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Curtis Raymond

@curtisraymond

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AI leader at Optimize Financial Group who delivered an enterprise AI governance platform covering 62+ capabilities.

Canada

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At Optimize Financial Group, I established the AI and technology function and led the rollout of a centralized CI/CD platform. It supported 8+ production initiatives with $4M+ in estimated annualized value.

I directed the design and rollout of an enterprise AI governance platform covering 62+ capabilities, reducing review cycle times by up to 50%. I also delivered an LLM-based quality assurance platform that reduced manual review effort by 70%.

At Priceline, I led a Python-based hotel price optimization system that generated $800K in incremental weekly revenue. I also co-led the enterprise AI/ML platform and the launch of Penny, an agentic AI travel assistant.

At Royal Bank of Canada, I progressed through roles in financial reporting, business intelligence, and financial modeling. I developed Python automation that eliminated more than 2,000 hours of annual manual effort and led analytics work that expanded stress-testing scenario coverage.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Head of AI

Optimize Financial Group

Nov 2025 - Oct 2026 (11 months)

Led enterprise AI strategy and a 14-person AI and technology organization, delivering 8+ initiatives with $4M+ in estimated annualized value. Directed the rollout of an AI governance platform and transformed compliance operations with AI-powered document intelligence.

AI Strategy CI CD Terraform AWS AI Governance LLM KYC Document Intelligence

Senior Manager, Data Science & Engineering

Priceline

Apr 2022 - Oct 2025 (3 years 6 months)

Led a 9-person team of data scientists and MLOps engineers, owning AI/ML portfolio strategy and roadmap. Directed ML price optimization, co-developed an enterprise AI/ML platform, and launched an agentic AI travel assistant.

Python Airflow Go GKE Kafka Vertex AI RAG MCP MLOps

Senior Manager, Financial Modeling & Analytics

Royal Bank of Canada

Jan 2022 - Apr 2022 (3 months)

Led a 5-person team in data science, data engineering, and business intelligence, overseeing forecasting, scenario analysis, and econometric model development for enterprise stress testing.

Data Science Data Engineering Business Intelligence Performance Testing Econometric Modeling

Manager, Business Intelligence

Royal Bank of Canada

Jul 2020 - Dec 2021 (1 year 5 months)

Led a 4-person analytics team, delivering production data pipelines and analytics solutions. Applied unsupervised machine learning with PySpark on Databricks to analyze 12 TB of securities data and redesigned reporting workflows.

PySpark Databricks Machine Learning Data Pipelines Analytics

Senior Analyst, Financial Reporting

Royal Bank of Canada

Apr 2019 - Jul 2020 (1 year 3 months)

Led automation and process-improvement initiatives across investment-fund financial reporting, developing Python-based solutions and mentoring analysts.

Python Automation Financial Reporting IFRS

Analyst, Financial Reporting

Royal Bank of Canada

Nov 2018 - Apr 2019 (5 months)

Supported recurring investment-fund financial reporting and developed Python-based automation tools, eliminating over 2,000 hours of annual manual effort.

Python Automation Financial Reporting

Associate, Corporate Sales

CAA Club Group

Apr 2014 - Jul 2018 (4 years 3 months)

Managed corporate client relationships and the end-to-end B2B sales pipeline, including lead qualification, contract negotiation, and deal close. Designed HubSpot CRM workflows and led process automation that reduced cycle times by 30%.

B2B Sales CRM HubSpot Process Automation