For Operations & CX Leaders

Before you greenlight your next analytics or AI initiative — pressure test it first.

Most analytics and AI initiatives don't fail in execution. They fail because the initiative was never properly defined. In 72 hours to one week, we'll give you the honest assessment your team can't.

Schedule a 20-min Conversation → No pitch. Assess fit for the Readiness Gate together.
Sound familiar?
  • You're being asked to greenlight an analytics or AI initiative — but something feels undercooked
  • You've been through a build that stalled, got reworked, or never got adopted by the frontline
  • Your team is excited, but no one can clearly define success or who's accountable
  • You don't want to bring in Big 4, but you need an expert outside view before you commit
"The problem is almost never the data. It's that no one scoped it right before the build started."
The Real Risk

Analytics initiatives don't stall in execution.
They stall before the first line of code.

Operations leaders in insurance, energy, and regulated industries are under growing pressure to move fast on analytics and AI. The challenge isn't finding ideas — it's vetting them rigorously before significant resources are committed.

Most failed initiatives share the same root causes: requests were unclear, scope shifted mid-build, adoption was never planned for frontline teams, or the initiative had a fatal flaw that a structured review would have caught in week one.

The cost isn't just the budget spent. It's the organizational credibility lost — making it harder to resource the next initiative that actually deserves to move forward.

The Analytics & AI Initiative Readiness Gate is a structured, independent pressure test designed to catch those problems before they cost you.

What a poorly scoped initiative costs you
Wasted build effort
Months of engineering and analyst time on a solution that doesn't match the actual business need.
Stalled pilots
Frontline teams don't adopt tools they weren't involved in designing — no matter how good the model is.
Costly rework
Redefining scope mid-build multiplies cost and damages cross-functional trust.
Credibility loss
Failed or stalled initiatives make it harder to resource the next one — even when it's the right idea.
The Offer

Analytics & AI Initiative Readiness Gate

Two engagement options, designed for where your initiative actually is. Both are time-bound, deliverable-focused, and require minimal time from you.

Tier 1
Rapid Initiative Review
Best when: You have an existing initiative draft — a deck, proposal, or set of notes — and need a senior-level readiness check before you commit resources.
What You Get
  • Independent review of your initiative draft
  • Pressure test of scope, adoption risk, and hidden assumptions
  • Go / Revise / Park recommendation with clear rationale
  • Sponsor walkthrough of findings
72 hours
~30 minutes
Full Engagement
Tier 2
Initiative Structuring Sprint
Best when: Your initiative is promising but not yet ready to greenlight — it needs to be properly scoped, defined, and structured before build begins.
What You Get
  • Everything in Tier 1
  • Full initiative definition: scope boundaries, success criteria, adoption mapping
  • Sponsor accountability and decision-right clarity
  • 30–90 Day Next-Step Checklist
  • Sponsor alignment session
One week
~90 minutes

Both engagements require minimal sponsor time — and deliver maximum decision clarity.

How It Works

Rigorous. Fast. Minimal lift from you.

The Readiness Gate applies a structured methodology developed over 15+ years of designing and operationalizing analytics initiatives inside large organizations.

01
Intake & Alignment
You share your initiative draft or brief. We align on scope, context, and what "success" looks like for this review.
02
Structured Review
I pressure test scope clarity, adoption risk, hidden assumptions, data feasibility, and sponsor alignment — using a methodology refined across dozens of deployments.
03
Deliverable
You receive a clear Executive Readiness Brief with a Go / Revise / Park recommendation and the reasoning behind it — in plain language.
04
Walkthrough
We walk through findings together. You leave with clarity on what needs to change — or confidence to move forward.
About

The experience to tell you what your team won't.

I'm Dr. Christy Aroopala, founder of CA Strategy & Analytics Advisory. For 15+ years, I've been on the inside of large organizations — leading analytics teams, building predictive models, and doing the work of getting analytics initiatives designed, piloted, and actually adopted by frontline teams.

My work spans insurance (life and retirement services), enterprise technology, digital marketing analytics, and management consulting — including senior analytics roles at AIG and VMware, with particular depth in regulated, customer-facing operations environments. I've led analytics where a failed initiative isn't just a waste of budget — it's a compliance risk and a credibility hit.

I've also been the person who had to tell a C-suite that an initiative wasn't ready. That experience — knowing what good scoping looks like, and what bad scoping costs — is exactly what the Readiness Gate is built on.

The methodology I use comes from years of applying social science research rigor to business analytics: define the problem precisely, test your assumptions, map your data, design for adoption, and know before you build whether the initiative is worth it.

I hold a Ph.D. from Rice University and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Yale University. I am currently completing an MBA (STEM-designated) at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, with specializations in AI Strategy and Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Christy Aroopala
Past Work

What this methodology delivers.

Selected examples from 15+ years of analytics initiative design and deployment. Clients anonymized per industry standard.

Major Insurance Carrier · Customer Operations
Customer Complaint Prediction Model & Dashboard
Contact center had no early-warning system to identify at-risk customers before complaints escalated — and no plan to get a solution adopted by frontline teams. Led executive scoping, developed predictive model, designed and ran 3-month pilot with treatment and control groups.
Impact Complaint volume dropped to the lowest rate in company history during the pilot. First fully deployed predictive model at the organization. Prevented ~$850K in projected revenue loss.
Major Insurance Carrier · Retirement Services
Retirement Plan Design Predictive Dashboard
Agents needed to show clients how product feature choices would impact participation rates — in live client meetings. Led full initiative scoping with executive stakeholders, developed predictive model and interactive scenario-testing tool for field use.
Impact Voted Best Innovative Transformation Initiative in a company-wide executive competition. Selected for enterprise-wide expansion.
Data Science Team Leadership · Analytics Strategy
Analytics Team Scoping Methodology & Roadmap
Growing data science team lacked a structured approach to scoping and executing strategic analytics projects, resulting in misaligned priorities and inconsistent delivery. Built scoping methodology and templates; created prioritized roadmap; guided execution and stakeholder management.
Impact Launched Customer Lifetime Value analytics product generating $2.6M in projected revenue. KPI performance improved 52% across strategic initiatives.
Get Started

Is your initiative ready to greenlight? Let's find out.

Schedule a 20-min Conversation. We'll discuss your initiative, assess fit for the Readiness Gate, and you'll leave with a clearer picture — regardless of next steps.

Schedule a 20-min Conversation →