Akanksha Rai

Experienced in global banking and consulting environments, aspiring Business Analyst with a strong track record in client management, business development, and financial crime compliance. Leveraging data-driven insights, consistently enhanced growth and upheld compliance standards. Expertise lies in delivering strategic solutions that align with organizational objectives, ensuring maximum efficiency and success.

LISI Automotive, Madrid, Spain January 2025

• Collaborated with LISI Automotive in Madrid on an international consulting project to address a real-world business problem.
• Fine-tuned and customized pre-existing forecasting models (Holt-Winters, XGBoost) using hyperparameters, lag features, and rolling averages to meet client-specific needs., Reduced MAPE from 20% to 7.49%, enabling tailored solutions for accurate sales and raw material forecasts.
• Trained models on 80% historical sales data (2019-2023) and validated using 2024 actuals, improving production and inventory planning.

DSA Alliance NPO, San Diego, CA, December 2024

• Analyzed shelter utilization trends in San Diego to support homelessness reduction strategies.
• Merged HUD and economic datasets to uncover key correlations, finding that a $100 rent increase results in 322 additional homeless individuals, while a $1,000 per capita income rise reduces homelessness by 283.
• Identified emergency shelters as the most effective, reducing unsheltered rates by 20.13 individuals per unit increase in utilization.
• Proposed expanding HMIS programs, increasing shelter capacity, and refining policies to improve resource allocation and operational efficiency.

Spotify Recommender System, San Diego, CA, November 2024

• Designed a playlist recommendation system using the Spotify Million Playlist Dataset (MPD) with advanced machine learning techniques.
• Applied Word2Vec for embedding generation and BERT4Rec for sequence modeling, achieving 96.13% accuracy in playlist continuation.
• Enhanced user engagement and music discovery by integrating metadata, audio features, and behavioral insights into the model.

• Marketing Director, Analytics Association, University of San Diego - Organized workshops and guest speaker sessions, connecting students with analytics professionals.
• Placement Coordinator, ICFAI Business School - Built relationships with 250+ companies, improving campus placement opportunities.