Federico De Cillia
I architect AI systems and build reliable AI agents that augment people.
With over 12 years of experience designing end-to-end Data & AI solutions, I turn ambiguous business problems into production systems people actually use, across discovery, solution architecture and hands-on delivery.
I lead the Data Science team for DTC Assortment Intelligence at EssilorLuxottica, where I architect and implement the AI systems behind Retail Assortment, Merchandising and Space Management across 18,000+ stores worldwide, mainly on Azure and Databricks.
Alongside my enterprise role, I co-founded FlyLabs.ai, an AI studio, and I'm an active AI Trainer. Through FlyLabs.ai I ship AI products, deliver AI solutions for clients, and train technical and non-technical teams to adopt AI with real judgment. I build all of it with AI agents every day, mainly Claude Code, OpenAI Codex and Google Antigravity.
I live at the frontier: new model releases, agentic workflows, the latest research. If it shipped this week, I have probably already tested it. That hands-on builder mindset is what I bring into every client engagement and training session, and it's what I write about too, sharing what I learn building in public.
Selected work
Databricks Genie retail agent
A governed Databricks Genie agent that lets retail teams explore enterprise lakehouse data in natural language.
Stellar Reviews
Live demoA multi-tenant AI agent that drafts on-brand, multi-language review responses for hospitality businesses, with a test suite that verifies itself against the live product.
AI assortment recommender
A Databricks recommendation engine that helps retail teams build store-level assortments from performance, trends and store traits.
AI product strategy
A Databricks optimization platform for brand mix and facing allocation, with what-if simulations and global performance insight.
AI second brain
An open-source second brain that any AI agent can operate, one rulebook, multiple agents, plain markdown.
WeGrocery
Live demoAn open-source platform built for Porta Moneta APS, a nonprofit buying group, with one deployment per group from one codebase.
Production AI chatbots (RAG)
Live demoRetrieval-augmented chatbots that answer from your own knowledge, integrated across your channels.
AI enablement
Training teams and non-technical professionals to actually adopt AI.
Earlier work
Store segmentation web-app
Clustering retail stores into actionable segments, served through an internal web app.
Retail sales forecasting & anomaly detection
Forecasting global store sales and flagging anomalies at scale.
Covid closure forecasting
Modeling store and market closures across 40+ countries during the pandemic.
Audience behavior forecasting
Predicting TV and radio viewing and listening behavior.
Panel churn prediction
Predicting churn of panelists across international media panels.
NLP churn prediction
A text-mining model predicting customer churn.
Experience
Lead Data Scientist, Global Retail & DTC Assortment Intelligence · EssilorLuxottica
Feb 2021 – presentI lead the data science unit for Global Retail & DTC Assortment Intelligence, optimizing assortment strategies across 18,000+ retail stores. I own the architecture and full lifecycle of AI initiatives, from discovery and solution design to full-scale production deployment, mainly on Azure and Databricks: Genie agents on governed lakehouse data, forecasting engines, anomaly detection, clustering, optimization and recommendation systems that drive automated decision-making at scale. I define target architectures, mentor a high-performing team, set Data and MLOps best practices, lead internal AI enablement, and have delivered measurable business impact: license savings, multi-FTE efficiency gains and incremental revenue.
Co-founder & AI Consultant · FlyLabs.ai · Freelance
2019 – presentCo-founded FlyLabs.ai, an AI studio shipping production AI products (Stellar Reviews, GPT Chatbot), several with live public demos. As an independent consultant I help teams use AI well and deliver production-grade solutions end to end, from discovery and solution architecture to production rollout: AI agents, LLM chatbots, automations and internal tools for dozens of businesses across industries. I also run tailored AI training for technical and non-technical teams. Recognized as a Vetted Pro on Fiverr (5/5 across 100+ projects).
Co-founder & Technology Lead · Porta Moneta APS, nonprofit volunteer role
2022 – presentCo-founded a Milan neighborhood NPO and built its digital operating layer as a volunteer: public website, WeGrocery ordering platform, AI chatbot for member support, digital membership workflows and lightweight internal operations.
Senior Data Scientist · Nielsen
Sep 2017 – Feb 2021Led predictive models (time series, classification, clustering) on audience and panel data across 10+ countries, and built scalable data pipelines.
Data Scientist, Consultant · Bip — Business Integration Partners
Apr 2016 – Sep 2017Big Data & Advanced Analytics CoE: delivered ML & NLP models at Sky Italy to improve retention and upselling.
Data Science Consultant · SAS / Value Lab
Jun 2015 – Apr 2016SAS Masterclass in Big Data & Analytics; built ETL pipelines and BI dashboards.
Data Mining Junior Officer, Marketing Department · Università Bocconi, Milan
Jan 2015 – Jun 2015Supported the Marketing Department with data mining and analysis (SAP-CRM, STATA), generating insights and reporting on customer satisfaction to support strategic decision-making.
Education & certifications
Master in Statistical Sciences
University of Padua · 2012 – 2014
LLP Erasmus, Economics
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona · 2012
Bachelor in Statistical Sciences
University of Padua · 2008 – 2011
IT Technical Diploma (Perito Industriale per l'Informatica)
ITI F. Severi, Padua · 2004 – 2008
- Databricks Machine Learning Professional
- Microsoft Azure Data Scientist Associate (DP-100)
- Nova 111 Top Talent Italy (2023)
- Tackling the Challenges of Big Data, MIT Professional Education
- Deep Learning Specialization, deeplearning.ai
- Machine Learning for Data Science & Analytics, Columbia University
- Data Science and Machine Learning with Python and Spark, O'Reilly
- SAS Programming, Macro Language, SQL, Enterprise Guide
Skills
AI engineering
Data science & ML
Data & cloud
Apps & web
BI & visualization
Delivery
Languages
Get in touch
Or reach me on LinkedIn.