In 2009 author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek delivered the now-classic TED talk “Start with why”. Viewed by over 28 million people, “Start with Why” is the third most popular TED video of all time and it teaches us that great leaders and companies inspire us to take action by focusing on the WHY over the “what” or the “how”. In this talk we’ll ask how applied data and computational scientists can use the power of WHY to frame problems, inspire others, and give them answers to business questions they might never think of asking. Bio Jessica Stauth is a Managing Director in Fidelity Labs, an internal startup incubator with a mission to create new fintech businesses that drive growth for the firm. Dr. Stauth previously held roles as Managing Director of Portfolio Management, Research, and Trading at Quantopian, a crowd-sourced systematic hedge fund based in Boston, Director of Quant Product Strategy for Thomson Reuters (now Refinitiv), and as a Senior Quant Researcher at the StarMine Corporation, where she built global stock selection models including the design and implementation of the StarMine Short Interest model. Dr. Stauth holds a PhD in Biophysics from UC Berkeley, where her research focused on computational neuroscience.

1. Pandemics, CAPM, and Factor Alpha
Jessica Stauth,Phd
Fidelity Labs
QWAFAFEW
Oct 17,2020
Boston, MA

2. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Hugh Crowther

3. Announcements
■ December 8 Adapting to the New Normal: A Playbook for Virtual Leadership
■ December 9 Career Chat: Fintech
■ December 14 Investment Portfolio Risk for Insurance Companies – The CIO
Perspective
■ December 15 The Current Fintech Landscape, its Evolution and Future

4. QU Fall
school
■ Theme: AI and
ML Enablement
– Data Science with Python
– AI & Machine Learning for
Financial Professionals
– Model Risk & Governance
■ https://qufallschool.spla
shthat.com/

5. Slides and Code
■ QuAcademy:
www.qu.academy

6. Jessica Stauth is a Managing Director in
Fidelity Labs, an internal startup
incubator with a mission to create new
fintech businesses that drive growth for
the firm. Dr. Stauth previously held roles
as Managing Director of Portfolio
Management, Research, and Trading at
Quantopian, a crowd-sourced systematic
hedge fund based in Boston, Director of
Quant Product Strategy for Thomson
Reuters (now Refinitiv), and as a Senior
Quant Researcher at the StarMine
Corporation, where she built global stock
selection models including the design and
implementation of the StarMine Short
Interest model. Dr. Stauth holds a PhD in
Biophysics from UC Berkeley, where her
research focused on computational
neuroscience.

7. Start with why
Jessica Stauth, PhD Managing Director, Fidelity Labs

8. Why ask why?

9. Why ask why?

11. Basic and applied
sciences have
different WHY
statements
The goal of basic science is to advance
fundamental knowledge about the world.
Insights generated may or may not have
readily observable applications.
The goal of applied data science is to
generate insights which analysts and
business users can translate into tangible
business value.

12. In my experience
the reality is
becoming much
more iterative and
overlapping.
LEARN SOMETHING NEW
APPLY IT!

13. Business value is why.

14. Investment Returns Sales Customer Happiness
Business value is …

15. Business value is …
Operating efficiency Speed to market Engagement

16. Insights to drive value…

17. Can my business users understand and
capitalize on the insights generated by
my model?

19. Apply the
principles
and skills you
learned in
basic
science!
• Extraordinary Claims
• Falsifiability
• Occam's Razor
• Replicability
• Ruling Out Rival Hypotheses
• Correlation vs. Causation

20. Thank you. Questions?
Jessica.Stauth@fmr.com
@jstauth

21. References
• Start with Why TED Talk – Simon Sinek
• Delivering Happiness – Tony Hsieh

22. Thanks for joining!
Questions