Zane Shults

Strategic, insight-driven Data & Analytics Executive with over 15 years of experience building and modernizing data, AI, and analytics organizations across $1B+ organizations and high-growth consulting operations. Data-informed leader skilled in defining and executing digital transformation projects, turning raw operational assets into real-time decision engines, modernizing legacy systems, and embedding self-service analytics and governance across organizations.

Head of Data and Analytics - Extended Stay America

(2024-10 - 2026-02)

Operator of long-term lodging hotels across the US and Canada with 900+ locations and $1B in annual revenue. Recruited to turn around a failing data platform modernization initiative and establish an AI-powered data strategy and long-term vision. Inherited a stalled vendor engagement past deadline with zero deliverables, alongside three legacy SQL systems incurring over $5M in annual overhead.

Led a team of up to 25 members (5 direct reports, 15-20 vendor personnel); re-engineered the roadmap to consolidate legacy infrastructure into a unified, event-driven cloud platform (AWS, Snowflake, Tableau). Established robust data governance, defining use cases and realigning execution to drive scalability and cost efficiency.

• Slashed data infrastructure costs by 50% ($2.5M/year) by directing the migration of legacy SQL systems to a unified AWS cloud platform (ODS), cutting annual operating spend from $5M+ down to $2.5M.
• Established a Data/AI Center of Excellence from scratch, creating data governance and standardization frameworks that propelled platform adoption to 350+ users across core functions (Finance, Ops, Revenue, Marketing) representing 70%+ of all staff.
• Improved goal alignment revamped the technical delivery model, and created business use cases prior to development, transforming an unguided build into a redefined execution roadmap.
• Rescued a reservation system migration inherited with zero deliverables, building an event-driven data platform to secure sign-off in 10 months while unlocking real-time analytics for revenue and marketing teams.
• Reduced room vacancy and maintenance downtime by 10% across 900+ locations by leading the design and deployment of automated, hourly room-availability data to eliminate operational visibility gaps.

Head of Data Platform and Insights - Plante Moran

(2021-05 - 2024-10)

Professional services firm providing audit, tax, consulting, and wealth management services.

Annual revenue: $1.2B. Tapped to elevate data governance practices and build an enterprise-grade cloud analytics platform (Azure/Fabric, Power BI) with self-service analytics; replaced fragile legacy infrastructure whose Workday system was regularly timing out during manual monthly reporting. Provided leadership, oversight, and direction for an 25-member team of data professionals, stabilizing retention, establishing governance frameworks, and delivering a data operating model that modernized reporting for a $250M financial advisory business unit.

• Modernized analytics for 400+ partners, replacing Workday Excel dumps with a real-time cloud data solution.
• Delivered COO-declared 'mission impossible' analytics platform on schedule, achieving 70%+ adoption.
• Captured $1M in migration savings by transforming a legacy SQL environment into an Azure/MS Fabric platform (ODS), establishing a foundation that expanded self-service AI and analytics adoption by 25%+ over 3 years.
• Upgraded data feed frequency by 30x for a $250M financial division, replacing monthly batch updates with automated daily pipelines to empower portfolio managers with near-real-time intelligence.
• Delivered 100+ Workday integrations in <8 months, leading a team to centralize data architectures and support a major professional services migration across 3,500+ employees and $1B+ in annual revenue.
• Mentored the team to win annual technology awards every year of my tenure.
• Coached 2 team members to receive promotions to enterprise-level management roles.
• Drove data/AI governance adoption beyond the core data team, Created a data Fabric data governance program that included advising Application Engineering on standard data governance and quality frameworks that established new architecture and development standards.

Vice President of Data and AI - Revision, Inc.

(2016-03 - 2021-05)

IT and management consulting firm founded in 1998. Annual revenue: $1.9M-$5.7M. Brought on to build a new data practice from the ground up. Established the foundational data strategy and analytics platform for Denver International Airport (DIA), introducing the first unified data management capabilities for flight operations, parking/concessions revenue tracking, passenger navigation, and IT delivery performance.

• Founded and scaled a transportation data practice, going from $0 to $5M+ in annual revenue in 2.5 years.
• Leveraged success at DIA to win major contracts across Port Authority airports (JFK, Newark, LaGuardia), Sound Transit, and City of Boulder.
• Elevated IT customer satisfaction scores from 67% to 91% by building DIA’s first KPI analytics dashboards.
• Drove a 16-position surge in DIA’s on-time flight rankings (from 20th to 4th) by building a real-time, sensor-based flight tracking platform that pinpointed and eliminated airfield/gate-to-takeoff bottlenecks.
• Unlocked $2M in annual revenue growth at DIA by building custom concessions and parking analytics platforms that provided business units with granular visibility to identify and optimize underperforming assets.
• Propelled DIA to #1 Skytrax Global Airport ranking by building a passenger experience analytics ecosystem, including a passenger navigation & security time notification system pulling data from many sources.
• Eliminated 6,500 hours of unnecessary annual fleet maintenance labor at DIA by building maintenance analytics pipelines that exposed an imbalance between corrective and preventive work.
• Earned Employee of the Year Award (2016) for building an exceptional DIA data program (featured in Airport Improvement Magazine); invited to speak at multiple industry trade shows as thought leader.

Manager Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing - Great-West Financial Retirement Services

(2012-05 - 2016-02)

Great-West Financial administers retirement plans and financial services for over 20 million individuals.

Annual revenue: $1.1B. Led a team of 10+ data engineers, analysts, QA, and visualization specialists; co-managed the data warehouse and built out an end-to-end analytics program with reporting infrastructure. Transformed locked data into usable insights for 1,000+ sales associates tracking investment trends, while leading the technical BI platform merger for the Chase Retirement Services acquisition to unify enterprise reporting and analytics capabilities.

• Built a sales analytics tool deployed to 1,000+ portfolio managers and sales leaders, addressing a blind spot around asset flows and earning the President’s Award nomination (2014) for cross-company impact.
• Engineered a seamless BI platform merger following the Chase Retirement Services acquisition, consolidating disparate reporting stacks within 18 months to safeguard service continuity for 500K+ members.
• Managed high-volume reporting infrastructure generating 500K+ participant plan reports annually.

Engineering Science - Software Engineering - Colorado State University