Yakoob

Over * years of extensive experience as a Senior Business Analyst with

Banking & Financial Services domain in Business and Functional requirements

gathering, analyzing requirements, business process re-engineering, object-

oriented design/modeling and Project Management with strong understanding

of sequential and iterative approaches like waterfall, RUP and Agile to

manage the software development life cycle (SDLC).

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY:

. Experienced in capital and money market instruments within investment

banking and brokerage environments like Fixed Income instruments,

Income (Mutual Funds, Bonds, Asset Backed Securities, Hedge Funds) and

Equities, ETFs & OTCs, FX, Derivatives, etc.

. Experienced in Trading, Settlement and Messaging concepts (Straight

through Processing and SWIFT), Transfer Agency Services, Trade

Lifecycle, and Hedge Fund strategies.

. Excellent knowledge of Security Master, Account Master, Fund

Accounting (Portfolio & NAV Accounting), Anti-Money Laundering, OFAC

and Customer Identification Program (KYC/CIP), Basel II compliance

using industry standards and regulatory guidance, etc.

. Excellent understanding of reference data and transactional data of

financial instruments like derivatives, fixed income, equities, etc.

. Expert in writing documents like Business Requirements, Functional

Requirements that match Technical system setups, front/ middle/ back

office, and Use Case, Vision, Scope and Project Plan Documents.

. Expert in using MS office applications for day to day activities, MS

Visio for drawing flow diagrams and MS Project for prioritizing and

managing individual tasks.

. Proficient in creating UML diagrams like Use Case Diagrams, Activity,

Sequence, Collaboration, Class, State, Workflow, Process flow, Data

flow and Deployment Diagrams.

. Proficient in creating mapping spreadsheets, Source to Target mapping

documents including transformation rules.

. Worked closely with various Business Object teams working on different

technology platforms like Crystal, Cognos and Microstrategy.

. Experienced in Data Analysis, Data Quality Management, Data Profiling,

Data Cleansing, and Data Integrity as well as maintaining reference

data and defining transformation rules for Data load and Data extract

processes.

. Experience in writing SQL queries for data validation exercises using

Oracle SQL Plus, SQL Server and TOAD.

. In-depth understanding of various SDLC methodologies like Agile, RUP,

Scrum, Waterfall etc, Product Data Management and QA methodologies

such as making Test Plans, conducting User Acceptance Tests and

creating & executing Test Scripts/Test Cases.

. Expert in facilitating all levels of management, developers, QAs,

stakeholders, business users and off-site teams in JADs, brainstorm

sessions, whiteboarding by conferences and WebEx.

. Strong leader and team builder with excellent analytical and

communication skills with capability to handle new technologies and

situations, dedicated to meet deadlines and provide necessary

deliverables and resolve issues creatively by out of the box thinking.

BUSINESS SKILLS & TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Requirements Gathering, Business Requirements Definition, Business

Processes Research, Analysis and Documentation, Use Case Modeling and

Analysis, Functional Requirements gathering, JAD Sessions, GAP analysis and

SWOT analysis, Data Analysis, Team building, Conflict Management, Time

Management, Trade Life Cycle, Test Scripting & Production Support.

MS Windows (2000, XP, NT, Vista, Windows 7), MS Office 2007/2003/2000

(Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, Access, Publisher, FrontPage,

Outlook), MS Sharepoint 2007, Lotus Notes, VB 6.0, Mainframes, SWIFT, Basel

II, XML, HTML, SQL Server 2005/2000, Toad, Oracle 9i/10g, Adobe, HP

(Quality Center 9.2, QuickTest Professional 8.2/9.2), JIRA

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATION:

Bachelor of Arts (Economics), Bombay University, India 1978

Certificate in Canadian Securities, Canadian Securities Institute, Toronto

1998

Professional Experience:

Client: MassMutual Financial Group, Springfield, MA

Project: Management Dashboard

Duration: MAR 2013- Present

Role: Senior Business Analyst/System Analyst

To assist managers and staff to centralize workflow, division information,

and document storage & retrieval, we created a web-based application called

Management Dashboard. Developed in JAVA BXP environment, it is the first

Project within AIS (Alternate Investment Services- Fixed Income). AIS

Dashboard caters various functionalities for different departments like

Client Services, Portfolio & NAV Accounting, and Investor Services in the

form of applications. Inquiries like Portfolio Accounting & NAV Accounting

Checklists, NAV Tracker help accounting team to track Accounting processes.

