I make black boxes you can argue with.
Commercial teams don't need the right number.
They need a call they can defend.
First product person at Heineken's Global Analytics & AI Hub. Three production decision systems, built for a ~€2.9B budget.
It's all probabilities.
Every model, market and building I've worked on gave a range, not an answer.
My job is getting people to act on the range.
Ninety seconds, in person.
What I built at Heineken, what I learned about getting people to trust a model, and what I'm looking for next.
I've been the first person inside something new three times. I was the first hire at a Chinese architecture firm's European office and set it up in Poland from zero. At MAD Architects in Beijing, I was one of two founding members of the parametric design group. And I was the first product person in Heineken's Global Analytics & AI Hub.
Heineken spends €7.9 million on marketing and sales a day.
Someone decides where every one of those euros goes. Before the hub, that was spreadsheets and gut feel.
Three questions. One loop.
Three of us against a consultancy's finished product. We won.
Build or buy. Heineken was ready to buy a consultancy's promo-planning product. Three of us got less than half a year to show that building it in-house would work better.
Buildings that were programs.
Five years working in China, back and forth ever since. I wrote the scripts behind a facade and an opera house interior at MAD, and competition wins at AREP. A decade before "AI agent" was a phrase, I was building evolutionary solvers that bred building geometry from a fitness function.
Optimal was easy. Buildable was the job.
Harbin Opera House
My part: parametric timber interior, detailed down to fabrication.
Gangxia North hub
My part: parametric skylights and entrances for the competition win.
