FEATURED JOB CANDIDATE: IVETTE LINDSAY
Updated: Sep 16, 2022
Strategically minded data analyst with Excel, SQL, Power BI, and Tableau skills, also has experience in the financial industry. Eager to assist in decision-making goals.
Ivette (pronounced “eye”“vet”) Lindsay has an incredible work ethic. She has been working since middle school and has never stopped. She says she owes her drive to her parents who instilled in her that you get up and go to work even when you aren’t feeling well.
This drive has served Ivette well. Most recently she worked at a financial institution in Atlanta, Georgia doing research for them to determine if the portfolio managers knew what they were doing or if they were just getting lucky.
In 2019, her family needed her to come to Louisville to help out. She did and immediately took the first job she could get - a warehouse worker. “It was good work, but it was taking a toll on my body and not stimulating my mind.” Ivette said.
Once settled in, she found a job doing customer service for various financial institutions. While she easily handled the work, it still didn’t stimulate her mind. Next she landed a job at the Jefferson County Courthouse assisting everyone in the office from counselors to the program director. In this role, she also was responsible for doing data entry, tracking, and reporting.
When Covid hit, Ivette found herself needing a job again. This time she expanded her search to include opportunities to strengthen her skills specifically in data, which she was finding more and more interesting. The AMPED Data Analytics Immersive program was just what she needed. This 9-week, 5-day-a-week, 8-hour-a-day, paid program included online courses through General Assembly and focussed on Excel (cleaning data, functions and formulas database), SQL (manipulation and management of data creating formulas to grab and process large sets of data) and Tableau (visualizing the data in dashboards).
The program also introduced her to agile project management, advanced communication via Slack, and SWOT analysis. In addition, she and her classmates were exposed to experts in the field who spoke to them about data analytics jobs. What she loved most was the focus on working toward outcomes for the projects. Not just the data, but how the data could be used to achieve change.
As a final project for the AMPED program, Ivette completed a Capstone project on the topic of Redlining where she was exposed to over 1 million rows of data.
“I discovered that Memphis, Tennessee (Shelby County), Chicago, Illinois (Cook County) and Louisville, Kentucky (Jefferson County) had a high percentage of Asians with Balloon Mortgages and a low percentage of mortgages amongst Blacks compared to the population for both minority groups. I was amazed that despite all those rows of data, it still was not enough data because I couldn’t drill down in certain areas as far as I would have liked,” Ivette shared. “This opened my eyes to the need for better data collection.”
Kweku Martin, the technology manager at AMPED who ran their data analytics training program said, “Ivette is a very determined and intelligent student. She is willing to work hard and understand the field of data analytics. She enjoys learning about the data she works with, does a great job of interpreting it and is great at building visual datasets. I know she will be an asset to the organization that lands her.”
Following the completion of the AMPED program, Ivette rolled into the Future of Work Initiative’s Data Boss Program. Data Boss is a program funded through Metro Louisville United Way by the JP Morgan Chase AdvancingCities Grant and produced by the Future of Work Initiative. The purpose of Data Boss is to provide data analytics students from the AdvancingCities programs: AMPED, Louisville Central Community Center, and Tech Louisville, with the opportunity for hands-on experience that they can use to strengthen their portfolios. In the program, Ivette was paid as a contractor to successfully complete two data analytics projects.
Ivette is now ready to take on a data analytics position as a career and not just a job. While she would love to find a position in her greatest areas of interest: voting, city planning or finance, she is open to all opportunities. Her preference would be to work remotely or at least a hybrid arrangement. However she must stay in Louisville. Most importantly, Ivette desires her new career in a place where she can have pride in her work - both in how she delivers outcomes and how those outcomes help others.
Interested in learning more about Ivette?
Email: ivette.lindsay@gmail.com
The Louisville Future of Work Initiative, a partnership between Microsoft and Louisville Metro Government, is grateful for the opportunity to feature Louisville residents who are working toward new careers in technology.