Inquiries like Trade Tracking & TA Statements Checklists are used by

Investor Services team. Client Services team uses AIS Dashboard to maintain

Client & Fund information. The project followed Agile Scrum methodology.

Responsibilities:

. Experienced in working on Management Dashboard application and

interacted with various business teams like Client Services, Investor

Services & Fund accounting services etc.

. Defined logic to correct many funds in AIS Dashboard for Master-

Feeder Fund Structure for the fixed income instruments like Hedge

Funds.

. Created mock up screens for various modules including Portfolio/NAV

Accounting Checklists, Email Inquiries, Heatmap Reports and NAV

Tracker Reports of various Fixed Income instruments.

. As Scrum Master involved with making appropriate commitments through

story selection, sizing and tasking.

. Worked very closely with the business team for requirement gathering

& requirement analysis. Conducted JAD sessions to gather business &

functional requirements.

. Understood the AML compliance requirements by interacting with

compliance department, and SME experts in the laws/act of

compliances.

. Studied the existing KYP/CIP system and prepared the test data for

the CDD and EDD based on the inputs.

. Managed onsite & offshore development team during the project and

worked very closely to achieve product delivery timelines.

. Prepared Business & Functional requirement documents for Management

Dashboard project using standard SDLC templates in MS Word.

. As Scrum Master involved in Scrum Sprint Planning Sessions, Backlog

Grooming, Sizing, Sprint Retrospectives & Reviews, Daily Stand ups,

User Stories and Acceptance Criteria.

. Prepared mock up screens using MS Visio & MS Paint for Management

Dashboard Project and enhancements in existing AIS Dashboard.

. As Scrum Master created and prioritized the Back Log in Rally,

coordinated Planning Sessions and maintained User Stories and

Acceptance Criteria.

. Maintained SDLC standards by documenting Project Request Document,

Project Planning Document, BRD, FRD, Scope Document, RISK Scorecard,

and Planning Phase End Metrics.

. Created High Level Design Document, Test Plan & Test Case Document,

and Release Plan.

. Worked closely with various teams to identify and document Disaster

Recovery Plan and Production Support strategies.

. Managed Project planning & project status using PPM.

. Analyzed & resolved Production issues, working closely with Onsite &

Offshore development teams.

. Analyzed change requests and enhancements, bugs & production issues

to prepared MTDs and worked closely with development team for

implementation.

. Used JIRA to maintain and update status of each change request,

enhancement, production issue and bugs for AIS Dashboard project.

. Worked very closely with Accounting team, Client Services team,

Investor Services team, etc. during UAT phase & Production Release of

the project.

. Since Management Dashboard is the first Project on Java/ BXP

environment, worked very closely with various technical teams for the

set up and access.

Tools & Technologies:

Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office Suite 2010(Word, Visio, Project,

Excel, Access), Microsoft Outlook, JIRA, Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Client: Barclays, Wilmington, DE

Project: Data Integration/Warehousing

Duration: 11/2011-03/2013

Role: Sr. Business Analyst / Sr. Data Analyst

Phase I: Integrated 122 data elements into the data warehouse from 15

receivable systems.

Phase II: Integrated remaining source systems.

Phase III: Set up customer inquiry module, customer standardization and

implementation of CDH.

Phase IV: Development of ADHOC reporting for BASEL II requirements and data

management utilizing Hyperion. The project followed Agile Scrum

methodology.

Responsibilities:

. Gained good understanding of DOORs and other software testing

methodologies.

. Identified ADHOC scenarios for BASEL II regulatory reporting, and

created ADHOC reports using Excel-VBA.

