Kinan Jarjous

Employee Spotlight: Kinan Jarjous, Data Insights and Visualization Manager

Our Employee Spotlight series is designed to provide a deeper look into our talent here at Annalect across all different roles, teams and experience levels. You can expect to learn about passions inside and outside of our office walls.

Kinan Jarjous - AnnalectWhat is your current role at Annalect?

I work as a Data Insights and Visualisation Manager at Annalect’s Dubai office. What I like about this role is that it gives me the creative freedom to make data comprehensible. For the past few years, I’ve worked with all sorts of Excel sheets and seeing their transformation into something dynamic and visual is quite amazing, as it opens up new analytical opportunities.

Describe a passion you have for the type of work you do and how Annalect helps to feed your passion?

I see Annalect as a unit that organizes chaos, which is something I absolutely love doing. I like to see things orderly, proper and clean, and in data visualisation, that is exactly what we do. We consolidate various inputs, making even the most complex data easy to understand. I really love helping others, and my current role allows me to make my colleagues’ lives easier by cutting down on all the hours they spend on reporting.

Can you think of a project you were a part of that you really enjoyed? Why?

My favorite project so far has been creating a competitive dashboard for a particularly challenging client. It was a perfect example of how visualisation solutions can help people internally with very labour intensive tasks. We managed to consolidate a 500+ slide PowerPoint into three tabs. Two planners used to spend nearly three weeks compiling that PowerPoint on a quarterly basis. By setting up the dashboard, we’ve reduced the amount of time they spend on it to two days. This takes significant stress off the teams so that they can focus more on analysis.

What made you first enter your field? Was it planned or unplanned?

It was completely unplanned. Prior to joining the Omnicom Media Group family, I was a telecom engineer. I was among those affected during the recession, although it didn’t hit me until the middle of 2009. During my down time, I pursued my Master’s degree and did some freelance photography, but nothing in my field as most companies implemented a hiring freeze.

I remember that I was watching the sunset at the beach, reflecting on my situation when I rang up a friend who had recently joined Omnicom and asked if they had any opportunities. He mentioned that there were some internships available, and since it was a completely new field, I thought, “why not, I’ll start from the bottom and work my way up”. I joined as an intern in search engine marketing, then moved into business intelligence and market research before joining Annalect.

What advice would you give to someone just starting his/her career in your field?

My advice is to develop your people skills: be patient, understanding and absorb all the different points of view. It’s important to understand (and later, challenge) how people see things. Technical skills are definitely key, but this industry is people oriented and emotional intelligence is of paramount importance. Also, it’s good to have a grasp of the manual side of things before you start to work with automation. This provides you with a better understanding of what is valuable and necessary; how people think when it comes to using data; and how we can better leverage technology in order to derive better insights.

QuotesAlso, always remember to take a break when you don’t have the time to take a break. It refreshes your perspective.

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?

Outside of work, you can find me gallivanting across the Alps, recording stories from my grandmother, taking plenty of photos (follow me on Instagram!), and writing about and reviewing technology on Absolute Geeks. I am also an avid gamer and I love reading a good book (Samarkand by Amin Maalouf is a must-read). I’m currently debating which book to start next: The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami or Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts?

 Kinan Jarjous - Annalect

Interested in learning more about building a career at Annalect? Check out our open positions here.

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