About

Timothy Van Heest

Timothy Van Heest

Timothy Van Heest founded VHSD Solutions in 2026, after five years leading data science and analytics teams through Featurespace’s acquisition by Visa. He has spent fifteen years building and leading teams around data-intensive systems: financial crime prevention at Featurespace and Visa, data security and audit analytics at Ionic Security (later acquired by Twilio), and decision-support systems for government customers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He holds an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Tech and a B.E. from Vanderbilt.

Apr 2026 – Jul 2026
VisaDirector of Product, Risk Platform MLOps
Apr 2022 – Apr 2026
FeaturespaceHead of Analytics, US and Canada
Oct 2020 – Apr 2022
FeaturespaceLead Data Scientist
Jul 2019 – Sep 2020
Ionic SecurityChief Architect
May 2016 – Jul 2019
Ionic SecurityDirector of Analytics
Nov 2014 – May 2016
Ionic SecuritySoftware Engineer, Analytics
Jan 2012 – Oct 2014
Georgia Tech Research InstituteResearch Engineer / Software Lead
Feb 2011 – Oct 2013
OnPoint Vehicle Inspection ServicesCo-Founder

Full history on LinkedIn

Name and logo

Company brand

Click to see the keystone in its context.

VHSD stands for Van Heest, Systems Doing. “Systems Doing” has been the name of Timothy’s personal blog for more than 10 years, and is a play on “Systems Thinking,” a popular set of ideas about understanding systems, including the importance of context and emergent properties. With “Systems Doing” the focus is on interacting with such complex systems vs. modeling and understanding their dynamics.

The logo includes a keystone separating VH and SD. The keystone is the stone that lets an arch carry its own weight. It is critical in the design of an arch as a system, yet provides no value outside its context.

Beyond work

Outside VHSD Solutions

Timothy Van Heest with his wife and three daughters outside their church
With his wife and three daughters.