. As Scrum Master, made appropriate commitments through story

selection, sizing and tasking.

. Defined program and project goals, objectives, products, services,

constraints, assumptions, risks and facilitated processes by working

with the GIW team to baseline the scope of work and enable development

of the plan.

. Performed gap analysis/Data Analysis for existing AS-IS Data

model/Database for various referential and transactional entities and

created Data model change requests for enhancement.

. Defined very complex logic for load process of securities (Funds) in

which defined rules for ISIN, CUSIP and SEDOL.

. As Scrum Master, involved in Scrum Sprint Planning Sessions, Backlog

Grooming, Sizing, Sprint Retrospectives & Reviews, Daily Stand ups,

User Stories and Acceptance Criteria.

. Defined data load processing order (hierarchy) for each entity based

on dependency check.

. Gathered Requirements and interacted with Subject Matter Experts to

identify, understand and document business needs for data.

. As Scrum Master, created and prioritized Back Log in Rally,

coordinated Planning Sessions and maintained User Stories and

Acceptance Criteria.

. Analyzed business requirements and functional requirements from

clients and writing of Data Dictionary, Preliminary and Final

Function.

. Developed data mapping documents for all entities, i.e., accounts,

investor-distributor, funds, transactions, foreign exchange rate,

dividend balance, calendar, etc.

Tools & Technologies:

Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office Suite 2010(Word, Visio, Project,

Excel, Access), Microsoft Outlook, JIRA, Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Client: Prudential Financial, Newark, NJ

Project: Limited Partnership System (LPS)

Duration: 09/2010-11/2011

Role: Senior Business Analyst/ System Analyst

LPS is a reporting application compatible with Microsoft Excel for various

business teams such as Investor Services, Fund Accounting and Tax

Department. These reports can be exported as an Excel file to the local

directory. All the User Machines got upgraded from Excel 2003 to Excel

2007. Hence, all the reports should have compatibility for Excel 2007.

Development team has to make the changes in codes for all VB Forms. Some

Reports have already been upgraded based on User's JIRA request. The

project followed RUP methodology

Responsibilities:

Inception

. Collaborated with project manager to define project scope and risks,

determined appropriate methodologies to apply based on Scope/Vision

documents, and developed project time lines for on time delivery based

on SDLC methodology.

. Facilitated discussions involving key stakeholders from

both business and IT to elicit high level requirements and estimate

project feasibility.

. Designed and conducted survey among different end users including

institutional users and brokers to collect detailed requirements, and

documented business requirements according to interviews and user

surveys.

. Mediated conflicts between users and stakeholders on requirements

through JAD sessions.

. Examined Order Management System (OMS) to ensure compliances with

upgrade requirements, and generated documents for the workflow of

existing system and desired system that involved Cash Analysis,

Portfolio Analysis, Order Initiation, Order Execution, Trade Clearing,

and Booking, and performed gap analysis.

Elaboration

. Identified and documented business needs and created detailed Use

Cases using UML, and collaborated with production team to identify and

map detailed existing processes, identify system gaps and

developed functional requirements documentation (FRD) that supported

overall strategy, goals and objectives.

. Derived functional specifications using UML models including user case

diagram, activity diagram, sequence diagram and collaborated diagram

with software architects and developers to ensure that the

applications conform to the requirement and helped to understand

business flow and account relationships in accordance to the specific

databases and tables involved in development.

Construction

. Wrote SQL Queries extensively against different databases, generated

various reports and analyzed them as per the company requirement.

. Maintained Traceability Matrix for the current business processes and

proposed changes.

. Assisted Project Manager in maintaining and monitoring project

progress and status using MS Project, providing high level estimates

of efforts for analysis, implementation and support of application,

estimating delivery schedule and resource allocation.

. Established traceability matrix using Rational Requisite Pro to trace

completeness of requirements in different SDLC stages, and managed

change requests; controlled, tracked and monitored change

requests using Rational ClearQuest to enable successful interactive

development.

. Developed test plans with QA team and helped to develop test

scenarios for system testing, integration testing and performance

testing.

