Supply Chain Sales

Alex Xin Zhang

**** ******* **** ****: 510-***-****

Fremont, CA 94539 Cell: 408-***-****

E-mail: accug0@r.postjobfree.com

Specialty: Business analytics based on data; Decision optimization and statistical prediction in business and

information services. Hands-on skills and experiences in workforce planning and optimization, customer

behavior modeling, marketing campaign response models, forecasting, supply chain performance analysis and

optimization.

EXPERIENCE

1999 – Current: Scientist, Senior Scientist, Principal Scientist, Distinguished Technologist,

Hewlett-Packard, 1501 Page Mill Road, M/S 1140, Palo Alto, CA 94304

Contract Renewal Prediction (2013-2014). Designed, coded (in R), and tested prediction models for the

renewal probabilities of hundreds of thousands of customer contracts (including HP Carepacks), based on

large data (500+ attributes) about the customer, the service package, the hardware characteristics, and other

information. The predictive results are currently being evaluated and piloted by regional Sales and Customer

Operations organizations for re-allocating their sales resources to improve the contract renewal rates. Part of

the work (Flexible Carepack Conversion) won HP Technology Services Innovation Award in 2013.

Labor Strategy Optimization (LSO, 2008-2013). Worked with HP executives in Technology Services

(TS) on modeling and optimizing the field service workforce supporting customers. Led a team (6 people) to

develop a software tool based on an advanced optimization model to improve global service workforce

productivity, utilization, and cost. Enabled cost savings of $39M per year (addressing a total cost of

workforce of $2B/year).

Server Consolidation (2004-2007). Designed the main “consolidation engine” algorithm using high-

dimensional bin-packing with probabilistic service level constraints. Developed a prototype model that takes

input of server descriptive data (server inventory) and server performance log (workload trace), and

produces a recommended consolidation. The functional prototype was subsequently fully developed as a

software tool (the HP Consolidation Analysis Tool, or HP CAT). Using this tool, HP consulting sales teams

won 94 consolidation projects in the first year within its release (9/1/2006 through 9/1/2007). In its first 5

years, 895 licenses were issued (3.3 licenses per week); 256 HP consultants have used CAT for

consolidation projects involving 480,000 servers with 554 corporate clients worldwide.

Contributed to or led many other high-impact projects, including Personalized Marketing (2001-2003)

which involved HP.com, SnapFish.com, and an external customer (a digital printing company). In each of

these projects, I applied my skills of mathematical and statistical modeling to formulate a model based on

data, researched and experimented with solution approaches, and eventually implemented the model. All of

these projects required communications with business managers and understanding business priorities,

constraints, processes and the customers.

1992 –1999: Assistant Professor, University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business, Department

of Information and Operations Management, Los Angeles, CA 90089

Taught graduate (MBA) courses in Operations Management and Supply Chain Management, was rated

consistently among the top 12% of all USC business school instructors (each semester between 1993

and1999).

Researched in a variety of subject areas including demand fulfillment and assemble-to-order in supply

chains; was principal investigator in five research grants.

Served on a variety of administrative committees, including graduate curriculum committee at the

department and the school levels, IT supervisory committee at the business school level.

Alex Zhang, Page 2 of 2

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Industrial Engineering, Stanford University, 1992. Upon graduation (1992), received “Outstanding

Academic Performance Award” from Dept of Industrial Engineering at Stanford University.

M.A.Sc., Management Sciences, University of Waterloo, Canada, 1988. Runner-up, “The Most Outstanding

First-Year Master’s Student in Management Sciences.”

B.S., Systems Engineering, Changsha Institute of Technology, Changsha, Hunan, China, July 1984.

“Outstanding Graduate of the Class” (top 8 among 600) 1984.

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS (21 Published)

Cipriano Santos, Tere Gonzalez, Haitao Li, Kay-Yut Chen, Dirk Beyer, Sundaresh Biligi, Qi Feng, Ravindra

Kumar, Shelen Jain, Ranga Ramanujan, Alex Zhang. “HP Enterprise Services Uses Optimization for

Resource Planning,” Interfaces, Vol.43, Issue 2, pp.152-169. 2013.

Alper Sen, and Alex X. Zhang, “Style Goods Pricing with Demand Learning”, European Journal of Operational

Research, vol. 196 (2009), pp.1058-1075.

Christopher Stewart, Terence P. Kelly, Alex Zhang. “Exploiting Nonstationarity for Performance Prediction,”

EuroSys 2007, Lisbon, Portugal, March 21-23, 2007, pp.31-44.

18 other co-authored papers published in research journals and proceedings, covering topics in marketing, IT

systems modeling, and supply chain scheduling and optimization. Served on the editorial board on IIE

Transactions (2001-2003) and as referee/reviewer for Management Science, Operations Research, and other

journals for many years since 1992. Invited to give seminars at research institutions such as UC Berkeley in

2002.

REPRSENTATIVE PATENTS (22 Granted)

“Performance-data based server consolidation,” Zhang; Alex X., Safai; Fereydoon, Beyer; Dirk M., Rolia;

Jerome, Fremont; Marie-Jo L. US Patent #8,255,516; Granted on August 28, 2012.

“Demand Estimation Using Auction Price Analysis,” Alex Zhang, Dirk Beyer, Julie Ward, Tongwei Liu.

Granted on July 11, 2006; US Patent #7,076,459.

20 other patents granted. Served on the patent committee as a Patent Strategist for Business Optimization Lab,

Services Research Lab, and Information Analytics Lab, of HP Labs, from 2008 through 2013; evaluated more

than 200 invention disclosures for technical novelty and business value, advised HP Legal department on dozens

of patenting (Office Action) issues.

RECENT PROFESSIONAL AWARD

In 2008, jointly with colleague Zainab Jamal, won the DMEF (Direct Marketing Educational Fund) Customer

Lifetime Value Modeling Competition (Task 2). Our winning method was published “2008 DMEF Customer

Lifetime Value Competition (Task 2)” in Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol.23 (2009), pp.279-283.

COMPUTER SKILLS

Proficient in the following languages: R (for statistical modeling), SQL (for large data extraction and summary,

both Microsoft SQLServer and Oracle), Excel/Visual Basic for Applications (VBA, for end-user interface, and

for algorithm prototyping), General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS, for mathematical optimization in

linear and mixed integer programming).

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Born in China; Naturalized US citizen. Bilingual (English and Mandarin Chinese, read/write/speak). Enjoy

reading and photography. Play table tennis competitively.

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