American Express has named Yan Zhang, Ph.D., Vice President, Data Science & Analytics within its Finance organization. In her new role, she will lead model innovation, insight generation, and AI-driven transformation to enhance strategic decision-making across enterprise teams.

Prior to joining American Express, Zhang spent nearly seven years at BMO, most recently serving as Director of Data Science & AI, Applied AI. In that role, she led a high-impact data science and AI team supporting personal banking, insurance, risk, finance, and wealth management. Her work spanned generative AI, natural language processing (NLP), fraud detection, pricing strategy, forecasting, and compliance risk mitigation.

Additionally, Zhang spearheaded end-to-end data ingestion and integration for the bank’s GenAI platform, supporting full-cycle agentic AI system deployments. Under her leadership, her team earned the Digital Banker’s Outstanding Machine Learning Initiative Award in 2023 and the Global AI Award in 2025.

In a LinkedIn update, Zhang wrote that “this next chapter represents both a continuation of the work I love and a chance to help shape how AI, GenAI, and analytics drive strategic value at scale. I’m energized by the mission, the people, and the opportunity to contribute to a company with such a strong commitment to innovation and excellence.”