Michael Plunkett
About Me
I'm a Director of Analytics with 10+ years leading data, marketing analytics, and business intelligence — and 4+ years building the SYW Analytics practice at Transformco (Shop Your Way / Sears Home Services) from the ground up into one of the company's most technically advanced, AI-native analytics organizations.
I joined Shop Your Way at a pivotal moment: Sears retail stores were winding down and the business was repositioning SYW as a standalone modern loyalty platform. I led analytics for the SYW MAX app launch — a flagship move into digital-first member engagement — and built the measurement foundation that everything since has been built on. My career has mirrored the evolution of the field itself: from app analytics and Adobe migration, through BigQuery data lake architecture, to building MCP servers that let Claude AI query live production databases in natural language. I use Claude Code and Cowork as core daily workflow tools — not experiments.
At Transformco I've simultaneously led two of the company's most complex measurement challenges: the complete redesign of SYW.com and the migration of a flagship credit card program to a new issuer — maintaining analytics continuity across both without a gap. My team delivered 14 AI and data milestones in under 4 months, transforming how the analytics function operates at scale.
AI & Agentic Tools
Analytics & Measurement
Engineering & Cloud
Marketing Tech & Strategy
The Analytics Evolution
Five phases. Five compounding layers of capability. One team, built from scratch.
Joined Shop Your Way at a pivotal inflection point — as Sears retail stores were winding down and the business was repositioning SYW as a standalone modern loyalty platform. Led analytics for the SYW MAX app launch, a flagship move to bring the brand into a new era of digital-first member engagement. Established the foundational measurement layer across web and app properties and built early reporting infrastructure as the team took shape.
Formalized the analytics practice with a structured team operating model and project tracking. Migrated from Adobe Analytics to GA4 across SYW.com, the SYW MAX app, and PYW app. Stood up GCP BigQuery as the team's analytics data warehouse with Composer-managed ETL. Architected the Sailthru purchase API integration and UTM auto-tracking framework still powering behavioral email personalization today.
Scaled BigQuery reporting across SYW.com, app, and financial services data. Built member transaction dashboards segmenting Members vs. Card Members. Integrated Sears Home Services as the analytics team's first formal partner business unit — building weekly data pipelines that have run consistently for over two years.
Led analytics for two simultaneous major initiatives: a flagship credit card program migration to a new issuer, and a complete SYW.com redesign (Lovable.ai + Builder.io architecture). Architected GTM tagging strategy for the new site, designed UTM persistence across non-linear multi-platform user paths, and launched next-best-action attribution for new card member onboarding.
Built a production-grade AI analytics platform in under 4 months. Deployed 3 MCP servers connecting Claude AI to live BigQuery and Snowflake. Eliminated manual encrypted file workflows through end-to-end automation. Built operational dashboards for real-time program visibility and integrated AI-powered data cataloging for self-documenting infrastructure.
What Changed
110 days. 14 milestones. One AI-native analytics platform.
What I've Built
Key initiatives from 4+ years at Shop Your Way
Credit Card Program Migration
Full Analytics Rebuild · Issuer Transition
Led the complete rebuild of measurement infrastructure for a flagship credit card program as it transitioned to a new issuer. Designed the GA4 acquisition funnel dataset tracking the full customer journey from web visit to card approval. Built cohort segmentation tables powering win-back and lifecycle targeting. Identified and escalated a critical data integrity issue in the application flow with documented query analysis. Replaced manual encrypted file delivery with zero-touch automation.
SYW.com Complete Redesign
GTM & GA4 Measurement Leadership
Partnered with engineering to maintain measurement continuity across a full site overhaul — from monolithic codebase to multi-platform architecture (Lovable.ai + Builder.io + SYW app webviews). Led GTM auditing and resolved tag-firing-too-early bugs with delayed triggers. Designed UTM persistence for non-linear user paths. Stood up waitlist GA4 tracking within 24 hours of launch.
AI-Native Analytics Platform
MCP Architecture · Enterprise AI Infrastructure
Among the earliest enterprise analytics practitioners to build a production MCP server stack. Designed 3 MCP connections giving Claude AI real-time, read-only access to live BigQuery and Snowflake — replacing manual query-paste-analyze cycles with natural-language agentic data access. Directed credential security migration from legacy service account JSON to trusted MCP connections. 14 milestones delivered in 110 days.
Home Services Analytics Partnership
First Strategic Partner Integration
Established Sears Home Services as the analytics team's first formal partner business unit. Built weekly Snowflake-to-BigQuery marketing pipelines that have run consistently for over two years. Deployed two dedicated MCP connections (BigQuery + Snowflake) making it the first partner fully integrated into the AI analytics stack — enabling real-time cross-sell analytics without manual reporting. Leading dataset strategy for a predictive member engagement scoring model.
Career History
20 years across media, agencies, enterprise, and fintech
Built SYW Analytics from scratch → AI-native data platform
KPI frameworks, reporting automation, Tableau standardization
Built Snowflake DW; supported $22M national media buy
SEO, media & creative analytics for major brand accounts
GA360 migration across 1,400 affiliates; 2x eComm growth via A/B testing
Earlier Agency & Media Experience
BBA, Advertising & Promotions
Western Michigan University
Google Analytics (GAIQ) · Google Tag Manager · DePaul CIMA · Python for Data Science
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