1.
Dr Matt Gardner
Career Objective and Profile
I am a scientist at heart with a passion to help businesses use data and experimentation
to drive great customer outcomes. I have worked with data for 20 years and I have
detailed hands on knowledge of many aspects of data science and analytics.
Ideal roles allow me to draw upon my broad data science consulting experience
in order to lead and develop an organisations use of data and analytics.
I like new challenges and thrive when there is complexity and ambiguity – when the way
forward is unclear I pull on my network, team and intuition to guide my actions. I have
a strong business focus combined with deep statistical / machine learning experience
enabling me to quickly identify scenarios where analytics and data science add value to
the business. My experience and behaviours allow me to translate and explain technical
topics to non-technical stakeholders at all levels within an organisation.
I prefer to mentor than manage. I love teaching, helping those around me connect the
dots and increase their understanding. I grow when assisting others - sharing my
knowledge and learning from different points of view.
A good day for me would involve any number of activities – these are my favourites:
• brainstorming with business partners to understand customer needs
• working with product and finance teams to explore options
• developing data and analysis plans to help inform decisions
• designing experiments to test critical assumptions
• prioritising projects to deliver maximum impact for partners
• rolling up my sleeves to write or debug code
• wrangling with massive messy data sets
• advocating for data over everything else
• visualising data and fitting models
• helping colleagues solve technical problems
• reviewing analysis and probing assumptions
• presenting insights to business partners
• sharing new skills with others, face to face or via wiki’s
• connecting with academic researchers to further improve methods
I want to build on my experience within progressive forward thinking companies. I look
forward to continuing to work with new teams and partners to help them become
smarter data consumers and build amazing products.
In a Nutshell
• 2015+ eBay Head of eBay DataLabs and Economics
o DataLabs interprets eBay’s rich data to engage users with the eBay Brand
by sharing data, content, stories and applications externally
o The Economics team use micro-economic theory and econometric analysis
to identify new opportunities to improve the efficiency of the eBay
marketplace for buyers and sellers - by reducing market frictions
• 2013-2015 eBay Head of Experimentation Analytics
o Consulted globally with teams running or designing product experiments
o Thought leader on subject of experimentation and measurement
matt.w.gardner@gmail.com
408-483-6890
San Jose, CA

2.
o Helped eBay scale experimentation to 1000’s of product experiments per
year
• 2012–2013 eBay, Experimental Design and Analysis research
o Conducted research into Bayesian approach to experimentation
o Increased experimentation capacity through improved methodology
• 2011-2012 eBay, Senior Manager, EU Buyer and Search Analytics
o Led team responsible for EU buyer facing product analytics
o Won eBay Hero Award for operational excellence work in A/B testing
• 2000-2010 CACI Ltd, Associate Director
o Consulted with many of the UK’s leading consumer businesses helping to
improve their analytical processes and deliver value from data
o Worked with clients to implement data and model based CRM solutions
o Created CACI’s Contact Centre Simulation and Forecasting Product
• 1999-2000 Global cycle touring trip – across Europe and through SE Asia
• 1996–1999 PhD Research
o Neural network and decision tree applications in Atmospheric Science
o Publications in internationally acclaimed scientific journals
• 1973 Year of Birth
Academic Achievements
Part-time lecturer at CSU Monterey Bay. I designed and teach Data Science for
Search within the School of Computer Science and Business Technology. We teach
students how to build a search engine using Machine Learnt ranking algorithms.
PhD “The advantages of artificial neural network and regression tree air quality
models” awarded 1999 by the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East
Anglia, Norwich. The School of Environmental Sciences consistently achieves the highest
Research Assessment rating 5*. This PhD has formed the basis of ongoing projects
funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the European Commission.
BSc Honours Environmental Sciences (1st
Class with Distinction and Dissertation
Prize), awarded 1995 by the University of East Anglia, Norwich.
UK ‘A’ Level - Maths (A), Physics (A), Geography (A).
Technical and Soft Skills
Technical - experienced with R, Python, SQL and most data / analytic tools including
big-data distributed systems, distributed compute and cloud based technologies.
Experienced with advanced data visualisation technologies as well as traditional BI tools.
Comfortable working with web technologies and designing and implementing web based
data applications.
Training - I am eBay’s R Evangelist – I run large scale online training programs
globally. Built key packages for data scientists to connect with eBay data. I initiated
eBay’s support of the R platform for data science and analytics.
Planning - Experienced with Agile framework and Scrum methodology applied to
Analytics and Data Science. Use JIRA for managing team.
Communications – built and developed the eBay Analytics Community Hub – a place
for analysts to share stories, best practices, tips and tricks, explore who is speaking
externally about eBay and browse jobs opportunities. Running for 3 years now.

