an extensive background in corporate finance, healthcare, and asset management. Before joining the Ph.D. program, she spent time in practice at Apax Partners, Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs, and Columbia University. She is a former Advisory Director to the PCA Retirement & Benefits, Inc. and a former Board member of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone. Nikisha holds a BA in Chemistry from Emory University and an MBA from Columbia Business School as a Leon Cooperman Scholar.

Joseph is a data scientist with 10 years of experience with statistical modeling, natural language processing, and machine learning. He holds a Ph.D. in strategic management from Texas A&M University and a B.S. in finance and entrepreneurship from the University of Richmond. Prior to receiving his Ph.D., Joseph worked for three years as a consultant and technology lead with PwC in Washington, DC and as the assistant to the CFO for PartnerMD, a small concierge medical practice in Richmond, Virginia. Joseph currently teaches and does research at Texas Christian University, where he has co-developed multiple machine learning applications to extract meaning from unstructured data and provide insights related to corporate strategy and performance. His greatest passions include God, family, strategy, and college football.