Business Strategy Through Data-Driven Leadership

3+ Years of High-Impact Business Analytics and Data Science Excellence

Experienced Business Analyst specializing in predictive modeling, process optimization, and strategic decision-making through advanced analytics. Known for blending technical expertise with strong business acumen and executive-ready communication.

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Astha Harlalka

Astha Harlalka

Business Analytics Professional

Carnegie Mellon University | MSBA

Professional Summary

Driving business strategy through data-backed leadership. Business Analyst with 3+ years of experience shaping operational, strategic, and analytical decisions through high-impact data science and advanced analytics. Known for blending technical expertise (SQL, Python, Machine Learning) with strong business acumen, stakeholder alignment, and executive-ready communication.

Trusted partner to cross-functional teams, with a proven track record of influencing strategy and delivering measurable business outcomes. Recently graduated with a degree in Master of Science in Business Analytics at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business with a perfect 4.0 GPA. I am prepared to bring my skills and experiences to a dynamic role where I can add immediate value.

Core Competencies

  • 📊

    Data-Driven Business Strategy

    Predictive modeling, process optimization, and strategic decision-making through advanced analytics

  • 🎯

    Advanced Analytics & Machine Learning

    Statistical modeling, experimental design, causal inference, and machine learning for business optimization

  • 🔬

    Business Intelligence & Process Improvement

    A/B Testing, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Process Automation, and Performance Optimization

  • 📈

    Executive Communication & Leadership

    Insight storytelling, cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder alignment, and team enablement

Education

Carnegie Mellon Logo

Carnegie Mellon University – Tepper School of Business

Master of Science in Business Analytics (Merit Scholarship Recipient)

May 2025

GPA: 4.07/4.00

Leadership: Student Leadership Council – Operations Officer and GSA Representative

NMIMS Logo

Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics

Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Accounting and Auditing)

May 2021

GPA: 3.82/4.00

Leadership: Performing Arts Association – Marketing & Finance Head; Finance and Investment Cell – Elected Director

Professional Experience

Deloitte Logo

Deloitte Consulting US (Capstone - Carnegie Mellon University)

Jan 2025 - Apr 2025

Generative-AI Product Analytics Consultant

  • LLM Integration & AI Technology Creation: Built an AI tool using Flask, LLMs, and Selenium to simulate 25+ customer personas and evaluate website content, UX and key marketing elements such as message clarity, CTA effectiveness, and brand perception, saving over 12,000 hours of manual review across 1,000+ websites.
  • UX Optimization & Business Impact: Engineered automated testing and persona flows with Selenium, enabling a 25% increase in website usability scores and driving adoption of strategic recommendations by client teams.
  • Insight Validation: Benchmarked persona feedback across multiple LLMs, applying a 70% agreeableness threshold to reduce hallucinations and ensure high-confidence insights for optimizing conversion funnels, UX, and content performance.
Publicis Logo

Publicis Media (Subsidiary of Publicis Groupe)

Jul 2023 - Jan 2024

Associate Manager, Business (Marketing & Growth) Analytics

  • Revenue Growth: Designed A/B testing frameworks & attribution modeling strategies, analyzed data with SQL & Python to optimize ad delivery, improving ROAS by 30% and generating $7.2M in incremental revenue for clients
  • Data Analytics and Ad Optimization: Decreased trafficking errors by 13% month-on-month using Google Tag Manager insights, saving an estimated 90+ hours/month of manual rework
  • Process Automation: Delivered automation initiatives cutting manual workload by 25%, strategically positioning the team to scale services and manage $2M in added revenue from a key Media & Entertainment account
  • Data Visualization: Designed executive-ready Tableau/Power BI dashboards covering CTR, CAC, ROAS, and brand lift, used to guide $50M+ media investment decisions
Publicis Logo

Publicis Media (Subsidiary of Publicis Groupe)

Feb 2022 - Jun 2023

Senior Business Analyst

  • Process Improvement: Led global ad operations evaluation across 15+ countries to identify pain points and drive compliance improvements, enabling 3,500+ error-free campaign deliveries
  • Ad Fraud & Viewability Analysis: Reduced invalid traffic exposure by 35% using IAS (Integral Ad Science) insights, improving ad efficiency
  • Training Lead: Trained 30+ hires using personalized training methods and cut ramp-up time by 40%
  • High-Impact Troubleshooting: Rapidly diagnosed and resolved a critical DV360 trafficking error that was blocking ad delivery, directly safeguarding $6M in client media spend and preserving campaign ROI and executive trust
  • Client Impact: Regularly presented high-stakes performance analyses to C-suite executives, translating complex data into actionable recommendations that secured multi-million-dollar renewals
Publicis Logo

