Portrait of Surya Jade Edakunni

Surya Jade Edakunni

Master of Management in Analytics student at McGill University

Python · SQL · R · Tableau · Power BI · Excel

LinkedIn GitHub

Hi, I'm Surya! I love the moment data turns a messy question into a clear decision.

That clicked for me in a people analytics class, where I realized data could explain something as human as how people work. It pulled me into research: today I'm a research assistant on three projects at McGill, covering digital payments in West Africa, AI in hiring and venture capital. My goal is a corporate career, and research has made me a sharper, more curious analyst along the way.

I like owning the whole journey, from cleaning raw data and building models to designing visuals people actually use. You can see that in my projects, from an AI-powered beauty product search to a Marvel comic optimizer. Right now I'm leading my MMA capstone with Know Your Country as project manager and solutions architect.

Before analytics took over, consulting was my world. As Co-Head of Consulting at NORD Consulting, I oversaw five student teams serving NGO clients, and at JED Consulting I chaired Being Black in Consulting, bringing 12 firms together for the event. Teammates know me as the one who keeps the team moving and turns the analysis into a story.

And when I'm not working with data, you'll find me on stage as an Indian classical dancer.

Research

I'm a research assistant on three ongoing projects at McGill University.

Research Assistant Sustainable Growth Initiative, McGill University
Ongoing

Digital Payments in Ghana and Nigeria

Analyzing how digital payment ecosystems in Ghana and Nigeria compare, from mobile money and fintech to crypto and central bank digital currencies, using institutional, market and regulatory data for a comparative case report. I lead expert interviews with industry networks and payment stakeholders, and synthesize what they say about trust, security and user preferences into the report's core analysis.

Fintech Payments Expert interviews West Africa
Research Assistant AI & Organizational Behavior, McGill University
Ongoing

AI in Hiring

Studying how people perceive the fairness of AI in hiring. I clean and encode survey data and run reliability, correlation and t-test analyses, and I built a web scraper and text-classification pipeline that measures how often Ontario job postings disclose their use of AI.

Survey analysis Python Web scraping Text classification
Research Assistant Venture Capital, McGill University
Ongoing

Cofounder Departures and Venture Capital Funding

Studying whether losing a cofounder changes how long a startup takes to raise its first venture capital round. I built a Python pipeline that turns large-scale Crunchbase data into a startup panel for hazard regression analysis.

Python Crunchbase Panel data Hazard models

Writing

Banked but Underserved: Revolut's Strategic Case for South Africa

Strategy report for FINE 477, Fintech for Business and Finance

84% of South African adults have a bank account, yet most remain poorly served by the five banks that dominate the market. This report argues that Revolut should win there by being different, not just cheaper. It recommends using the PayShap instant-payment system to undercut the big banks' foreign exchange margins and build trust before its banking licence arrives, and launching a stablecoin remittance corridor for the UK–South Africa diaspora.

Fintech Competitive strategy Payments Stablecoins
Read report

Projects

Analytics, machine learning and data visualization projects from my undergraduate and MMA studies.

Network of the top 50 Marvel heroes, coloured by community

Marvel Storyline Optimizer

Group project for MGSC 416

What makes a best-selling Marvel comic? We mapped how 6,296 heroes connect across comics, trained models to predict sales from creative choices, and used Gurobi optimization to design the highest-selling combination of characters, writer and penciler. I led the data cleaning and network analysis, and combined the team's work into one end-to-end pipeline.

Python NetworkX scikit-learn Gurobi Web scraping
View code Report Slides
Tableau dashboard comparing ratings, popularity and price of viral and non-viral Sephora brands

Are Viral Products Actually Worth It?

Group project for INSY 442, Data Analysis and Visualization

Do TikTok-viral beauty brands at Sephora actually satisfy customers, or just sell hype? Viral brands charged more and earned up to 35% more revenue per product, but weren't rated higher, and in skincare were rated lower. I came up with the project idea and led the data preparation in Excel: cleaning five datasets, filtering reviews to 2020 onward, fixing encoding errors, and building the virality flags behind our Power BI and Tableau dashboards.

Excel Power BI Tableau Data storytelling
View dashboards Report Slides

Education

  1. 2026 – Expected December 2027

    Master of Management in Analytics

    McGill University, Desautels Faculty of Management
    CGPA 4.0 / 4.0
  2. 2023 – 2026

    Bachelor of Commerce

    McGill University. Major in Business Analytics, Concentration in Finance
    CGPA 3.6 / 4.0 Government of Botswana Top Achiever Academic Scholarship
  3. High school

    Maru-a-Pula School

    Gaborone, Botswana
    A Levels: 3 A* AS Levels: 5 A (top grade) IGCSE: 8 A* and 1 A
Surya at her McGill Bachelor of Commerce graduation, Class of 2026
McGill BCom, Class of 2026
Surya performing Mohiniyattam on stage in a white and gold costume

Beyond data

I'm trained in three Indian classical dance styles, Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi and Mohiniyattam, under a Kalamandalam-trained teacher.

Most dancers begin as young children. I started at 16, building on a foundation in ballet, and completed my arangetram (graduation performance) in four years. It was a three-hour solo performance in all three styles for an audience of 500, including dancing on the rim of a brass plate with a pot balanced on my head. Today I perform and teach in Montreal whenever I can.

Watch my performance at Le Coin des Arts de Montréal