Richard J. Worthington

AI/ML executive leader specializing in the design and use of predictive analytics, conversational UI, ML models, artificial intelligence, business process management, propositions / next best action decisioning, and other technologies used for scalable, omni-channel customer engagement and decisioning-as-a-service strategy.

Technology Thought Leadership

  • 20+ years of systems engineering and business process improvement.
  • A recognized AI/ML solutions expert with 15 years experience utilizing automation, machine learning, and AI.
  • Demonstrated success in identifying opportunities for implementing new AI/ML products and transforming platforms for real-time customer engagement, personalization, and decision-making through multi-year initiatives.

Execution

  • Listed as inventor on a real-time model scoring solution for use in AI. Patent #(10999433B2)
  • Experience designing solutions for local and cloud (AWS).
  • Experience designing decisioning applications using a scalable micro-services approach.
  • Experience working in both waterfall and Agile project management methodologies.
  • Establish and maintain evolution of an enterprise AI/ML strategy in collaboration with various stakeholders in the organization.
  • 20 years experience collaborating closely with key stakeholders within Marketing/Sales, Call Centers, Operations, Analytics, Data Science, IT, Legal, Privacy, Risk, and business to implement scalable enterprise solutions.
  • Led and managed scores of high visibility vendor engagements to support technology strategy efforts, including build vs buy analysis and proofs of concepts.
  • Accomplished in creating and presenting stakeholder reports to both internal and external clients, ranging from individual contributors to executive leadership.

Strategy Development

  • Expertise in creating clear, impactful diagrams and documentation to unite executive leadership stakeholders and achieve a beneficial roadmap.
  • Drive best practices around AI/ML technology.
  • Skilled in propelling careers, securing future success, attracting top talent, and fostering a culture of accountability and innovation.

Experience

Director – AI Solution Design – Inwood, WV – November 2021 – Present

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

  • Director of AI Solution Design for the Enterprise Business Intelligence Marketing Technology organization.
  • Spearheaded the modernization of Comcast’s decisioning ecosystem by collaborating with cross-functional teams to design and develop a scalable, cloud-based decisioning-as-a-service platform with real-time omni-channel feedback loop using a micro-services architecture.
  • Led a team of engineers, data analysts, and data scientists to design and develop the AI solution for our offer decisioning program.
  • Worked closely with key stakeholders across the enterprise and vendor teams to create a holistic platform solution.
  • Designed a real-time experimentation feature to personalize customer experience through next best actions leveraging adaptive modeling.
  • Created the data model for automated reporting and dashboards to track and measure the incremental lift driven by the platform.
  • Designed a scalable experimentation framework allowing multi-variate automated testing with real-time holdouts across engagement channels.

Sr. Manager – Systems Engineering – Dallas, TX / Ashburn, VA – August 2015 – October 2021

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

  • Platform strategy for A.N.N (Artificial Neural Network) and S.O.I. (System of Insights).
  • Created and led “Team Catalyst”, a team of systems engineers responsible for creating and developing the platform and methodologies used to operationalize AI and machine learning models for Verizon.
  • Using biomimicry as our blueprint, we created and established the enterprise standards for deploying customer and agent experiences in an automated and operational fashion with the first real-time feedback loop that powers predictive and adaptive models at scale.
  • Led “Team Catalyst” on major enterprise initiatives including a real-time stream of contextual events for real-time decisioning at scale, an automated insight creation engine, and the development of an operational front-end for internal users. The internal application is used to intake, plan, manage, govern, track, and measure all omni-channel experiences, offers, segments, insights, and machine learning models.
  • Led a team of highly skilled specialists to develop insights from raw data and drive cross channel engagements that increase revenue, reduce calls, reduce churn, reduce time in voice portal, and greatly improve and personalize customer experiences.
  • Received “leading” rating and multiple awards for work on this platform.
  • Increased the velocity of deployment in wireline by 10.5x and increased the velocity in wireless by 3.5x over 18 months.
  • Evolved the platform to enable growth from a 47M in annualized benefit to nearly 327M a year in annualized benefit. On track to deliver 1.3 billion in incremental value over the next five years.

Sr. Analyst – Business Operations – Dallas, TX – September 2013 – August 2015

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

  • Work with a team of specialists to provide requirements, testing, SME support, and quality assurance for all projects related to the technical and order voice portal.
  • Worked with a cross-functional team to provide cross-channel self-serve solutions.
  • Worked with team to deploy voice biometric authentication on the Voice Portal.

