#numbercrunching

By Lucrece Grehoua

If you know me, you know that Lucrece Grehoua is an artistic and hands on creative. My prerogative is to make colouful content and to spend my life exercising my creative juices.

Yet, when visiting trading company, Xaxis who combine artifical intelligence with data to opimitise media investments I began to reanalyse my whole entire life.

Xaxis is the world's largest global programmatic media platform. Essentially, they work with thousands of numbers and data to analyse what they can do best to bump up exposure and function of some of the world's biggest brands.

When I was younger, I did an International Baccalaureate and loved Maths. I was not the best, but I was always enthralled by the idea that I could have no knowledge of something, but by learning a formula and practicing it I would be able to come up with results and solve problems dealing with quantity, structure, space and change.

I always wanted to be a data analyst, but because my creative spark and passion for media overruled this, I never believed I could become a bright spark in this area if I did not subject myself to a long, grueling university degree course. As the years went by, working with numbers was just not something I saw myself doing due to the time I believed I lacked. In fact, after one point I thought I was too unintelligent to even look in that direction.

1. But here at Xaxis, the first thing I was fascinated by was learning that the data analysis and programming companies use artificial intelligence (AI) to number crunch. I always thought that since I did not have the patience to sit down and calculate heaps of numbers I could never even think of entering the industry. However we were told that with machines like Copilot, calculations would be done for us and all we would have to do is use our savvy, introspective and young, creative minds to then come up with cool strategies to help the companies we are working with get better.

2. We were able to meet figures within the company who revealed to us that none of them did any university courses that had anything to do with data analysis or numbers. Many of them simply had transferable skills such as project managment abilities to make creative campaigns once Copilot numbers were in, or people skills to be able to negotiate advertising prices with external brands. I was just inspired and amazed by the idea that I could use my every day skills to potentially be a part of this big company!

3. Their attitudes towards diversity were some of most genuine and thoughtful I had ever come across. Not only did they speak on the importance of diversity of culture, but also of gender and most importantly for me, diversity of general life. They understood that the world is changing drastically, and that due to the changes of societal responsibilties between our generations, millennials work best with flexible working hours and we also take our mental health extremely seriously and will not compromise it for stifled workplaces.

Gianluigi Buffon in the UEFA Champions LeagueAge: 39Seasons: 13Appearances: Parma (6), Juventus (95)Matches: P101 W45 D30 L26Clean sheets: 42 (42% of games)Goals conceded: 98 (0.97 per game)Red cards: 0Yellow cards: 2 UEFA Champions League best: runner-up (2003, 2015)Longest without conceding: five games, 559 minutesLongest winning run: 5 (2004/05, 2012/13)Longest unbeaten run: 9 (2014/15)Longest…