Jordan Gill
Gill returned to Haslam in 2021 as a lecturer and co-director of the MSBA program.
Business Analytics & Statistics - Alumni
Initially on course to become an actuary, Jordan Gill made a small pivot into analytics when he joined the MSBA program at Haslam in 2015. “The program did a really good job of focusing on presentation abilities and soft skills,” Gill says. “I emerged with the ability to communicate technical results to non-technical people.”
When Gill finished the program in 2016, he took those skills with him to industry roles. He worked first with HanesBrands Inc. as an analytics technologist, then as a senior supply chain analyst for Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Most recently, Gill served as an analytics analyst at Brookdale, a company that operates more than 700 senior living communities across the U.S.
In each role, he helped leaders make better decisions based on data analysis. “I have a diverse background in sales, marketing and sourcing operations, which helped me contextualize theoretical concepts – because I could tell real-world stories,” Gill says. “That ability to communicate really helped me get projects implemented. You can do the best analysis, but if you can’t sell it, it doesn’t get adopted.”
One of Gill’s projects at Brookdale was developing a way to predict how many people would move into their communities in the following month. “We looked at sales activities, past moving trends, acuity scores and how much care an individual would need to come in,” Gill says. “Combining all these data points, we developed a monthly move-in estimate algorithm written in R.” The algorithm helped the company plan ahead more accurately and identify the best ways to use their marketing budget.
In 2021, Gill returned to the Haslam College of Business as a lecturer and co-director of the MSBA program. He will teach data mining and statistics and capstone courses. “The MSBA program equipped me with the skills and confidence I needed to succeed as a young analytics professional,” he says. “I’m excited to provide that same experience to others and would love to stay in the academic world. My long-term goal is to see Haslam’s MSBA program at the top of the national rankings.”