Witad Awards 2020: Engineer/programmer of the year—Lana Kapulovskaya, JP Morgan Asset Management

Lana Kapulovskaya is not one to back down from a challenge. In fact, as the head of business intelligence and advanced analytics at JP Morgan Asset Management, and this year’s engineer/programmer of the year, Kapulovskaya says problem-solving is the most attractive part of her job. 

“I always loved it. The potential of data and technology fascinates me, and it’s exciting to be able to use it and make our sales and marketing people’s day-to-day lives better,” she says. 

Kapulovskaya and her team are responsible for using advanced technology and innovation to shape sales and marketing distribution strategies through data-driven insights and by embedding these analytical processes in the firm’s decision-making framework. She prioritizes data challenges as data is a core component of what she and her team do. 

“Using emerging technologies and innovative approaches, we processed and organized our data into a clean and effective data model empowering data-driven strategies,” she adds. 

One of Kapulovskaya’s achievements is architecting and building the asset manager’s big data platform and core framework. She designed and developed a meta-data-driven approach to build data pipelines, which led to facilitation of real-time data delivery and a 50% reduction in maintenance costs. She also built Single View of a Client—a scalable framework that delivers client data in a single view and adapts easily to various business requirements. The strength of the framework is its ability to answer complex business questions in a matter of minutes instead of weeks or months. 

Kapulovskaya led the design and development of the firm’s Next Best Product and Next Best Call recommendation engine using artificial intelligence and advanced analytics technologies. Since rolling out in October 2019, the solution earned $700,000 in incremental sales and is projected to bring in $1.5 billion in sales this year. 

Although she enjoys experimenting with emerging technologies, when it comes to finding a solution for a business problem, she says the key is to focus on the solution that fits users’ needs and adds the most value, instead of chasing down the most recent trends.