Leading with Data and Analytics

Learn how to improve business outcomes by leveraging analytics to make evidence-based decisions.

As the volume of available business data expands, the winners in tomorrow’s marketplace will be those who can generate insight from information. Yet, many leaders feel daunted by the sheer amount of data out there. Many others make the critical mistake of looking for patterns in the data they have, instead of framing productive questions to shape the data they need. Competency in this area is so lacking, a recent Gartner study predicted that by 2020, 80% of organizations will initiate deliberate development programs in data literacy.

Many of the ideas, methods and principles that describe the best business data and analytics practices were pioneered by faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In this six-week program taught by Chicago Booth professors, participants learn how to “think data” the Booth way. They develop the critical and creative reasoning skills needed to frame a data analytics project, collaborate with data specialists, and ultimately make evidenced-based decisions that drive results — without sacrificing speed and agility.

By attending this program, you will:

  • Apply the Chicago Booth Approach to win in the marketplace: Develop the key ingredients of a powerful data analytics strategy: a specific business objective, well-developed theories, and a model that points the way to critical data and deep insight.

  • Frame questions to generate data-based insight: Identify specific objectives and related hypotheses to drive data analysis. Avoid biases in interpreting data: Sidestep the common pitfall of unconsciously bending data to support false assumptions and preconceptions.
  • Tell the story of the data: Translate data-driven insights into actionable decisions and drive buy-in by delivering a compelling narrative.

This program is designed for busy leaders—managers, directors, VPs, and C-suite—with the drive and desire to solve their organization’s critical business challenges. This short, focused program allows you to develop solutions for both near- and long-term challenges—without disrupting your day-to-day responsibilities. Job titles include senior leaders, mid-level & team leaders, project managers, and directors.

Sanjog Misra

Charles H. Kellstadt Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing and Applied AI
Sanjog Misra is the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research focuses on the use of machine learning, deep learning and structural econometric methods to study consumer and firm decisions. In particular, his research involves building data-driven models aimed at understanding how consumers make choices and investigating firm decisions pertaining to pricing, targeting and salesforce management issues. More broadly, Professor Misra is interested in the development of scalable algorithms, calibrated on large-scale data, and the implementation of such algorithms in real world decision environments.

Professor Misra's research has been published in the Econometrica, The Journal of Marketing Research, The Journal of Political Economy, Marketing Science, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, among others. He has served as the co-editor of Quantitative Marketing and Economics and as area editor at Management Science, the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Marketing Science, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, the International Journal of Research in Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research.

Misra is actively involved in partnering with firms in his research and has worked as an advisor to a number of companies such as Transunion, Oath, Verizon, Eli Lilly, Adventis, Mercer Consulting, Sprint, MGM, Bausch & Lomb, Xerox Corporation and Ziprecruiter with the aim of helping them design efficient, analytics-based, management systems that result in better decisions. He currently serves as an advisor to startups in the marketing technology, measurement and AI space. At Booth Professor Misra teaches courses on Algorithmic Marketing. These courses bring his practical and research expertise in the algorithmic marketing domain into the classroom. He is hopeful that these classes will get students ready for the next evolution of marketing that he believes is already underway.

Prior to joining Booth, Misra was Professor of Marketing at UCLA Anderson School of Management and Professor at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester. In addition he has been visiting faculty at the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University and the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

Jean-Pierre Dubé

James M. Kilts Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing and Charles E. Merrill Faculty Scholar
Jean-Pierre Dubé is the James M. Kilts Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Professor Dubé is also director of the Kilts Center for Marketing at Booth, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a faculty fellow at the Marketing Science Institute. From 2008-2010, he was a research consultant for the Yahoo! Microeconomics Research group. He has been working as a research consultant with Amazon since 2018.

His research interests lie at the intersection of industrial organization and quantitative marketing. He has conducted empirical studies on the formation of consumer preferences for branded goods, price discrimination, advertising, food deserts and nutrition policy, and the role of misinformation in consumer demand. This empirical focus is also reflected in his MBA course on pricing strategies, which is designed to teach students how to apply marketing models and analytics to develop pricing strategies in practice. Several of his recent research projects are in collaboration with companies in the US and in China.

