American Express Taps Yan Zhang as VP of Data Science & Analytics

Yan Zhang has been appointed Vice President of Data Science & Analytics at American Express. In this role, she will lead model innovation and insight generation to enhance strategic decision-making across enterprise teams.

Zhang comes from BMO, where she spent nearly seven years as Director of Data Science & AI, Applied AI. Her team there developed AI-driven solutions for personal banking, insurance, risk management, finance, and wealth management.

She spearheaded the development of a GenAI platform at BMO, which included end-to-end data ingestion and integration. Under her leadership, her team received several awards, including the Digital Banker's Outstanding Machine Learning Initiative Award in 2023 and the Global AI Award in 2025.