Joseph D. Williams — Commercial & Analytics Leader

§ 01 — Point of View

Most people aren't struggling with data.
They're struggling with how to use it.

Commercial work, done well, is the art of connecting the dots — customer behavior to pricing, marketing investment to lifetime value, operational choices to the P&L.

That's exactly how I think about data strategy and optimization. Not as ends in themselves, but as the discipline that makes those connections visible and the decisions sharper.

Data is the foundation.
AI is the amplifier.

Every shift in modern business — pricing, personalization, forecasting, automation — runs on this stack. Weak data produces weak AI. Unclear thinking produces failed strategy. Everything above depends on what's below.

          Human Judgment & Strategy
          Top Layer
        
          AI & Machine Learning
          Amplifier
        
          Analytics & Interpretation
          Bridge
        
          Data Quality & Structure
          Engine
        
          Data Collection & Governance
          Foundation

§ 02 — Focus Areas

What I build
for the business.

A deliberately wide remit — because commercial performance is rarely a single-function problem. Each of these disciplines is a lever I've personally built, staffed, and scaled inside operating companies.

01

Commercial Planning

Forecasting, pro-formas, and strategy modeling that tie daily operations to enterprise financial targets.

02

Revenue Management

Pricing, distribution, and margin optimization across 7,000+ rooms and integrated gaming/ancillary revenue.

03

CRM & Segmentation

Customer-level profitability, behavioral profiling, and targeted campaigns that shift mix toward high-value guests.

04

Data Science & ML

Proprietary Python models for demand forecasting, customer lifetime value, and conversion prediction.

05

Call Center & AI

Agentic AI and LLM-driven summarization reducing cost per call and unlocking unstructured survey data.

06

Team & Org Design

Building analytics orgs from scratch — recruiting, mentoring, and developing leaders of leaders.

§ 03 — Experience

A career built
across industries.

Hospitality and gaming today. Before that: rail, consumer brands, payments, energy, and automotive. The common thread is turning messy operational data into commercial decisions that compound.

Aug 2023
— Present Current

Vice President, Revenue Optimization, Sales, Distribution & Data Science

Seminole Hard Rock · Hollywood, FL

Accountable for hotel revenue, leisure sales, third-party alliances, budgeting, data science, CRM, and business intelligence across a $1.4B integrated-resort and casino portfolio. Built the "Total Revenue" framework that evaluates customers by cross-platform worth — not room night alone.

Leading revenue management across 7,000+ rooms in the U.S. and Canada.
Launched four new-build integrated casino hotels for Seminole to date.
Migrated revenue-management stack from RainMaker to Duetto enterprise-wide.
Built ML models predicting lodger conversion and customer lifetime value.
Deployed Agentic AI to reduce cost per call across global call centers.
Shifted analytics from aggregate to customer-level profitability.

Aug 2021
— Aug 2023

Senior Vice President, Enterprise Analytics

Recommerce Brands · Deerfield Beach, FL

Led enterprise analytics for an Amazon agency representing brands including L'Oréal, Nature's Plus, JBL, and Supergoop! — owning the revenue forecast, financial modeling, and BI stack as proxy FP&A.

Owned monthly revenue estimation, forecasting, and strategic planning.
Implemented Domo as the company-wide business-intelligence platform.
Built ML models for repeat-customer insight, market-basket, and attribution.
Advised brand leadership on risk/opportunity scenarios and pricing.

Jul 2019
— Present

Founder — BeDataSavvy & LystGenie

Independent Ventures · Davie, FL

BeDataSavvy is an advisory and education practice helping individuals and organizations build data literacy, AI readiness, and sharper decision-making. LystGenie is a consumer platform built around collaborative planning and gift coordination.

Jul 2018
— Jul 2019

Vice President, BI & Analytics

Brightline Trains · Miami, FL

Reported jointly to the Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Built the analytics function from the ground up and owned the commercial playbook underpinning Brightline's private-funding and IPO due diligence.

Recruited and developed a cross-functional analytics team.
Built Customer Lifetime Value framework for passenger pricing & ancillary spend.
Modeled partnership economics with cruise lines and private-equity partners.
Set data-driven sales goals for local and regional teams.

Aug 2015
— Jul 2018

Vice President, Data Sciences

Atlantis Paradise Island / Brookfield Hospitality · Plantation, FL

Recruited to stand up the Data Science department and instill a data-driven culture behind Total Revenue Management. Quickly moved into a broader commercial capacity rotating through Revenue, Marketing, and Finance.

Owned revenue-management budget and performance for 3,700+ rooms.
Modeled revenue displacement, hurricane impact, insurance claims, and loyalty ROI.
Incorporated weather, port calls, and ship profiles into ancillary forecasting.
Built F&B and breakage profiles that drove the Dining Plan product design.

§ Prior Positions

Aug 2013 — Aug 2015 Director of Decision Sciences First Data Corp. (Fiserv) · Coral Springs, FL

Mar 2011 — Aug 2013 Energy Resource Modeler / Data Scientist NextEra Energy Resources · Juno Beach, FL

May 2007 — Mar 2011 Senior Modeling Analyst / Data Scientist JM Family Enterprises · Deerfield Beach, FL Owned risk and predictive models for a $4B auto retail portfolio.

§ 04 — Beyond the Role

Teaching &
board service.

I think the next generation of commercial and analytics leaders is better served by operators who teach than by academics who've never run a P&L. So I do both.

Teaching

Adjunct — Revenue Management

University of Florida · Boca Raton, FL Mar 2025 — Present

Adjunct — Statistics

Palm Beach Community College · Boca Raton, FL Jan 2008 — Dec 2009

Boards

Director

Kya's Smiles Foundation for Leukemia Present

Board Member

UF College of Hospitality & Tourism Present

§ 05 — Work With Me

Three ways
to engage.

Beyond my executive role, I take on a limited number of advisory, consulting, and speaking engagements through BeDataSavvy. Real-world experience — not theory.

For Organizations

Advise &
Consult

Executive advisory, AI readiness, analytics strategy, and revenue optimization — embedded with leadership teams.

Analytics strategy & optimization
AI readiness & data-quality audits
Revenue & performance improvement
Executive & board-level advisory

Explore Consulting

For Teams & Individuals

Teach &
Coach

Data-literacy programs and 1:1 coaching that help professionals think, communicate, and decide more clearly with data.

Data literacy for teams
1:1 coaching for analysts & leaders
Critical thinking & insight framing
Communication & presentation craft

Explore Coaching

Speaking & Workshops

Speak &
Facilitate

Practical, business-relevant sessions for conferences, leadership groups, classrooms, and cross-functional teams.

What it means to be data savvy
Why AI depends on data quality and information integrity
Communicating insight with clarity
Building a data-driven culture

Inquire About Speaking

§ 06 — Education

Engineering. Statistics.
Data mining. Leadership.

Three graduate-level credentials that together cover how systems work, how uncertainty behaves, and how to extract signal from the noise they produce.

Master of Engineering, Engineering Management

University of Florida Gainesville, FL

Master of Science, Statistical Computing & Data Mining

University of Central Florida Orlando, FL

Bachelor of Science, Statistics

University of Florida Gainesville, FL

Welcome.

Data is the foundation.AI is the amplifier.

What I build for the business.