Finance-minded analytics. Executive experience. Local trust.
Philly Data Guy is a founder-led fractional data leadership practice based in West Chester, PA — built to give growing businesses the data leadership they need without the full-time executive hire.
Founder Story
Hi, I’m Loren Wood
I started in finance — B.S. from Drexel, early career at UPS in payroll, revenue protection, and cost supervision, delivering analysis to controllers and VP-level finance leaders. That foundation shaped how I think about data: it should help people make better decisions, not just fill reports.
From there I moved into BI consulting, implementing QlikView solutions across manufacturing, life sciences, and financial services. Then into director-level data, BI, analytics, and governance leadership — building dashboards, governance frameworks, and analytics teams across manufacturing, supply chain, finance, and operations at scale.
That mix is what Philly Data Guy is built on. I bring executive-level data leadership to growing businesses — at fractional cost, in plain English, with a strong respect for the way SMBs actually operate.
How I work
What working with me looks like.
🎯 Outcomes first Every engagement connects data work to margin, cost, cash flow, or decisions — not dashboards for their own sake.
🤝 Founder-led and hands-on You work directly with me. No handoffs to junior staff, no account managers in the middle.
🗣️ Plain-English communication I translate between business, finance, operations, and technology — in one conversation, without losing the thread.
⚙️ Right-sized for SMBs Practical governance, not enterprise bureaucracy. Built for how your business actually runs.
What I Believe
A few things I know to be true.
Better decisions start with trusted data — not more reports. A dashboard problem is usually a data ownership problem in disguise. AI readiness starts long before the AI tool. And business leaders deserve numbers they can actually stand behind in a leadership meeting, not another spreadsheet to reconcile.
That's the work. That's why this exists.
Background & credentials.
B.S. in Finance — Drexel University
Master Certification in Business Intelligence — Villanova University
Certified Professional Business Intelligence (CPBI)
QlikView Certified Developer/Designer
Director-level BI & data governance leadership — manufacturing, supply chain, finance, life sciences
Tools: Power BI · Tableau · QlikView · Snowflake · Collibra · Informatica
Where I Work
Based in West Chester. Serving Greater Philadelphia.
I'm local — and that matters. Greater Philadelphia businesses get a partner who can show up in person when it counts and collaborate remotely when it doesn't. I also work with regional markets across the U.S. when the fit is right.
Ready to talk about your data?
No pitch deck. No pressure. Just a straight conversation about what's not working and whether I can help.