I’m Kevin Hartman, founder of Art+Science, and I wanted to share a bit more about my data analyst career. (tl;dr: Data analytics saved my professional life).

My path to data analytics was not a direct one. I spent a lot of time early on unsure of what I wanted to do. I was good at numbers and I wanted to do something artistic with them, but “data analytics” as a field didn’t exist in my days as a student. So I picked up an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in business, but I was just doing what I thought I had to do, not what I was excited to do. I didn’t feel like I fit in with my MBA colleagues who had their sights set on big jobs in management or finance.

Just A Job, Then A Calling

I took a job with a large consulting firm, but I still felt like a fish out of water. I was too analytical for the account management side of the firm, too creative to be excited by the type of projects we were paid to tackle. Have you ever spent 6 months in Scottsbluff, Nebraska doing mortgage process re-design work? I have. I still have nightmares. I was traveling constantly, always away from my family, and slowly dying from boredom. I was in a slump and felt there had to be more to my professional life. I wanted to be an impactful leader who made big decisions and led big teams, but I had no idea how I was going to get there.

Then one day, I was talking with a friend about changing careers and he mentioned his company, a large advertising agency called FCB, was hiring. They were looking for people to staff a new department called Customer Intelligence. I had no idea what that was, but I knew it wouldn’t involve mortgage process redesign. My friend arranged a connection with the person leading the new team. Little did I know, that connection would change my life.

On a cold Chicago day in December, I went to the FCB offices off Michigan Avenue and met Michael Fassnacht. Michael explained his vision for a team that would use data to power the agency’s ads. By merging data analytics and creative thought – art and science – the agency would root campaigns in objective insights and bring measurement to an industry historically light on accountability. Though its hard to believe by today’s modern advertising standards, this was revolutionary at the time. Data just wasn’t used like this in advertising in 2006, where things still operated a lot like the three-martini-powered creative sessions you see on Mad Men. We were 5 years ahead of everyone, and I had found what I was missing.

I took a job on Michael’s team and felt excited for the first time about my career. I loved the work and was blown away by the intersection of data and creativity. Michael quickly became my mentor and taught me the ins and outs of Data Storytelling.

A New World Of Opportunities

Everything clicked into place and I was able to blend my analytical side with my creative side. Anyone can collect data. And anyone can tell a story. But when you tell a story backed up by data, you create an opportunity to have real, meaningful impact on decisions.

When Michael moved on to a global role a few years later, I took over the team. I spent 6 years at the agency before moving to Google. There I led a 80+ person analytics team and was the executive sponsor of the Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate program on Coursera (you can still see video of me teaching the data visualization class). Ultimately, I became Google’s Chief Analytics Strategist making me the company’s global thought leader on all things data analytics.

During my time at Google, I was asked to teach a course on data analytics at the University of Chicago. I found that I loved teaching and I began working as an adjunct professor at a number of schools. After 11 years at Google, I made the decision to pursue my passion for teaching full-time by joining the University of Notre Dame’s faculty.

Now I get to teach the lessons I’ve learned about merging art and science to a new generation of data analysts. I truly have a career that allows me to do all the things that inspire me.

Art+Science

By launching the Art+Science Analytics Institute, I hope to teach the things I’ve learned to even more data analysts and help them start and grow a career in data analytics. Our mission is to make you a better analyst. And, maybe, I can payback what data analytics did for me by saving a few professional lives along the way.