Transition

. Conducted UAT, documented and reported user feedbacks to management

team, and developed training materials for different end users and

assisted in User Training for the new system.

Tools & Technologies:

Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office Suite 2007(Word, Visio, Project,

Excel, Access), Microsoft Outlook, LPN Application, JIRA, Microsoft SQL

Server 2008

Client: Chesapeake Investments Services Inc., Vienna, VA

Duration: 03/2009-09/2010

Project: StatPro

Role: Senior Business Analyst/ Data Analyst

StatPro is the source of referential and transactional data for Security,

Accounts, Benchmark and Performance details for GIW. This project is a fund

account reporting project which involves ETL process of referential data of

entities like Account, Security & Benchmark along with the transactional

and performance data. GIW extracts the data feeds to FSR according to the

business requirements for the reporting application.

Responsibilities:

. Defined program and project goals, objectives, products, services,

constraints, assumptions, and risks and facilitated processes by

working with the GIW team to baseline the scope of work and enable

development of the plan.

. Performed gap analysis/Data Analysis for existing AS-IS Data

model/Database for various referential and transactional entities and

created Data model change requests for the enhancement.

. Defined very complex logic for the load process of securities (Funds)

in which defined rules for ISIN, CUSIP and SEDOL.

. Defined the data load processing order (hierarchy) for each entity

based on dependency check.

. Gathered Requirements and interacted with Subject Matter Experts to

identify, understand and document business needs for data.

. Analyzed business requirements and functional requirements from

clients and writing of Data Dictionary, Preliminary and Final

Function.

. Developed data mapping documents for all entities, i.e. accounts,

investor-distributor, funds, transactions, foreign exchange rate,

dividend balance, calendar, etc.

. Prepared test data for various entities, various test Cases and

performed unit testing exercise using SQL server and Oracle SQL Plus

to examine data quality for the data analysis activity.

. Performed data validation exercise for all load processes, maintained

issue log of data validation issues and fixed such issues working

closely with development teams.

. Analyzed and finalized input feed layout for all entities.

. Prepared the data dictionary for knowledge transfer to the development

team and future use.

. Prepared documented SQL queries for the Production Website and

validated the same.

. Responsible for troubleshooting the issues reported by the development

team in a timely manner.

. Facilitated User Acceptance Testing (UAT) using HP Quality center with

stakeholders and business users, and the errors discovered were fixed

and then verified via regression testing.

. Acted as a liaison between the development team and the business and

worked on resolving the issues reported.

. Responsible for maintaining the latest versions of all the data

mapping documents, documenting all the proposed changes and explained

the changes to the development team.

Tools & Technologies:

Microsoft Office, Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/ Vista, Rational Project Viewer,

Toad, Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle SQL Plus, HTML, XML

Client: SCOTIA CAPITAL INC.,Toronto, ON

Duration: 02/2008-03/2009

Project: Self-Clearing Broker Dealers Application

Role: Business Analyst

The project was to develop an outsourcing platform that will allow National

Financial Services (NFS) to offer Broker/Dealers who wish to clear for

themselves defined as Self-Clearing Broker/Dealers. The application

required two separate interfaces for both a window's client/server

application and a web access. Both interfaces involved management and

control of large amounts of complex screen information. User interviews and

testing were critical to ensure that the interface and interaction model

was appropriate to actual real-life scenarios. The project was based on

SWIFT Funds messages, which was to cover all processes of the life cycle of

investment transaction from trade through to settlement/ clearance and

custody services.

Responsibilities:

. Prepared Roadmap Design of the project for Money Movement and Margin

divisions.

. Worked with Investment SME's, Financial Analysts as well as other

business teams on requirements gathering to write the Business

Requirements Documents of all the Business Processes.

. Created use case and process flow diagrams.

. Captured existing workflows of Firm Funding, Cashiering, Retail Cash

Management, Banking Services, Funds Transfer, Retirement distributions

and Margin divisions and converted all the workflows to Future State

Business Designs in the projected Environment.

