About
Built on decision‑science rigor.
Zais Analytics was founded to bring decision‑science rigor honed in national security and enterprise analytics leadership to organizations in every sector. The same mathematical discipline that shapes billion-dollar defense investment decisions can shape yours, whatever industry you operate in.
That discipline matters more now, not less. As AI lowers the cost of producing analysis, the scarce skill is knowing which analysis to trust, a judgment built on peer-reviewed research and two decades advising leaders on decisions where being wrong was expensive.
We solve complex problems and answer difficult questions, concentrating on decisions with real consequence: capital and portfolio allocation, workforce planning, AI adoption and governance, and helping organizations build their own internal analytics capability. These problems share a common shape: competing objectives, imperfect data, and stakeholders who need to understand the answer well enough to act on it. We distill that complexity into concepts that demonstrate impact and convert strategy into actionable decision products.
Principal
Mark Zais, PhD
Founder and Principal
Mark holds a PhD in Business Administration (Operations Research) from the University of Colorado at Boulder, master's degrees in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a bachelor's degree in Operations Research from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a Certified Analytics Professional at the Expert level (CAP-X) and serves on the INFORMS Analytics Certification Board.
Mark brings more than 20 years leading advanced analytics and AI strategy across defense, government, academia, and industry. A retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Chief Data Scientist of U.S. Special Operations Command, he has directed complex, multi-disciplinary research studies for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of the Army, and U.S. Special Operations Command. His published research spans simulation-optimization, metaheuristics, Markov modeling, and the role of artificial intelligence in decision-making.
Running a study end to end, from framing the question through to the decision it informs, is the discipline Zais Analytics brings to every engagement.
Certifications and affiliations
Certified Analytics Professional, Expert (CAP-X)
INFORMS
Analytics Certification Board Member
INFORMS
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud Digital Leader
Google Cloud
Technical skills and tools
Programming & Analytics
Python, R, SAS, SQL, SPSS, MATLAB, Minitab, Arena, ProModel, LaTeX
AI Coding
Cursor, VS Code, Antigravity, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot
Visualization & BI
Power BI, Tableau, Posit (R Shiny), Microsoft Office Suite (Advanced)
Cloud Platforms
Azure, AWS, Google Cloud