Dubé’s work has been published in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, The Journal of Marketing Research, The Journal of Political Economy, Management Science, Marketing Science, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Rand Journal of Economics. He is currently Department Editor at Management Science, and has previously served as an area/associate editor for The Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, and Quantitative Marketing and Economics. He was the recipient of the 2023 Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award, the Chicago Booth Class of 2016 Phoenix Award for service to the extracurricular and community activities of the graduating class, the 2008 Paul E. Green Award for Best paper in the Journal of Marketing Research and of the 2005 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award for Evening MBA and Weekend MBA Programs at the Chicago Booth. He was also the recipient of several MSI Research Grants, a Kauffman grant, and a Yahoo! Faculty Research Grant.

Dubé earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto in quantitative methods in economics in 1995, a master's degree in economics in 1996, and a PhD in 2000 from Northwestern University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2000.

Guenter Hitsch

Kilts Family Professor of Marketing
Günter J. Hitsch is the Kilts Family Professor of Marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  

He studies quantitative marketing and industrial organization. His research interests include dynamic models of firm and consumer decision-making with a specific focus on advertising, pricing, sequential learning and experimentation, and intertemporal consumer choice. His research also focuses on the application of causal inference and machine learning to applications that include optimal customer-targeting and pricing. His research aims to provide generalizable results that apply beyond specific case studies and serve as inputs for both the decision-making of marketing practitioners and academic research.

Hitsch is a Co-Editor of the Journal of Quantitative Marketing and Economics and an Associate Editor at Marketing Science and Management Science. His research has been published in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Quantitative Marketing and Economics, Management Science, Marketing Science, and the RAND Journal of Economics.

He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Vienna in 1995, master's degrees in economics in 1997 and 1998, and a PhD in economics in 2001 from Yale University. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2001.

Hitsch is an avid skier, and during his free time he enjoys chocolate, literature, and classical music. He wants his students to learn that "good marketing isn't fluffy."

Devin Pope

Steven G. Rothmeier Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics and Robert King Steel Faculty Fellow

Devin Pope is the Steven G. Rothmeier Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Pope is a behavioral economist that researches a variety of topics at the intersection of economics and psychology. He has published work in top journals of economics (Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, etc.), general science (Science, Nature, etc.), and Management and Psychology (Psychological Science, Management Science, etc.). His research primarily uses observational data and studies how psychological biases play out in important economic markets.

Prior to joining Chicago Booth faculty in 2010, Pope was on the faculty at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 2007 and a BA in economics from Brigham Young University in 2002. Pope also worked as an Amazon Scholar from 2019-2021 and is currently a co-editor at the American Economic Review.

“I enjoyed the practical structure of the program. Rather than just focusing on theory, this program made me really try to apply the model to my real world experience. In so doing I have been able to articulate a solution to a particular issue in a way that I believe I can get support for. The one really insightful piece of information is the focus on thinking, planning up front rather than launching into data analysis.”

—Pharmaceutical Company, Exec Director Strategic Analysis CL Operations

“I enjoy the perspective and approach to analysis, the lectures (and the easy to understand explanations), and the easily digestible lengths of the videos. I'm viewing problems, and potential solutions, through a different lens.”

—Mobile telecommunication company, Sr. Manager, Operational Insights


“The quality of content was top notch and the pace of the course was well structured.”
—Mobile telecommunication company, Sr. Manager, Operational Insights


“...I am truly enjoying and learning a lot from this course. The examples and coursework is clear and concise. The weekly videos teach you what you will need to do for your project. I say this knowing that I am in a completely different field than the examples. I am in Food services and with the teachings, I am able to understand it well enough to translate the work to my area.”
—Non-profit healthcare organization, General Manager/Executive Chef


“I really enjoyed the live class, especially when one of the attendees had a question and I got to listen to how Professor Misra broke it down for him. I appreciated the validation that I was already doing some of these approaches with my own data analysis, which were recommended as part of the process.”
—Software company, Sr Research Manager


“The lectures were extremely helpful in looking at business differently and how to use the data available to make significant improvements to the business. The real life examples were very valuable to see how useful this type of analysis can be in solving problems or at least get a better understanding of what is influencing performance.”
—Manufacturing Company, Sr Quality Engineer


“Very insightful and thought provoking lessons.”
—Insurance Company, Manager of Auto Damage