Jose Plehn Dujowich is the CEO, Chief Data Officer, and Founder of BrightQuery (BQ) and BQ AI. With more than ten years of collaboration with U.S. statistical agencies such as the IRS, Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Small Business Administration (SBA), he has developed deep expertise in economics, finance, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI). His work spans various domains, including employment, payroll, financial ratings, and industrial organization.
In 2019, Jose Plehn established BrightQuery to provide comprehensive insights into the U.S. economy. The platform offers data on firmographics, financial metrics, corporate family structures, and legal entities, encompassing over 100 million legal entities, 70 million organizations, and 150 million employees and business owners. The data is sourced from regulatory filings with agencies like the IRS, SEC, and SBA and over 80,000 government jurisdictions. As BrightQuery approaches its fifth anniversary in 2024, it continues to serve as a critical resource for data-driven insights and economic analysis.
To expand on BrightQuery’s success, he founded BQ AI in 2023, aiming to build a sophisticated model of the global economy, starting with the U.S. Leveraging BrightQuery’s proprietary database, BQ AI models the economy as a network of interconnected companies, consumers, households, governments, and events. This approach connects granular company-level data with broader macroeconomic patterns, offering valuable insights for various stakeholders.
Jose Plehn's research efforts are backed by the National Science Fund (NSF), where he serves as the project director for multiple initiatives. One of these projects, “AI-Ready Data Products to Facilitate Discovery and Use,” explores how statistical data can be optimized for AI applications. This work aims to help federal agencies and their partners enhance their use of data while addressing the challenges associated with generative AI.
Before founding BrightQuery, Jose Plehn co-founded Powerlytics, contributing intellectual property to a platform that analyzes anonymized IRS tax data. His academic career includes serving as Faculty and Executive Director at UCLA Anderson School of Management and as an Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. While at Berkeley, he founded the Berkeley Charter of Professional Accountancy (BCPA), a leading accounting program. His research, including the award-winning work “Demand Uncertainty and Cost Behavior,” has been recognized with honors like the Notable Contribution to the Accounting Literature Award.
Jose Plehn holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago and two Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT, specializing in Management Science and Economics. Born in New York, he spent his early childhood in Mexico City and later lived in Geneva, Switzerland, where his father worked as a senior diplomat for the United Nations. These experiences shaped his global perspective and commitment to addressing economic inequality and sustainability.
Through BrightQuery and BQ AI, Jose Plehn Dujowich remains at the forefront of innovation in data analytics, creating tools to understand better and navigate complex economic landscapes.