The 2016 FARCON (Financial and Retail Conference on Analytics) took place August 24, 2016. FARCON is Minnesota’s premier event for Data Science in Financial Services and Retail, run by MinneAnalytics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving Minnesota’s data science and analytics community.

This one-day conference was hosted at the University of Minnesota Carlson School. Once again, MinneAnalytics put on a national caliber conference. There were over 50 sessions, many with national speakers. There were as many as 500 people attending, from a cross-section of blue chip companies including US Bank, Medtronic, Optum, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Allianz.

A key session was the 90-minute “C Panel on Analytics”, facilitated by Chris Farrell, Columnist and Economics Correspondent, MPR, Star Tribune, Money.com. Members of the panel included: Craig Dillon, CTO and CIO of Bluestem Brands; Bill Hoffman, Chief Analytics Officer of U.S. Bank; Jamie Thingelstad, CTO of SPS Commerce; and Ali Wing, Chief Marketing Officer of Maurice’s. The panel investigated in depth the key success and risk factors for profitably leveraging analytics in industry.