Ken Yazaki
Analytics Consultant
Ken has worked in data and analytics as a risk professional for over a decade, and has spent the last eight years developing solutions to problems faced within the finance sector. He brings a blend of expertise from working with internal and external clients, and has continually delivered tactical and key strategic initiatives for the organisations he represents. Ken’s roles have seen him support clients not just in Australia, but across Asia Pacific, Europe and Northern America, and he has spent extensive time in China building an analytics team from the ground up.
Prior to joining Connected Analytics, Ken spent over two years working for ANZ in its Models Management team in Melbourne. He delivered a number of key strategic initiatives, such as an automated predictive model database, surrounding governance and operating models and polices, as well as transitioning the monitoring capability to Bengaluru. In tandem, these initiatives formed a single source of truth for the organisation. This enabled a unified view to be taken by the credit risk model developers, monitoring, business users and validation for both ratings models under APS113, IFRS9 and operational models to allow for business automation and optimisation. As a direct result of this strategic delivery, the organisation is now able to rapidly prototype and recalibrate models in a fraction of the time it used to take without compromising quality.
Before ANZ, Ken was the technical lead on the IFRS9 model development at NAB (first to market in the world). He played a key role in the project team that successfully created the methodology, modelled, implemented, monitored and recalibrated IFRS9 models to predict the lifetime loss of a customer for the entire wholesale portfolio, working to tight project timelines. Other key initiatives that were delivered during his time at NAB included an innovative approach to rapidly remediating deteriorating models, as well as an in-depth view of the Australian property market.
In previous roles, Ken introduced stress testing into a financial services organisation during the GFC, incorporated pricing into real estate LGD models, introduced macroeconomic data into capital calculations and provided analytics support for PR and marketing clients.
As his varied background shows, Ken enjoys new challenges that need innovative approaches and relishes the opportunity to apply out-of-the-box thinking to business problems. Ken joined Connected Analytics to help a broader range of clients and address a wider variety of business problems, helping to push new solutions and innovative thinking.
Ken holds a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Actuarial Studies from the University of Melbourne.
