     Zachary1 (Drcredit) | Friday, October 27, 2000 - 05:47 pm 
Here is a gem of a man who I'd like to meet in person! Go to his website at www.scorestat.com . Here is a Canadian-bred fellow who gets a Ph.D. and becomes a Certified Management Accountant before gallyvanting off to the good ol U.S.of A. to become Mr. Brains for Fair, Isaac! Here is THE MAN whom we have to talk to if we want answers to much that mystifies us. (or, read it and weep for a century).
It's all down to the roots of the brains behind the credit (and other!) scoring, and he's another brain-drain from Canada.
These statistical analysis gods give me the creeps. (Halloween is Tuesday, isn't it)? How does that grab y'all? Eh, Christine? Here's his bio: Note that he was PROJECT MANAGER for scorecard development at good 'ol San Rafael Palace!
Kevin J. Leonard, Ph.D., C.M.A.
President
Assistant Professor of Health Administration Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto - Toronto, ON, Canada
Former Associate Professor of Business (on leave), School of Business and Economics Wilfrid Laurier University - Waterloo, ON, Canada
Past President, CCRMA Canadian Credit Risk Management Association
Past Director, REMAT Research Centre for Education and Management of Changing Technology
Dr. Leonard first began work in the credit industry during his doctoral studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. His dissertation, entitled " Credit Scoring Via Logistic Regression with Random Effects", explored the application of advanced statistical models to credit decisions for small business loans. These models proved to be quite effective and showed increase performance over more conventional statistical methods.
After two years at the Bank of Canada, Canada's central bank in Ottawa, Dr. Leonard joined the Fair, Isaac Companies in San Rafael, California. At Fair, Isaac, Dr. Leonard was project manager on both application and behaviour scorecard development and later was Fair, Isaac's Canadian Representative before their Canadian office opened.
In July, 1990, Dr. Leonard joined Wilfrid Laurier University as a Professor lecturing in courses in Business Statistics, Management Information Systems and Credit Modeling. The credit course explored the many opportunities in the credit field that are presently available for the application of advanced statistical models. Further, as Director of REMAT, Dr. Leonard was in the unique position of liaising with faculty, research assistants and the external constituents - industry, government and the community. In this capacity, Dr. Leonard assisted the business community in their adoption and utilization of state-of-the-art technology and information systems.
In addition to his duties at the University, from late 1991 until November, 1993, Dr. Leonard held the position of General Manager, Risk Management Division within CIBC - Canada's second largest bank. Within this capacity, Dr. Leonard negotiated contracts with scorecard vendors; developed, implemented and managed scorecard policy for all lines of consumer credit (including mortgages and VISA); developed a fraud model for VISA authorizations using an Expert System Rule-base; developed and piloted a comprehensive training package for front line lending personnel; developed a rule-base system for account openings and ATM access; and designed management reports for application scoring, credit bureau score implementation and account management. As the Director of Decision Systems at Equifax Canada from 1994-96, Dr. Leonard lead a team of 20 statisticians, programmers and analysts exploring creative and innovative modeling opportunities using credit data for the Canadian financial marketplace.
On occasion, Dr. Leonard has been involved with the development of a database management systems for different professional sports and for the health care industry in Canada. In particular, he is researching issues pertaining to the development and implementation of a centralized patient record for the health care as well as the lead research investigator for a Community Health Information Network in Waterloo, ON. Dr. Leonard has been a leader in applying new technology and creative solutions to a variety of industries. He has authored approximately 50 articles in the areas of statistics, operations research and management information systems appearing in refereed journals, industry periodicals and conference proceedings. |
| Christine Baker (Admin) | Friday, October 27, 2000 - 06:54 pm
Wow, Zachary, I had no idea we can blame Fair Isaac's credit scoring on the Canadians!
I've heard some stories about projects and tests for the US military at CANADIAN universities because it couldn't be done in the US.
I was a little ticked off at the Canadians after I had a long talk with a Canadian immigration officer a few weeks ago. I found out that at the border the Canadians check every US driver's license for the entire US criminal history AND finger printing.
If there's ANY conviction that would result in jail time according to the Canadian criminal code, the Canadians send you right back to the US.
There are some exceptions, a guy who had a DUI **17** years ago was able to get a Canadian pardon for $200 CDN. And the Canadians don't care if you had a couple of conviction for possession of marihuana in the last 5 years, as long as it was below 30 grams.
I found that all very interesting, but somewhat annoying. I always thought they'd check for CURRENT warrants, but had no idea how this works.
It took me a while to realize that you really can't blame the Canadians for looking at that data, but why on earth are the US giving the Canadians access?
The immigration guy told me they've been doing this for 17 years.
I had a tough time getting into Canada on the way up because I've been finger printed in California (notary public, real estate broker), and they thought I'd been arrested and lied about it.
All in all, I really like Canada better than the US, based on what I've seen so far. But apparently Canada is right behind the US when it comes to statistics and information systems. Not good. |
