Jacob Spoelstra brings more than 19 years of experience in the field of machine learning, and in particular, neural networks, to Opera Solutions. As Vice President, Analytics, Jacob is a member of the analytic leadership group at Opera. He headed up the Opera Solutions team that, as part of “The Ensemble,” ended up “first-equals” on the leaderboard in the prestigious Netflix data mining competition. At Opera, he has led projects at major financial institutions, including advanced credit-risk models incorporating nonlinear models and advanced techniques, and optimized initial credit line assignments, leading to significant increase in net present value of newly booked accounts.

Before joining Opera, Jacob led a custom fraud analytics consulting team at Fair Isaac, helping major financial institutions in the U.S., UK, and Europe reduce fraud. Jacob has also held analytics leadership positions at SAS, ID Analytics, and boutique consulting company BasePoint. He has developed expertise in applying advanced analytics to the design and implementation of fraud-detection systems, encompassing originations, credit card and retail transaction fraud, and money laundering.  Jacob holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pretoria, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. .