Intro to Me

Hello, my name is Mark Panning and I am currently a Graduate Student at the University of Cincinnati enrolled in the new graduate certificate program for Artificial Intelligence in Business offered by the Lindner College of Business. I have robust exposure in the field of finance, and am very interested in market dynamics and quantitative analytics in addition to my professional pursuits. I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have lived here my whole life.

Academic Background

Professional Background

In addition to being a current student at UC’s Business College, I am a Senior Financial Analyst at Pomeroy Technologies specializing in cost and cashflow/treasury analysis. My routine responsibilities include:

Prior to my current position, I’ve had the opportunity to work as a Senior Consultant with EY in the firm’s FSO group, partnering with large financial institutions to orchestrate project management and drive the clients’ organizational initiatives. I’ve also partnered with Cardinal Health as an Assistant Manager of FP&A, guiding cost analysis related to pharmaceutical sourcing and marketing.

Experience with R

Prior to this course, my experience with R has been quite limited. I was required to use R for some calculations in an Econometrics class during my Masters program, but most corporate financial analyst roles do not require nor utilize R (most calculations and models are built in Excel).

I was previously skeptical about R’s potential in the finance field, particularly given that Python is the coding language of choice for most individuals working in my industry, but after having been exposed to some of the functions R can perform, I have drastically changed my view of the programming language and am very enthusiastic about R’s capacity to assist me in both my personal and professional pursuits. I intend to continue my use and education of this language - in addition to Python, which I have picked up and learned in the past in my spare time - well beyond this course.