In 2021, as a student in Goizueta Business School’s MS in Business Analytics (MSBA) program, Wenye Qiu 22MSBA decided she would “take advantage of every opportunity” the program offered. So, when she heard about the Travelers University Modeling Competition, the first one to be held at Goizueta, she decided, “why not?” If Qiu did well, she thought, she might earn an interview or even a job with Travelers, the second-largest commercial insurance carrier in the United States. Regardless, the competition would give Qiu a valuable experiential learning opportunity to work on a real business problem provided by a real company. So, she recruited two of her classmates and entered the competition.
As part of the challenge, Travelers asked the students to imagine they worked as modelers for the company’s fraud detection department and tasked them with creating a predictive model that could help the company identify the key drivers that cause fraudulence. “The problems that we put out there for modeling competitions are not easy, and they tend to be of the type where the answer is not obvious,” explains Girish Modgil, SVP and chief AI officer at Travelers and a member of the MS in Business Analytics program’s curriculum advisory board. “It allows them to get direct and real time feedback from industry leaders on what they’re learning.”
Good Models Matter, but Communication is Key
Teams that are the most accurate or precise in terms of the metrics Travelers looks for in the competition generally do well, noted Modgil. “But it’s also about the communication,” he says. “How [the teams] are able to communicate about what the problem was, how they tackled it, how they worked together, how they brought diverse opinions and thought to it, and how they were able to cobble together an answer that was presentable and showed some progress toward achieving a solution.”
Qiu and her team went on to win the competition. She believes her team won, in part, because of its presentation and its business insights.
Everyone can do modeling. What really makes you stand out are your communication skills, your presentations skills.
Wenye Qiu 22MSBA
As a result of the competition, Qiu earned an interview—and ultimately a job—at Travelers. There, she builds pricing models for small commercial lines of business as a senior associate data scientist in the Data Science Leadership Development Program, a three year rotational program at Travelers. Qiu, who lives in Atlanta, also became Travelers’ campus representative for the modeling competition and, in 2024, took on the role of organizing the event. “I was happy to take the lead and give back to the program because I know they are awesome students,” Qiu says. “They deserve to have this opportunity to show off their skills.”
This past year, 30 teams from eight different schools—including three teams from Goizueta’s MS in Business Analytics program—presented as part of the Travelers University Modeling Competition. Two Goizueta teams tied for first place.
“For our MS in Business Analytics students, these experiential learning opportunities aren’t just valuable—they’re fundamental,” says Scott Radcliffe, the program’s managing director. “They transform classroom concepts into tangible skills, preparing our graduates not just to analyze data, but to drive impactful business decisions from day one.”
Mutually Beneficial
In 2024 Travelers, headquartered in New York, NY, opened a 2,800 square-foot office in Midtown Atlanta’s Technology Square. The site houses the company’s AI, data science, and other technology operations. “As part of our continued expansion and involvement in the community, we want to make sure that when we hire the talent, they’re well-equipped with the coursework and the experience that they ought to have to come in and start driving value,” says Modgil. “With that in mind, the best way is to go to the source.”
In addition to the modeling competition, Modgil’s work on the MS in Business Analytics program’s advisory board allows him to gather insights from students. During the advisory board’s bi-annual meetings, a handful of current Goizueta students are selected to give presentations on their research interests and career aspirations. “We get to see and experience what the current crop of students are hoping to do—and possibly adjust the ways we interview and recruit accordingly,” says Modgil. “And from an academic perspective, Scott and his team learn what is current, what companies are looking for and the types of skills we need.”
Coming Full Circle
When asked about her current role, Qiu explains that while she builds the pricing models first, she needs feedback from the teams using the models to make sure they work and work well. “My role actually involves a lot of presentations—delivering your model and your business insights to your business partners,” Qiu explains. “It’s a really good combination of technical and business.” This is something Modgil also underscores when describing Goizueta’s MS in Business Analytics program as “the perfect intersection” of business and data analytics. “Since Goizueta is such a good business school, you see a more well-rounded candidate coming out of the program,” says Modgil.
To learn about career opportunities at Travelers, please visit https://careers.travelers.com/