3.
The Gory Details
2015+, Head of eBay DataLabs and Economics
I lead two teams at eBay - both teams have a mission to use data to
better understand and communicate about the eBay Marketplace
businesses.
DataLabs interprets eBay’s rich data to engage users with the eBay Brand
by sharing data, content, stories and applications externally. DataLabs
create value for our audience that is worth following, talking about and
sharing with the intent of raising buying and selling consideration among
consumers and businesses worldwide. We are recognized as the best place
to find out how to connect with eBay data. We partner with many teams at
eBay that wish to use data in their communications.
The Economics team use micro-economic theory and econometric analysis
to identify new opportunities to improve the efficiency of the eBay
marketplace for buyers and sellers - by reducing market frictions. The
Economics team are recognized as experts in understanding marketplace
dynamics through innovative data analysis and carefully executed
experimentation. The Economics team partner with teams across eBay and
maintain strong relationships with academic research partners.
2013 - 2015 eBay, Head of Experimentation Analytics
I led the team responsible for ensuring that eBay's culture of "test and
learn" drives great customer and business outcomes.
This included:
• Maintaining and developing organizational understanding of
experimentation at eBay
• Consulting with teams across eBay designing and analysing
experiments and conducting observational studies
• Providing input into test hypotheses and ensure that ideas turn into
effective experiments and improved decisions
• Developing the experimentation framework and processes with
enough top down guidance to ensure broad alignment but scope for
domain teams to customise to their needs
• Commissioning and executing statistical research to improve eBay’s
experimentation methodologies, for example
o Heterogeneous treatment effects, heavy tails
o Network effects, adaptive learning
• Partnering directly with Experimentation Consumers (Product,
Business, Analytics, Finance) and the research community to
encourage open and honest debate to decide on the direction we
take the Experimentation Program going forward
• Working closely with Experimentation Platform product team to
ensure the experimentation platform aligned with business needs
• Providing rapid response support to Experimentation Consumers
when the integrity of the Experimentation Program is challenged

4.
2012 – 2013 eBay, Experimental Design and Analysis Research
I was rotated to the US to work more closely with the statistical research
teams involved in eBay’s Experimentation Program. I focused on the
evaluation of Bayesian approaches to provide the most useful input to the
decision-making processes.
During my rotation I led the increased adoption of more orthogonal testing
and increased the sensitivity of testing through enhanced outlier
methodologies.
I permanently relocated to the US and lead and transform this team –
increasing their agility and impact on the business.
2011 – 2012 eBay, Senior Manager EU Buyer and Search Analytics
I managed the EU team delivering A/B test analytics and product insights
relating to the European eBay sites. I partnered with product teams to
run A/B tests and managed site analytics for both search and buyer
related changes - assessing tests from a user experience and financial
perspective. I worked closely with business partners and finance to
ensure investment in product development translated to improved
business performance.
2000 - 2010 IMAJ Consulting Ltd / CACI Ltd - Associate Director
My responsibilities were largely focussed on technical pre-sales and
delivery of data science consultancy projects within large blue chip
organisations. My projects covered two main areas – customer insight and
analytics and contact centre modelling and optimisation.
I led the creation of CACI’s Contact Centre Simulation and Forecasting
practice. This included the creation of the software products to enable
clients to build more realistic models of their increasingly complex
operations – allowing optimal resourcing decisions to be made.
Other notable projects include:
Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
○ Led a Data Warehouse Rapid Design and Discovery Project
for NHS Direct. Project planning and risk assessment,
resource planning and gap analysis. Managed the supply of
key personnel to the internal project team. Microsoft SQL
Server, QlikView, Reporting Services.
○ Implemented Contact Centre Data Warehouse for Wanadoo
contact centre – integrating Telephony, IVR and Contact
Reason data sources. Microsoft SQL Server, Crystal Reports
Monte Carlo Simulation
○ Built Systems Dynamics models to assess the long-term risk
associated with implementing a change to the pay and
rewards scheme for Eurostar.
○ Analysed and simulated business processes for Lloyds TSB
Group IT.
Marketing Optimisation
○ Developed and refined logic for real time customer retention
logic to be deployed in Chordiant Customer Management

5.
System – simulated logic to refine and test (Vodafone
Netherlands)
○ Developed CACI’s strategic “Customer Lens” simulation
model - used to assess relative opportunity around cross
sell, acquisition and retention for large multi-product
financial services organisations.
○ I led the development of a product known a GSolve that is a
general-purpose genetic algorithm based optimisation tool.
The product was developed around a project I was working
on for AXA. The tool has been configured to optimise
marketing plans in order to ensure maximum profitability.
Capacity Planning
○ Applied queuing theory to the capacity planning of web
servers and intranet applications (Lloyds TSB and Orange).
○ Built simulation model to allow Royal Sun Alliance to test
and optimise strategies around their motor repair operation,
including the geographical distribution of repairers relative
to the customer base.
Forecasting
○ Generated forecasts of business critical volumes including
web traffic, call volumes, email traffic, and marketing sales
and leads. This forecasting work has focused on
incorporating additional business data into neural network
based models to maximise the forecasting power.
○ Developed Systems Dynamics forecasting models of EDF
Energy customer base – to refine strategic targets.
Modelling / Data Mining
○ Analysis of customer behaviour using clustering techniques
(Kohonen neural networks and classical statistics) and
decision trees (Smile and BSkyB)
○ Data mining of web server log files to gain insight into
business activity (Lloyds TSB).
○ Developed the CACI Outbound Dialler List optimisation
service – automated scoring process to improve outbound
campaign performance.
Model Deployment / System Integration
○ Deployed a SAS based automated customer scoring and
update model into a Teradata system for Shaws
Supermarket (US).
○ Migrated customer-scoring algorithm to Microsoft SQL
Server for BskyB.
1999 Senior Research Associate (Contract), Climatic Research Unit,
University of East Anglia. Development of software for the visualisation of
global climate model output variability. Produced hard copy for inclusion in
the International Panel on Climate Change reports.
1997-1999 IT Support - Helpdesk, Computing Centre, University of East Anglia.
Solved problems concerning all aspects of university computing (PC, MAC,
UNIX) both face to face, via email and over telephone. Part time position
to help fund PhD.
1996 Multimedia Developer - Designed a computer based interactive survey
for the UK Eating Disorders Association. Package used at the “BBC
Clothes Show Live”.

