Chris McPherson

Chris McPherson is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of TakeUp, where he leads the development of the company’s AI-powered dynamic pricing platform. With nearly two decades of experience spanning data science, software engineering, and business intelligence, McPherson brings a rare combination of deep technical expertise and practical industry insight to the challenge of making advanced pricing strategies both accessible and intuitive. He oversees the end-to-end design of TakeUp’s machine learning models, pricing tests, and user interface, ensuring that every product decision is grounded in real-world application and user control. Before co-founding TakeUp, McPherson held technical leadership roles at 1848 Ventures, Dealer Tire, IgnitionOne, and Progressive Insurance, where he built predictive modeling systems, NLP pipelines, big data infrastructure, and real-time ETL tools. He is known for his hands-on approach to engineering, his passion for automation, and his ability to scale complex systems that deliver measurable business value. McPherson holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from the University of Akron and a master’s in Data Science from the University of California, Berkeley. When he’s not writing code or fine-tuning pricing algorithms, you’ll find him camping with his two daughters, exploring scenic roads behind the wheel, or building an AI system in his spare time to beat the board game No Thanks!—just for the fun of it.