Douglas Clark Merrill (born 1970) is an American technologist, academic and fintech entrepreneur. Merrill was Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Google from 2003-2008, and served as president of EMI Music's digital unit from 2008-2009.

Early life and education

He grew up in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

and graduated from the

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a Private university, private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Presbyterian Church, although it is now nondenominational, and the campus ...

, majoring in social and political organization. Merrill attended

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, where he received master's and doctoral degrees in

cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

Career

Merrill is a Partner at McKinsey & Company, based in Los Angeles. Previously, Merrill was the CEO and founder of Zest AI (formerly Zest Finance) until 2019, a Los Angeles-based financial services technology company that uses

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

and

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

to help companies make more accurate credit decisions. The company announced a $19 million round of Series A funding in July 2011, and a $28 million round of Series B funding in January 2012. The company was one of Forbes’ Names You Need to Know in 2011 and a member of the Forbes Fintech 50 in 2015 and 2016. Previously, Merrill was CIO at Google from 2003-2008, and served as president of

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

Music's digital unit from 2008-2009. In March 2010, Merrill published the book, ''Getting Organized in the Google Era: How to Get Stuff Out of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, and Get It Done Right''. Merrill is also a former researcher with the

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

and is listed among the organization's participants.

Publications

Merrill has contributed to business publications including ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is an American business magazine published monthly in print and online, focusing on technology, business, and design. It releases six print issues annually. History ''Fast Company'' was founded in November 1995 by Alan Webb ...

'' and ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'', where he writes on innovation and culture, and how the two coincide. He also speaks regularly on innovation, reforming the U.S.

financial system A financial system is a system that allows the exchange of funds between financial market participants such as lenders, investors, and borrowers. Financial systems operate at national and global levels. Financial institutions consist of comple ...

, and how credit providers can harness technological advances to change the way creditworthiness and risk are determined. His academic publications include articles in ''

The Journal of the Learning Sciences The ''Journal of the Learning Sciences'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on education and learning as theoretical and design sciences. It is one of two official publications of the International Society of the Learning Science ...

'', ''Cognition and Instruction'', ''Reliable Distributed Systems'', and a paper in the book series ''

Lecture Notes in Computer Science ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science'' is a series of computer science books published by Springer Science+Business Media since 1973. Overview The series contains proceedings, post-proceedings, monographs, and Festschrifts. In addition, tutorials ...

''. He sat on the board of

The Filter The Filter's TV personalisation products increase viewing, loyalty and revenue. Their data science underpins the business decisions of the world's most forward thinking broadcasters. Founded in 2004, it has ties to musician Peter Gabriel and i ...

, a company developing recommendation filters for search engines. He holds patents in machine learning, machine learning in credit underwriting, and machine learning model fairness.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merrill, Douglas 1970 births Princeton University alumni Living people Google employees Financial technology University of Tulsa alumni