Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Richad Nieves Becker. Richad is a self-taught data scientist with an eclectic background. He currently leads the data science function at Revantage, a real estate shared service organization in the Blackstone family, and enjoys regularly sharing his perspective on the field on LinkedIn. Richad got a BA in Neuroscience and Anthropology and was on the PhD path until he realized a life of basic research was not for him. He pivoted and earned a Masters in Commerce (concentration in Marketing and Management) from the University of Virginia where he met me. After a brief stint in inside sales, Richad committed to data science and built his career in the real estate and finance spaces. He started at CoreLogic focusing on text mining, then moved to Greystone leading all things data in an innovation lab, before joining Revantage. Richad credits his career progress to focusing on impact and deeply understanding the business case. In this interview we gain some insight into the specifics of data in the real estate domain and we learn about how Richad was able to go from analyst to director level in less than 4 years.