Dr. Russell Anderson Joins JUDI.AI as Chief Credit Scientist

JUDI.AI, technology leader in small business lending and growth analytics, today announced that Dr. Russell Anderson has joined the team as Chief Credit Scientist. Dr. Anderson will drive the data science strategy behind JUDI.AI’s proprietary credit risk models and small business growth analytics. “Over the last year, many community banks and credit unions have struggled to answer two really important questions: What is the financial status of my small business customers, and how can I help them grow their business?” explained Gord Baizley, CEO of JUDI.AI. “With the addition of Russell’s deep domain expertise, we will continue to find innovative and efficient ways to surface answers to these questions, and solidify JUDI.AI as the data science experts in small business lending.” Dr. Anderson has spent over 30 years developing artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions for Retail, eCommerce, and Financial Services, with specific expertise in credit and fraud risk management. Past roles include:

• Chief Scientist for IBM’s Data Science Studio, where he developed the data science solutions and applications of 17 IBM/Watson products
• Analytics Lead for Opera Solutions, which involved working with customers such as Hess Oil, VISA, Volkswagen, MasterCard, Westpac Australia, ACI Worldwide and Synovus Bank
• Head of Decision Science at Halifax Bank of Scotland, where he supported full-lifecycle modeling for the retail bank including credit cards, loans, mortgages, risk and fraud
• Head of Transaction Analytics at Chase Card Services, which involved the re-design of their transaction analysis system and developing analytics services for partners such as United Airlines, Marriott and Disney
• Director of Modeling at HNC Software (now FICO), where he worked on the development of the first, billion-dollar commercial neural network application, Falcon

“The many moving variables of a small business – different operating models, costs, margins, demand drivers, competition, and seasonality -make small business credit decisioning more complex than consumer credit,” said Dr. Anderson. “This risk has traditionally caused hesitation within credit unions and community banks to help existing members or to take new SMB customers on, even though it is in their DNA to grow their communities. A critical capability enabled by the JUDI.AI platform is allowing a real-time review of cashflow for every loan applicant, both pre- and post- funding. This means financial institutions can monitor predictive success indicators such as debt-to-service credit ratios, and offer proactive business advice. The next AI chapter is all about adding the intake of other relevant and vertical-specific data, creating adaptive credit risk assessment models and teasing out more business growth insights that really matter.” The JUDI.AI platform has now supported over $1 billion worth of small business loan applications. Three out of the top ten largest credit unions in Canada are current customers, including Vancity (Canada’s largest credit union).