T-Squared: Alex Powers is The Texas Tribune’s new analytics and data manager

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We are very excited to introduce Alex Powers as The Texas Tribune’s new analytics and data manager. Alex will lead the development of data analysis tools and practices to give us a better understanding of our audience, our coverage and our opportunities across the organization.

Alex joins the Tribune from the world of health care data, most recently as a senior consulting data analyst at Kaiser Permanente. Previously, he received a master’s in health administration at Texas A&M University. Hailing from The Woodlands in Greater Houston, Alex holds an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M.

He has worked as an EMT, a GED teacher and an analyst for clinics and hospitals. Through his health and education work — and as a longtime reader of the Tribune — he has seen firsthand how state policy affects everyday people, and he is keen to use his skills to further our mission.

Much of Alex’s day-to-day work will be deep in the numbers: He will help us get a clearer window into what we produce, where it travels and what our readers do with it. But the end result will be not only reports and dashboards. He will use data to help inform our decisions and strategize on major initiatives, including website enhancements, new platforms, membership strategies and foundational tech improvements.

He is already helping us track our progress on strategic goals for editorial coverage, audience growth, product execution and financial sustainability. He is also helping to teach data tools and practices to staff members across the organization.

Alex arrives at the Tribune not only with a wide array of tech skills, but also an innate curiosity; he’s always reading, learning and teaching both new technologies and big-picture ideas. Along with his data-analysis acumen, he is well versed in visualizing and presenting data to effectively tell stories about our coverage, audience and impact. His wide-ranging skills are a perfect complement to the Tribune’s small-but-mighty product team.

Alex joined us on Jan. 5 and is based in San Antonio, where our staff continues to grow. We are very excited to welcome him, and he has already hit the ground running.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.