Meet Sybille Louis, Vice President of the Performance Tracking and Analytics Department 

Every March, we mark Women’s History Month by celebrating the contributions women have made throughout American history as well as the achievements women continue to make today. This year’s theme highlights “women who advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion,” and we recognize women in our community who, through their leadership and advocacy, are helping to create a NYCHA community that is more inclusive, equitable, and fair.    

For 21 years, Sybille Louis has been tracking NYCHA’s data to help tell the story behind the Authority’s residents and programs. She was recently named Vice President of the Performance Tracking and Analytics Department (PTAD), a role in which she will continue to advance both the Authority’s and her department’s goals to use data to improve and transform NYCHA. 

“I am truly honored and grateful to be recognized for my work and dedication to NYCHA,” Ms. Louis said. “Even though I’ve been doing this type of work for a long time, it never gets old, and I’m really excited about what I do. I’m looking forward to continuing the work I’ve been doing and collaborating with my colleagues.” 

Ms. Louis previously served as Senior Director of PTAD, where she led the development and improvement of the HUD Agreement dashboards, which track NYCHA’s compliance regarding heating, elevators, mold/leaks, and pests, as well as capital work on boilers and elevators. She joined NYCHA in 2003 as a Staff Analyst in the Research and Management Analysis Department, now known as PTAD, and held various positions of increasing responsibility in the department, including Chief and Deputy Director, before becoming Senior Director. 

Ms. Louis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Queens College and a Master of Science degree in urban policy and management from the New School University. She holds a joint certificate in applied data analytics from the University of Chicago, New York University, and the University of Maryland. She is a graduate of NYCHA’s Leadership Academy; a 2019 recipient of the NYCHA Changemaker Award for creating a “work environment based upon transparency, collaboration, and a commitment to delivering the best possible services;” and a recipient of an award from NYCHA’s NAACP branch in February 2022.  

Ms. Louis immigrated to the United States from Haiti as a teenager in 1992 and has been the President of the Haitian-American Association since 2023, previously serving as the Vice President for more than four years. 

We spoke with Ms. Louis about her department’s mission, her career accomplishments, and what’s most rewarding about her work. 

What did you do before you came to NYCHA? 

After graduate school, I worked for a small non-profit that served low-income New Yorkers experiencing housing issues, including people with HIV/AIDS. That type of work really opened my eyes to how important shelter is to people’s lives – it’s the most basic need; you must have shelter to be able to pursue anything else in life. We take that for granted. 

What is PTAD responsible for? 

Our department serves as a key support to the executive team and other NYCHA departments to support their project goals and objectives by using analytics to help them find or arrive at sound decisions.  

As part of NYCHA’s Transformation Plan, one of the goals is for NYCHA to transform into an agency that uses data to drive decision-making; our role in PTAD is to foster and encourage that and to provide folks with the tools that can help them do this. A huge part of what we do is creating reports and dashboards where people can review data.  

We have a lot of demographic data about our residents and receive thousands of requests for this data from staff, elected officials, the media, and resident association leaders. Other data widely used are regarding our operations, including rent collection and work orders. We can provide information to property management staff on how many work orders were created a year and the status of the work orders. They can look at this data and see if their numbers are staying the same or improving. We can look at key indicators, such as how long we take to re-rent an apartment from the time it’s vacated to the time it’s re-rented. We look at the data and notice trends so that we can plan better. Maybe we can look at the data and say, “Here are the things we’re finding, maybe by taking certain steps we can see an improvement.” 

As we pursue various data projects, we think about the goal of making the NYCHA community more inclusive, equitable, and fair by paying attention to how data are collected and reported. If a survey is being distributed, are we pulling a representative sample of our residents from working families, young adults, and seniors? If we are analyzing data, are we accounting for the differences in our properties from the Bronx to Staten Island? 

Another major role of the department is to prepare and submit NYCHA’s Annual Plan and NYCHA’s section of the Mayor’s Management Report, the City’s Consolidated Plan, Annual Action Plan, and other mandated reports. These submissions all require great collaboration with departments across the Authority. We also design surveys for various departments to help new initiatives or evaluate programs. 

What’s most engaging about your job? 

Because data is so important in everything we do, PTAD is involved in pretty much any key initiative the Authority has done, including the Trust, RAD/PACT, and recently with ERAP. We had to provide data that Intergovernmental Affairs and the executive team used to make their case, such as the number of people that were rent delinquent, the number of seniors who were delinquent, the amount of rent owed. I’m very proud that we’ve supported so many key initiatives for NYCHA and that we also support policy work, because before certain decisions can be made, we’ll be asked to run the data to help inform those decisions. 

The most rewarding part of what I do is to use data to improve the lives of residents. That’s what has kept me at NYCHA for so long. There’s no place like NYCHA in terms of affordability in New York City. If NYCHA were to disappear tomorrow, what would happen to the thousands of people who live in our developments? Where would they go? We have the responsibility to use the work we do to do the right thing. I feel like I’m making a difference every day. 

What is an accomplishment you’re proud of?  

One of the first major accomplishments was when our department created the first Authority-wide dashboard back in 2005 or 2006 called the Executive Information System. That was the first dashboard where we could see key indicators for the agency. It was built on an old platform and eventually morphed into what is now the Performance Tracking Dashboard.  

We’re really embracing new tools for reporting to help produce quicker dashboards and make them more dynamic, which helps us to provide data faster. It’s amazing to see the evolution of how we started in the 2000s and where we are now. 

What are you looking forward to in the future? 

I’m excited to see that NYCHA is turning the corner in many key areas and I’m looking forward to continuing our work in providing analytical support (both qualitative and quantitative) to further NYCHA’s mission.