Sumathi Thiyagarajan joined the Milwaukee Bucks as their inaugural Vice President of Business Strategy and Analytics in Nov 2021. In this capacity, she builds, develops and leads a forward-thinking business analytics team to harness the power of data, applied analytics and technology to drive results.

Prior to this role, she served in various leadership positions within Marquette University, including the Sr. Director of Strategy & Operations for University Relations, Director of Program Management in the Office of the President, and Marquette’s program manager in Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute (www.nmdsi.org). Across all of these roles, she worked closely with senior leaders within the various units and functions across campus, leading a range of strategic and operational initiatives, supporting task forces and implementing grant programs. Prior to Marquette, Thiyagarajan’s experience spanned over 10 years across many healthcare sectors (consulting, health systems, medical devices & non-profit) developing strategies, defining goals, measuring performance and implementing plans.

Meghan López, the International Rescue Committee’s Regional Vice President for Latin America, is a Doctorally prepared Board-Certified Family Nurse Practitioner with over 20 years of experience working internationally for vulnerable communities. She is also Adjunct Faculty at Johns Hopkins University.

Meghan leads the IRC’s Latin America response to the humanitarian crisis across the region, contributing to the protection and promotion of rights and well-being of children, families and other populations in vulnerable situations, whether displaced, fleeing violence and unrest or stuck seeking asylum through a range of creative approaches including humanitarian CASH programming, access to information through the Global Signpost project, protection, education and health responses.

Meghan has widely presented and published in peer-reviewed journals on quality early childhood care, integral health, development, violence and toxic stress. Meghan has previously lived and worked in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Paraguay, studied in Morocco, had assignments in Argentina, Bolivia, China, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and the Philippines, and served as an NGO representative to the United Nations in New York and the Beijing +5 conference in Lima, Peru. In 2017 Meghan received Johns Hopkins University’s Global Achievement Award. In 2019 she received the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing award for Innovative Research for her doctoral work implementing a violence prevention project in communities impacted by gangs in El Salvador in collaboration with UNICEF: “Setting up for Success: Breaking Transgenerational Experience of violence by Supporting Positive Parenting

Dr. Robert Callahan is an assistant professor at Lakeland University. He came to Lakeland from Holy Family College in Manitowoc where he served as the institution's president. He was instrumental in reversing long-term declines in freshmen enrollments and improving the financial position of that institution prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Callahan received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Northcentral University and both his Bachelor of Science in Marketing Management and Master of Science in Business Administration from Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, where he also taught, served in various administrative and admissions roles and coached women's basketball.

He has served as an enrollment manager and senior level administrator at Mount Mercy University, Urbana University and Keuka College. Callahan and his family reside in Mishicot, Wis.



Judge Kashoua Kristy Yang is a circuit court judge in Milwaukee County. She was elected to the bench on April 4, 2017, becoming the first Asian American judge to be elected in Wisconsin without appointment, and the first elected judge of Hmong ethnicity (without appointment) in the United States.

Prior to ascending to the bench, Justice Yang was a private practice attorney representing individuals in family law, worker's compensation and social security disability matters. She spent significant time on various pro bono and community efforts, such as the volunteer legal clinic and Legal Options for Trafficked and Underserved Survivors. Prior to her assignment to children's court, Justice Yang worked in criminal misdemeanor court.

Justice Yang received her bachelor's degree in computer science from Lakeland University in 2003 before obtaining her Juris Doctorate from the University of Wisconsin. Justice Yang serves the Lakeland community as member of the LU Board of Trustees.

Dr. Amaya is the current President & Executive Director of Data You Can Use (DYCU) a non-profit research organization. He leads DYCU’s strategy and operations with a goal of helping the organization drive impact to improve conditions in the community. Dr. Victor Amaya is a veteran educator, instructional coach and school leader, with a focus on success measures and impact. Most recently, he led the Impact Department at City Year Milwaukee, the local affiliate of a national educational non-profit, where he used data to create systems and success measures, and worked collaboratively with local, state and national leaders. Dr. Amaya also served as the Interim Executive Director where he built strong partnerships with Milwaukee Public Schools, City Year Board of Trustees, corporate and philanthropic partners, and the wider community.

Dr. Amaya was born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and immigrated to Milwaukee when he was twelve. He is a MPS graduate of Riverside University High School and earned his BA in Sociology and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Dr. Amaya holds a Director of Curriculum and Instruction license, a District Superintendent’s license and earned an MS in Administrative Leadership and a Doctorate in Leadership in the Advancement of Learning from Cardinal Stritch University.



Vikas is a senior consulting leader managing and delivering complex business analytics projects. He is the founder and CEO of Virtue Analytics, a boutique consulting firm specializing in advance data analytical solutions.

He has over 20 years of leadership, business management, research, analytics, supply chain, logistics, merchandising, technology and strategic sourcing experience that span across multiple industries such as Higher Education, Retail, Consumer Goods, 3PL, Manufacturing, Telecom, and Hospitality.

Vikas holds an MS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Masters in Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Vikas maintains an unwavering focus to help companies succeed, by utilizing Virtue’s innovative business strategies driven by advanced analytical approaches and techniques.

Jordon Meyer is the founder and CEO of Granular, a digital marketing agency and a Google Premier Partner based out of Milwaukee, WI. He’s been an expert PPC practitioner for over 16 years and has run digital marketing at multiple agencies, managed over $1M in PPC spend per week at a Fortune 100 company, and in total has managed digital marketing for over 150 businesses around the world. Today, he’s in the business of growing other businesses through expert PPC advertising and digital measurement at Granular.

About Granular:

Granular was founded and is run by digital marketing veterans with both in-house Fortune 50 and agency-side marketing experience. The expertise was built by hands-on management of well over $100 Million in PPC and digital marketing ad spend. Granular is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was founded in 2014.

John was born and raised in the Bay Area, studied at the US Naval Academy and spent his early career as Surface Warfare Officer based out of San Diego. After the Navy, John attended Columbia Business School where he learned through an internship at Apple that global supply chain management was not a passion of his. After school, John wound up at UpGuard, a venture backed cyber risk software company, where he ran marketing and then worked in business development and sales over four years.

John joined Google in June of 2019 as an Agency Development Manager. His role has him working with Google Premier Partners, like Granular, to use Google’s resources to help grow and develop their clients' businesses.

You can take this as a three-credit course toward a Lakeland master of business administration (MBA) degree, master of science in leadership and organizational development (MS-LOD) degree, or toward Lakeland's graduate certificate in leadership.

Student's pursing their bachelor's degree can also take this course as an elective and get a jumpstart towards their graduate degree.

Current Students:

• Please talk to your academic advisor to enroll in this class.
  
• BA 785: Predicting the Future - Data Analytics.
  

Prospective Students:

• Email us at getstarted@lakeland.edu and an admissions advisor will contact you within 24-business hours.

This course can be taken as a seminar through Develop U, which is run by Launch: Lakeland University Student-Run Businesses. Develop U offers customized workshops and training programs for professional growth.

The program cost is $500 and an unlimited number of team members within an organization can access the class live.

Please note, the class is not recorded and can only be accessed live.

Interested in learning more? Contact us!