A brief introduction:

Hello Everyone! My name is Diego de Aragão.

I have always operated at the intersection of the finance, technology, and data analytics spaces. As a computer scientist, I started my career as a software and data engineer, building tech solutions for Citigroup in Latin America. Leveraging this background, I moved into the consumer banking business as a data analytics expert, developing forecasting models and ad-hoc analysis to solve critical business problems leveraging data. After getting a Master of Science in Finance and MBA degree, my career shifted toward the financial/investment management space, where my background in tech and data analytics proved instrumental to develop and implement a multitude of data-driven solutions across the financial planning & analysis, corporate controllership, investment management, and corporate treasury functions. Currently, I am leading the team responsible for the analytics and insights discovery capabilities for Citigroup's capital management function, providing proactive, actionable, and data-driven advisory and intelligence around the deployment and management of our firm's ~$200B capital stack.

Why did I take up the FDP challenge?

I pursued the FDP designation because the rigor, comprehensiveness, and depth of the curriculum, combined with the usefulness, novelty and relevance of the case studies applied to the finance industry, provided me with the ideal platform to continue my learning journey as a data scientist within the finance space.

The FDP designation allows me to clearly signal my experience, expertise, and passion for data science applied to finance to my industry peers, as well as to join a community of like-minded professionals who acknowledge the value that continued education and exposure to the latest trends in the machine learning and artificial intelligence can bring to their businesses and careers.

What is great about FDP?

The rigorous and comprehensive curriculum of the FDP designation program provided me with a solid technical background in the data science discipline as well as exposure to relevant, modern, and actionable applications to the banking industry. It allows me to bridge eventual gaps between my technical background, as a computer scientist, to my business and finance experiences, as an MBA and MS in Finance graduate with 15+ years of experience in the finance industry. As an FDP Charterholder, I feel equipped to leverage cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques and algorithms to solve complex problems in the applied finance space.

What value do you find in belonging to a global community of financial data professionals?

Being part of the FDP community allows me to gain exposure to the latest trends and applications of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to the finance domain, through the series of events and seminars hosted by the FDP Institute for the FDP Charterholder community.

In today's finance industry, data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence have become increasingly important and are revolutionizing the way financial professionals make decisions and provide insights to clients, business partners, and senior management. Hence, leveraging any opportunity to develop foundational technical skills in data analytics is essential. This includes proficiency in statistical analysis, data visualization tools (such as Tableau or Power BI), programming languages (such as Python or R), and database querying languages (such as SQL). These skills enable finance professionals to manipulate, analyze, and interpret complex financial data effectively.  More importantly though, getting exposure to real-life applications of data-driven solutions within the finance industry context will provide hands-on experience and practical knowledge that cannot be gained solely through theoretical learning. By working on real-life projects, finance professionals can understand how these data science techniques can be applied to their specific business problems, and gain insights into data collection and preprocessing, feature engineering, model development, and performance evaluation, all key aspects of any data-driven problem-solving lifecycle.

About Diego de Aragão:

Diego de Aragão, CFA, FDP is the Senior Vice President of Balance Sheet Management & Analytics at Citigroup, based in New York, NY. His 15+ years professional career spans across organizations (Citigroup, American Express), functions (technology, business intelligence/data analytics, finance, and corporate treasury), and geographies (Brazil, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States). Diego holds a BS degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Florianópolis, Brazil, an MS degree in Finance from Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil, and an MBA degree from IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charterholder and a certified Financial Data Professional (FDP).