Yolande Athaide

Yolande Athaide is a visiting associate professor in the Department of Administrative Sciences at Boston University’s Metropolitan College. With over three decades of experience, she has a proven track record of leading business transformations and high-impact projects across financial, operational, and analytics domains. Her expertise spans data-driven strategy development, advanced analytics, and transformative process improvements powered by artificial intelligence (AI), with recent research focused on the evolving role of AI in higher education, consulting, and financial analytics.

Ms. Athaide teaches courses in project management, quantitative and qualitative decision-making, finance, and risk analytics, with emphasis on real-world applications, ethical AI integration, critical decision-making, and developing career skills. Prior to her current appointment, she served as an analyst in finance and administration at Harvard University’s Salata Institute for Climate & Sustainability. Athaide also brings more than twenty years of entrepreneurial experience as the co-founding president and CEO of Cygnet Risk Group and EYE Numerics in Houston, Texas, along with expertise in financial derivatives tools for quantitative risk management from her days leading a team of risk analysts at EOTT Energy Corp. Throughout her career, she has successfully delivered sustainable value to her clients through complex projects, implemented data-driven compliance solutions, and guided AI research and development initiatives.

Athaide is currently part of SOAR Management Consulting Group, a volunteer team of management consultants serving nonprofit organizations in Boston, Mass. Other volunteer work includes serving as a competition judge with Technovation Girls and as an executive board member and treasurer for the Mass Chapter of the Association for Women in STEM. She is a member of the State Bar of California and the CFA Institute and its Boston chapter.