Speaker Profile

Juan’s path to become a football data scientist at FIFA is a colorful one. The journey started with a biology degree in Argentina (a big football nation), followed by a Masters in Michigan and a PhD in Switzerland. The complex challenges of biological systems and in understanding them using statistical and data science tools fueled his passion. Armed with these tools, he decided to make a jump to industry to face new challenges.

Juan’s journey took him through the biggest wealth management bank in Europe (UBS) and a Smart Mobility startup (Axon Vibe). In these environments, Juan learned very different working styles and faced different challenges, ranging from a process rich organization where decisions entailed a lot of monetary weight in the world economy to a more agile and dynamic company aiming to revolutionize people’s mobility. Despite how enriching these roles were, Juan’s true passion (maybe because he is Argentinean) is sports. Hence, when Juan saw the opportunity at FIFA, he felt it was meant to be.

During Juan’s journey at FIFA, he has applied the principles and tools learned throughout his career to enrich and revolutionize the use of data in football, not only for players and coaches, but also for fans. The FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar was a great milestone, where all his team’s work came to light and enriched the football experience with data as it was never done before.