Publicis Media (Subsidiary of Publicis Groupe)

Jun 2021 - Jan 2022

Business Analyst

  • Customer Acquisition and Media Optimization: Designed and executed A/B tests to evaluate creative and media performance, increasing click-through rates (CTR) by 25% and reducing customer acquisition costs (CAC) by 18%
  • Ad Trafficking: Streamlined processes for ad-hoc projects, reducing errors and saving 120 hours/week
  • Tagging & Measurement Strategy: Deployed Floodlight tags, pixels, and event tags across Disney and ESPN+ campaigns, enabling full-funnel tracking and driving a 35% increase in attribution accuracy across CTV (Connected TV) and digital campaigns

Recognition: Two-time "Achiever" awardee, recognized by the CEO for outstanding performance.

Marketing Analytics Projects

Predictive Investment Strategy - Portfolio Optimization

Engineered an end-to-end LendingClub pipeline with ML models for return and default prediction, including K-means risk clustering and an integer-optimized portfolio of 100 loans, yielding a 28% return at 8.4% risk and delivering over four times the ROI of baseline portfolios. Applied advanced machine learning and business principles to investment optimization.

Python Machine Learning K-means Clustering Portfolio Optimization Risk Analysis ROI Optimization
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Predictive Marketing for Customer Acquisition

Developed predictive logistic regression & decision tree models in R to optimize a bank's telemarketing campaign, improving customer targeting and achieving a 90% cost reduction and 2.5x increase in net profit.

R Programming Predictive Modeling Customer Acquisition Telemarketing Optimization
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Churn Prediction and Customer Retention Marketing

Designed a churn prediction model in Python & implemented a proactive retention strategy using an Excel simulator to optimize offers for at-risk customers, improving LTV by $4.39M & achieving 757% ROI.

Python Churn Prediction Customer Retention LTV Optimization
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Competitive Marketing Analysis using Topic Models

Utilized LDA and Euclidean distance in Python to cluster 1,100+ films by topic and identify optimal 2014 release date for "The Maze Runner", reducing direct-release competition by 23%.

Python LDA Topic Modeling Competitive Analysis Marketing Strategy
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Ford Ka Marketing Segmentation Strategy

Applied k-means clustering on demographic and psychographic data to segment small-car buyers and identify high-MQL clusters; boosted alignment with trend- and value-driven consumers, informing Ford's go-to-market strategy.

R Programming Market Segmentation Customer Clustering Go-to-Market Strategy
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High Note Freemium Conversion Analysis & Strategy

Utilized decision trees and logistic regression in R to analyze 1.2M+ user behaviors and identify optimal conversion strategies for freemium-to-premium subscriptions, achieving 93.6% model accuracy and 70.7% engagement impact identification.

R Programming Decision Trees Logistic Regression Freemium Strategy
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Certifications & Courses

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Technical Skills & Business Analytics Expertise

Programming and Analytics

Advanced Python (Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, XGBoost) R Advanced SQL MongoDB Git

Statistical and Econometric Methods

Experimental Design Causal Inference Econometrics Hypothesis Testing Regression (Linear and Logistic) Time Series Forecasting Clustering Sensitivity Analysis

Marketing Tools

Google Analytics (GA4) CM360 DV360 Integral Ad Science (IAS) Google Tag Manager (GTM) HubSpot CRM Mailchimp Impact (Affiliate)

Marketing Analytics

A/B Testing Attribution Modeling Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) Churn Prediction Customer Segmentation

Visualization & Communication

Tableau Power BI Advanced Microsoft Excel (VBA, Power Query) Looker (Google Data Studio) QuickSight Executive Storytelling and Cross-functional Communication

Cloud and Data Engineering Tools

AWS (S3, Redshift, SageMaker Studio) Microsoft Azure dbt Alteryx Google Analytics ETL/ELT

Workflow and Automation

Flask Selenium Git Airtable Jira WordPress

Let's Connect

📧

Email

Ready to discuss business analytics opportunities?

aharlalk@tepper.cmu.edu

💼

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Ready to Drive Marketing Excellence Together?

Whether you're looking to optimize marketing campaigns, implement advanced analytics, or drive data-backed business strategy, I bring the expertise to deliver measurable results. Let's discuss how we can achieve exceptional business performance together.