Received Spotlight Award from director, Tom Collard, for work on the voice biometrics pilot.

Fiber Network Technician – Dallas, TX – Oct. 2006 – Dec. 2007 & Oct. 2011 – Aug. 2013

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

  • Special project / subject matter expert duties including call tracker design and user acceptance testing, Fios Digital Voice SME support, CoA integration testing, and iCAD Wizard process flow development and testing.
  • NSG Queue Manager (Special Duty within NT function) managing the NT offline maintenance team in the processing of NSG queues and escalations. Developed, presented, and implemented a cross-functional process between MCG and NSG resulting in a greatly reduced number of missed commitments and promoted effective teaming of the groups.
  • Taking calls from CSA’s and Field Technicians to provide network and central office switching technical support, including ONT/OLT support, as well as assistance with customer provided equipment setup, installation, and troubleshooting.

Received Verizon Excellence Award for outstanding NT support from Patti Barry.

Jeopardy Desk Specialist – Dallas, TX – December 2007 – October 2011

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

Tasked with designing and developing reports to support operational metrics, provide detailed root cause analysis, and support a cross-functional team by designing a ticketing system for tracking and analyzing issues handled by the jeopardy desk; as well as, training the Jeopardy Team on how to utilize systems.

  • Designed, developed, and automated 26 daily reports for tracking high level metrics such at GATB and Compliance.
  • Designed an issue tracking system use by all Jeopardy Desk agents for capturing, analyzing, and resolving same-day install issues. Trained all agents on the system and collaborated with them to make iterative improvements to increase velocity.
  • Designed and developed scores of reports used to identify and address trending issues.
  • Designed, developed, and automated GATB / NATB Status reports for (TX, FL, CA) every two hours to track daily progress in meeting GATB / NATB objectives.
  • Assisted the management team with graphs and metrics used in their Operational Readiness Reviews.
  • Developed new procedures and created training documents for use by operational staff.

Received Ovation Award from Manager in which she said:

“Richard Worthington has led the way in transforming the Jeopardy Desk through reporting and the evolution of the CCG system. He is incredibly innovative and supports the Texas, Florida, and California regions through various key reports in driving performance. Other regions have adopted many of Rick’s reports as they too have found how instrumental his reports can be to the business. In addition, Rick has helped to capture the ever changing needs of the Jeopardy Desk via the writing of requirements for the CCG system and ensuring the system is designed to best support the teams. There isn’t enough space or enough words to describe the stellar performance and innovation Rick Worthington has displayed.”

– Sandy Dupar (Manager Texas Jeopardy Desk)

Technical Skills

  • 20 years of systems engineering and business process improvement.
  • Proven ability to analyze end-to-end systems, lean them out, democratize data for maximum utility, and convert the analysis into a detailed plan to re-engineer the systems for significant value add and scalability.
  • Proven ability to design solutions that leverage predictive analytics, conversational UI, ML models, artificial intelligence, business process management, propositions / next best action decisioning (PEGA or custom), and other technologies used for scalable, omni-channel customer engagement strategy.
  • Set the vision for and implemented multiple platform transformations for large multi-national enterprises.
  • Proven ability to design and manage multi-year platform transformation initiatives related to real-time customer engagement, personalization, and decisioning.
  • Proven ability to build and develop teams and individuals, grooming them for leadership.
  • Proven ability to set and communicate large scale transformation vision to technical teams, business teams, and executives.

Leadership Skills

  • Strong communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills.
  • Proven program management, planning, and organizational skills and experience.
  • Proven ability to create a program vision, convey that vision to stakeholders at all levels, and align teams and resources to achieve the vision.
  • Ability to effectively multi-task and manage multiple high priority projects.
  • Proven ability to work independently and as part of a larger team.
  • Ability to mentor, coach, and effectively present material to stakeholders and executives.
  • Self-motivated decision maker with strong analytical and problem solving ability.
  • Ability to motivate others and build cross-functional relationships.
  • Solid oral, written, and documentation skills.

Education

  • Newman Smith High School – Carrollton, TX – 1996-2000
  • North Central Texas College – Corinth, TX – 2012-2017
    • (4.0 GPA, Member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society)

Patents (Listed as Inventor)

  • Interpretation of user interaction using model platform – Patent # 10,999,433 B2 – Issued May 4, 2021
[print-me]