Who is Eugene Shen? Commanders provide help for Ron Rivera with SVP of Football Strategy's addition

The Washington Commanders have hired Eugene Shen to become their Senior Vice President of Football Strategy. Shen is well respected among league circles for being a brilliant analytical mind, and he has been in and around the NFL since 2014.

Shen's appointment is the latest in a string of high-profile hires by Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris. These appointments are geared toward making the Commanders an established postseason franchise and taking them away from the doldrums of the league. Here's a deeper look into the education and professional career of Eugene Shen.

Eugene Shen's educational background

According to his LinkedIn profile, Shen got his first degree at Harvard University in 1993. Shen studied Applied Maths with Economics at Harvard and bagged his degree within four years.

Following his time at Harvard, he enrolled at MIT Sloan School of Management to pursue his MBA degree. He spent three years on the course and got his certificate in 1998. Armed with these degrees, Shen decided to embark on a quest to conquer the labor market.

Eugene Shen's career

Almost immediately after the completion of his MBA, Eugene Shen got a job as a strategist at Long-Term Capital Management, LLC in the United States. The job entailed that he work with a tightly knit team to strategize on breakthroughs in the capital market industry. Shen worked at the job for three years, eventually leaving in 2001 to become a Partner and Portfolio Manager of JD Capital Management. Shen occupied this new role for over seven years and helped elevate the company.

He left JD Capital Management in 2008. However, he wasn't without a job for long, as he was appointed Portfolio Manager and Senior Vice President at Alliance Bernstein in 2009. Shen acted in that capacity for almost five years before eventually departing in 2014. This marked his last non-NFL job in a while.

Shen was appointed as the Director of Coaching Analytics at the Baltimore Ravens. In this role, he worked hand in hand with head coach John Harbaugh. The franchise had a successful spell during Shen's tenure, and the MIT alum spent just under five years in the capacity before taking his talents to South Beach.

The Miami Dolphins appointed Shen to become their Director of Personnel Analytics, a slightly different role than what he was tasked with in Baltimore. As usual, he excelled in the role, so much so that the Jacksonville Jaguars hired him in 2021 to become their Vice President of Football Analytics, his highest-level position in the NFL up to that point. He served in the role until 2022, after which he took a break from professional football.

Shen then dipped his hand into the world of investment as he became a derivatives analyst at Millennium Management Global Investment. That didn't last so long, as Josh Harris has managed to convince him to return to the NFL. Fans will be eager to see whether he can turn around the fortunes of the Commanders in his new role as Senior Vice President of Football Strategy.