6.
1995-1996 Research Associate, School of Environmental Sciences, University of
East Anglia. Produced neural network image classification tool coupled to
Erdas Imagine image processing software. The neural classifier increased
image classification efficiency and accuracy.

7.
My Publications
Taddy, M., Gardner, M.W., Chen, L., Draper, D. (2015) A nonparametric Bayesian
analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects in digital experimentation, arXiv:1412 8563.
Gardner, M.W. & Dorling, S.R. (2001) Artificial Neural Network Derived Trends in Surface
Ozone Concentrations. Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 51, 1202-
1210.
Gardner, M.W. & Dorling, S.R. (1999) Statistical Surface Ozone Models: An improved
methodology to account for non-linear behaviour. Atmospheric Environment 34 (1), 21-
34.
Gardner, M.W. & Dorling, S.R. (1999) Meteorologically adjusted trends in UK daily
maximum ozone concentrations. Atmospheric Environment 34 (2), 171-176.
Gardner, M.W., (1999), The advantages of artificial neural network and regression tree
models of air quality, PhD. Thesis, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK.
Gardner, M.W. and Dorling, S.R. (1999), Neural network modelling of hourly NOx and
NO2 concentrations in urban air in London, Atmospheric Environment, 33(5), 709-719.
Gardner, M.W. and Dorling, S.R. (1998), Artificial neural networks (the multilayer
perceptron) - A review of applications in the atmospheric sciences, Atmospheric
Environment, 32(14/15), 2627-2636.
Gardner, M.W. and Dorling, S.R. (1998), Decomposition of the emissions and
meteorological components of the hourly NOx concentrations in Central London using
artificial neural networks. Proceedings of the 23rd NATO/CCMS International Technical
Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and Its Applications, Varna, Bulgaria.
Dorling, S.R. and Gardner, M.W. (1998), Neural network based air quality modelling in
London, UK - What are the data requirements for accurate simulations ? Proceedings 2nd
Symposium on the Urban Environment, November 1998, Alberquerque, New Mexico,
USA, 30-33.
Gardner, M.W. and Dorling, S.R. (1996), Neural network modelling of the influence of
local meteorology on surface ozone concentrations. Proceedings 1st International
Conference on GeoComputation, University of Leeds, 359-370.
Dorling, S.R. & Gardner M.W. (1996), Educational Meteorology at the University of East
Anglia. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on School and Popular
Meteorological and Oceanographic Education, Edinburgh, pp 56-59.

8.
Conference Presentations
Presented papers at the following UK and international conferences:
● Evolution of Contact Centre MI (2010) Professional Planning Forum MI monthly
newsletter
● Forecasting Seasonality (2010) Professional Planning Forum Best Practice
Forecasting and Budgeting Seminar
● Optimising Dialler Lists (2010) Professional Planning Forum Annual Conference,
and Noble Seminar Series (Manchester and London)
● Forecasting Targets (2009) Professional Planning Forum Annual Conference
● Forecasting Top Tips (2009) Professional Planning Forum MI monthly newsletter
● Advanced Forecasting Techniques (2008) Professional Planning Forum Annual
Conference
● Intraday Management with Simulation (2007) Professional Planning Forum
Annual Conference
● Improving Marketing Performance (2007) Focus Group Edinburgh
● Supporting the Business Case for Change (2007) Focus Group Cardiff
● The Pro’s and Con’s of Contact Centre Simulation (2006) Professional Planning
Forum Annual Conference.
● Efficient Contact Centre Simulation - Automatic data aggregation and
abstraction to enable efficient call centre simulation (2005) Operational
Research Society Annual Conference (Number 47)
● Advances in Environmental Modelling Techniques (1996) Environment Agency,
London.
● Artificial Intelligence Research in the Environmental Sciences (1998) Victoria,
BC, Canada.
● 23rd NATO/CCMS International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling
and Its Applications (1998) Varna, Bulgaria.
● 1st International Conference on GeoComputation (1998) Leeds.