. Performed gap analysis on the complete current state to future state.

. Worked extensively on Equity Derivatives, and Cash Equities on trading

desk.

. Implemented Straight through processing functionality for new

OTC/Equity Derivatives - Prime Brokerage business unit.

. Involved in creating the User Interface (UI) Prototypes for various

report documents and statements to detail the completion of the

clearance transaction.

. Reported weekly status updates to project management and stakeholders.

. Assessed Credit Risk strategies with various internal credit tools and

implemented Basel II strategies to augment Credit availability.

. Mapped financial data, general ledger data, loss event data,

transaction data and people reference data from source to target

database for creating a central Risk Data Repository as required by

Basel II reporting regulations.

. Also, performed data validation and data analysis to test mapping and

development changes.

. Worked on developing an outsourcing platform, enhancing of SWIFT

messaging functionality and implementing Basel II compliance

requirements.

. Assisted in creating and executing Test Cases/ test scripts and

documented all issues identified during the testing phase and ensured

that all incidents were discovered, tracked/ resolved and prepared the

UA test cases for end-user testing.

Tools & Technologies:

Mainframes, Microsoft Office Suite 2003 (Word, Visio, Project, Excel,

Access), MS SharePoint 2007, SQL Server 2005

Client: TD AMERITRADE, TORONTO

Duration: 02/2007-02/2008

Role: Business Analyst

TD Ameritrade is a leading online brokerage firm that offers a full line of

investment products, online trading platforms and market research tools to

help investors (Individuals, corporate, Trusts, custodians) take control of

their financial future. It provides a real-time stock trading data from

exchanges around the world. To enhance its Real-Tick suite of applications

for analyzing, tracking, and trading stocks, futures, options, foreign

exchange, and fixed income instruments for the North American market, TD

Ameritrade recently upgraded its website that allows the customers

(Individuals, corporate, Trusts, custodians) to have in depth research of

the ETFs that they are interested in like analyzing the historical data,

charts, latest news and financials. The project was about enhancing the

existing trading site for incorporating it with the trading platforms and

integrating it with the trading platforms. Interfaced the ETF trading

systems to types of customers. Now any customer (Individual, trust) can

open an account to trade ETFs.

Responsibilities:

. Obtained a detailed knowledge of business process involved in the

project environment.

. Interacted with SMEs, Directors, IT and Vendors for overall

understanding and need of the system. Was able to fine tune the

business rules with inputs.

. Analyzed and prioritized user and business rules as system rules that

must be included while developing the software

. Extracted the business requirements for the end users keeping in mind

their need for the application.

Gathered the requirements for a trust/custodian to open an account

. Prepared High Level Logical Data Models and BRDs (Business Requirement

Documents) supporting documents containing the essential business

elements, detailed definitions, and descriptions of the relationships

between the actors to analyze and document business data rules.

. Established Business Analysis methodology using Agile Extreme

Programming to create Architecture and Interaction models.

. Conducted Gap Analysis to show the current and proposed

functionalities of the system.

. Extensively involved in JAD sessions to converge early towards a

design acceptable to the customer and feasible for the developers.

. Created Use Case Diagrams, Activity Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams in MS

Visio.

. Conducted JAD sessions with management, SME (Subject Matter

Expertise), vendors, users and other stakeholders for open and pending

issues to develop specifications.

. Scheduled meetings with data analysts, developers, System Analysts to

explain the business needs and fine tune the requirements. .

. Made recommendations to improve the current application performance

depending on time limitations and capacity constraints with the aid of

SCR's (Scope Change Requests).

. Authored progress and completion reports, which were then submitted to

project management on a weekly basis.

. Assisted in testing the application for Usability testing to verify

whether all the user requirements were catered to by the application.

. Involved in preparing a simple and detailed User manual for the

application for intended users and tools that will be released out to

the field users.

Tools & Technologies:

MS Word, MS Visio, MS Projects, Mercury Quality Center, MS SQL Server 2000

and 2005, MS SharePoint, M&O Serve ME (Integrated business system).

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