DARNELL WILSON

Business Management student with an A.A.S. in Computer Programming and $24,000+ across 6 merit scholarships, targeting product strategy, management, and marketing in payments, fintech, and travel. Developed 2 independent case studies: an Apple Card redesign and issuer-migration model for 12 million cardholders with a live decision prototype, and an analysis of the $38B Visa and Mastercard settlement. Applies AI-assisted research, Python modeling, and rapid prototyping to test product recommendations.

• Earned $5,000 WGU Texas Trailblazer Scholarship and $5,000 Chime Scholars Foundation Completion Scholarship.

• Earned UPS/UNCF, ACC Adult Career, AMD/Gary Heerssen Memorial, and Phi Theta Kappa scholarships ($14,000+ combined); THRIVE Award, 1 of 11 selected from 45,000+ students.

• Selected for a limited-enrollment 6-week cohort applying AI to business strategy; coursework builds on HubSpot enterprise cases and ends in a capstone business case.

• Completed Marketing Hub Software certification covering 4 focus areas: applied generative AI, prompt architecture, campaign analytics, and workflow automation.

• Completed the Visa foundational credential across 5 topic areas: ecosystem roles; authorization; clearing and settlement; payment products; and fraud and risk mitigation.

Product Strategy and Management: Concept Briefs, Business Cases, Product Requirements, Product Specs, Pricing and Rewards Architecture, Scenario Modeling, Roadmap and Prioritization

Marketing: Competitive Benchmarking, Positioning and Messaging, Segmentation and Personas, Market Sizing, Unit Economics, Acquisition Offer Design, Go-To-Market Planning, Retention and Graduation Design, Adverse Action Communication

Business Case and Modeling: Unit Economics, Deal Economics, Value Propositions, Scenario Modeling, Financial Modeling, Pricing Architecture, KPI Definition

Payments and Fintech Domain: Interchange Economics, Credit Policy, Risk Scoring, Regulation B, Rewards Design

Discovery and Research: Market Research, Competitive Benchmarking, Customer Interviews, Market Sizing

AI and Prototyping: Generative AI for Research, AI-Assisted Prototyping and Analysis, Interactive Prototypes, Prompt Design, Rapid Iteration

Cross-Functional and Communication: Agile and Iterative Development, Cross-Functional Teams, Customer Focus and Service, Technical Presentations, Executive Briefings, Cross-Cultural Communication

Tools: Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Google AI Studio, Power BI, Tableau, Excel, Python, SQL, Jira, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Lovable, Figma

• Coach 3,000+ visitors a month across 9 platforms on a 45,000+-student campus, pinpointing where each person is stuck and holding a 99% CSAT.
• Revise the college's student knowledge base with colleagues, keeping self-serve how-to guides accurate as platforms change: 20 of its 200+ articles so far.

• Led 3 interns in researching 1,000+ properties; mapped developers, architects, and contractors into a business-development account list.
• Built a Power BI dashboard from 50,000+ rows of Deltek data to map opportunities across 7 offices and guide business-development targeting; used Gemini and ChatGPT to develop the analysis.

• Shaped safety training across 500+ stores by turning 20,000+ On Point campaign survey responses into 3 Tableau dashboards, partnering with Legal and Risk Management to clear campaign materials for SharePoint.
• Recovered $2M in security overbilling by auditing vendor charges in Excel, flagging 1,000 duplicate and erroneous entries and presenting findings to executive leadership.

• Designed a three-outcome migration for 12 million Apple Card accounts in the Goldman Sachs to Chase transfer. Simulated 100,000 accounts across 10 waves in Python, projecting $100.34M in issuer profit (present value) over 36 months, with positive contribution from month 1.
• Specified product requirements and success metrics for 3 products and a graduation path; monitored the Samsung Galaxy Card launch as it happened, benchmarking the proposed 4%, 3%, and 1% Daily Cash rewards structure against it.
• Shipped a working prototype built solo in Claude Design and presented it live, walking viewers through the reviewer console and the cardholder-facing offer screen across 5 applicant personas; ranked decline reasons by scoring contribution and showed the changes needed to qualify.

• Analyzed the Visa and Mastercard settlement, distinguishing the 1.25% entry-level interchange cap from the 5-year premium-rate freeze; traced merchant acceptance rights, including surcharges of up to 3% by card brand, and the implications for cardholder rewards and small businesses.