Welcome to tkharrat's backyard

Tarak Kharrat

Lead Data Scientist at Real Analytics

I am a trained mathematician trying to educate computers to understand data. I started interrogating data seriously in 2010 when I was trying to build automated trading strategy to beat the US equity market. In 2012, I read my first paper about football analytics and since then I am dedicating most of working hours to this field. I am mostly interested in problems where accurate predictions are required (the outcome of a football game, the final position of the team in a league, …) and if possible where a strong benchmark is available. After few years in Academia (mainly as a research fellow) and various working experiences (big corporations as well as early stage start-ups), I decided recently to work full-time on an ambitious project I started with another academic colleague. Our mission is to make cutting edge research in the field available to decision-makers in football for better recruitment.

Leadership
Communication
Hard Working
Problem Solving
Fast Learner
Innovation

Skills

Experiences

1
Lead Data scientist (Head of R&D)
Real Analytics

Nov 2020 - Present, London, UK

Start-up founded in 2018 with the objective of using this research expertise in the football industry to mitigate the risk and uncertainty associated with player recruitment and team selection.

Responsibilities:
  • Joined full time in November 2020 (working on contract basis during the previous 14 months)
  • Headed the team who launched version 2 of the platform.
  • Supervising and maintaining AI based model to rate football players.
  • In charge of all technical development (IT, data provider, front-end, …)

Lead Data scientist
ComplyAdvantage

June 2020 - Nov 2020, London, UK

ComplyAdvantage delivers streamlined Know Your Customers (KYC) screening and risk scoring functionality through API-enabled, cloud native solutions. They use the latest technique in Natural language processing to extract information from millions of web-pages on daily basis.

Responsibilities:
  • In charge of managing the data science team.
  • The team missing is to optimise the machine learning pipeline and score it properly.
  • Worked closely with ML-engineers to solve entity matching problems (decide if 2 profiles with similar names are actually the same).
  • Left the company to join Real Analytics full-time.
2

3
Lead Data scientist
Kickdex

Mar 2016 - Mar 2020, London, UK

Kickdex is a small start-up providing predictive sports analytics to clients. They analyse vast quantities of sports data using advanced statistical techniques and sophisticated proprietary technology in order to develop models that predict the outcome of sporting events.

Responsibilities:
  • Joined immediately after the company decided to focus on predictive modelling
  • In charge of building and improving predictive (pre-match) models for football and refining algorithmic trading strategies.

Research fellow
University of Liverpool

Jan 2018 - Sep 2020, London, Uk

The Centre for Sports Business at The University of Liverpool Management School is a global centre of excellence for sports and football business research and executive education.

Responsibilities:
  • Working part-time (2 days a week remote) on fixed term contract
  • Conducting research projects in statistics and sports analytics (mainly football)
4

5
Research fellow
University of Salford

Oct 2015 - Dec 2017, Manchester, Uk

The Center for sports business was conducting research in the field of sports business.

Responsibilities:
  • Working full-time (remote) on fixed term contract
  • Conducting research projects in statistics and sports analytics (mainly football)

Associate Strategist
Societe Generale Americas Security

July 2011 - Sep 2012, New-York, USA

The Proprietary trading department deploys various investment strategies to generate profit for clients.

Responsibilities:
  • Collaborating closely with the high frequency and basket trading desks
  • Conducting research and statistical analyses of equity securities and indexes
  • Developing new trading framework and strategies as well as maintaining and improving existing ones
  • Left to start a PhD
6

7
External Consultant
Total

Sep 2010 - Sep 2011, Paris, France

The shipping and trading department at TOTAL is in charge of marketing oil and gas all over the world at the right price

Responsibilities:
  • Participated in the detection and resolution of bugs in the STAGE 6.1.10 software (a simulation tool able to analyse any tank transportable product chain behaviour
  • This work was conduced in parallel with my undergraduate degree.

Education