Carla Gentry
Data Scientist
Carla Gentry is an acknowledged influencer and subject matter expert in the field of advanced analytics and data science. During the past 19+ years, Carla has worked with Fortune 100 and 500 companies including, but not limited to, Discover Financial Services, J&J, Hershey, Kraft, Kellogg’s, SCJ, McNeil, PBA, Disney, Deloitte, and Firestone. Acting as a liaison between the IT department and the executive staff, Carla is able to take huge complicated databases, decipher business needs, and come back with intelligence that quantifies spending, profit, and trends. Being called a data nerd is a badge of courage for this curious mathematician/economist because knowledge is power, and companies are now acknowledging its importance.
Carla has multiple degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Tennessee where she graduated tops in her class while raising two boys as a single mom. She believes data scientists are inquisitive: exploring, asking questions, doing “what if” analysis, questioning existing assumptions and processes. Armed with data and analytical results, a top-tier data scientist will then communicate informed conclusions and recommendations across an organization.
Carla has worked with structured and unstructured data as well as programmers, developers, architects, scrum masters, and other data scientists—she can tell you they don’t all think alike. A data scientist could be a statistician but a statistician may not be completely ready to take on the role of data scientist, and the same goes for all the above titles as well.
Carla joined Samtec Inc in January 2018. Samtec is much more than just another connector company, Samtec puts people first with a commitment to exceptional service, quality products, and convenient design tools. They believe that people matter, and taking care of their customers and employees is paramount in how they approach business.
Learn more about Carla at https://www.linkedin.com/in/datanerd13
Follow Carla on twitter @data_nerd