Ted R. Schulte, CSM, CPCU, API

www.linkedin.com/in/tedschulte/ 513-***-**** ad1ciw@r.postjobfree.com

Summary

As a driven life-long learner and Servant Leader, I lead by example with a strong work ethic and focus on empowering others. My experience and education in Agile methodologies provide the insight to lead, coach, and collaborate with diverse teams. I also understand the value of creating transparent partnerships and acting as a trusted advisor for others to reach their full potential. I have a proven track record of outstanding communication, facilitation, relationship management to support organizational values, and motivating others to do their best work.

Experience

Liberty Mutual Insurance

Scrum Master USRM BL Products Tech Jan 2022 – Present

Servant Leader for multiple diverse teams and dedicated to supporting a sense of community, empowerment, and development towards being self-sustaining.

Collaborating with business partners and Engineers to manage project backlog, process improvement and personal development to meet evolving business objectives.

Provide visibility to metrics for leadership and Agile team for planning and continuous improvement.

Constantly communicating and facilitating to support planning, identify and escalate potential risks, and influence adjustments to maintain alignment of teams with business strategy as needed.

Fostered strategic value stream partnerships to ensure alignment between planning and execution.

Accomplishments:

Facilitated scrum ceremonies, PI planning for multiple diverse delivery teams including Offshore developers and Intern groups. Coached Scrum team through planning, pointing, and continuous improvement to stabilize and double productivity.

Leveraged organizational skills to support multiple Intern teams with no Agile experience to successful completion of MVP projects. Applied a mixed method approach leveraging coaching, facilitating, teaching, and enabling to engage Interns and motivate them to be self-motivated and directed.

Supported team to consistently deliver on commitments by providing workflow planning and capacity support to align team goals with department and project timelines. This enabled business partners, leadership as well as the team to set transparent expectations and constantly deliver.

Software Engineer GRMUS BL Products Tech Nov 2017 - Jan 2022

Member of Agile, cross-functional Product team of Engineers, Scrum Master and Product Owner developing software and supporting cloud migration, CI/CD, and other initiatives.

Leveraging business experience to understand and apply customer requirements to software design.

Accomplishments:

Led Security review, Checkmarx, and SAST initiative for Development team. Created team wiki reference for process implementation, coordination of work with Security to assess all team-owned applications. Supported Developers through Checkmarx assessment review with Solution Engineer and Security and implementation of resulting compliance changes.

Created automated Splunk monitoring dashboard for Agency Services failover migration which provided a single reference to monitor activity and send automatic alerts to support teams when out of SLA or performance targets. Provided business and cross-team partners constant feedback on effectives of failover strategy and demo to Train led to several other groups leveraging Splunk.

Collaborated with Solution Engineer to create Application Inventory Dashboard which provides a single source for Train teams to monitor Deployment Status, Age, Quality and DORA metrics for all critical applications. It also provides time saving links to CloudForge, repositories, deploy plans, wiki references as well as health checks, Splunk alerts and Application home pages in every environment.

Safeco Insurance

Senior Underwriter Peerless Insurance Jan 2015 - Nov 2017

Managed a multi-state territory of Independent Agents to drive profitable growth through proactive direction, risk selection, and collaboration with distribution, claims, and product groups.

Developed and presented departmental training, best practices, and process change initiatives.

Regional SME for High Value Homeowner coverage and Inspection vendor for Personal Lines.

Accomplishments:

Team leader for regional EOS initiatives and process implementation. Supported Underwriting teams and specialists through ENPS initiatives and coordinated implementation of recommended changes with regional and department leadership.

Selected as mentor for new hire orientation, OJT, and as new Agency Appointment liaison. Conducted multiple training classes for new hires, coverage line specific training such as high-value property exposures as well as traveling of in-agency training for new appointments.

Regional lead for Safeco Agency Underwriter Award program. Coordinated annual award ceremonies, evaluation, and communication to nominated Agents.

Agency Performance Management Jan 2014 - Jan 2015

Managed profitability of a multi-state territory for multiple lines of business utilizing reporting tools and data analysis.

Collaborated with Product, Distribution, and Claims groups to maintain state and coverage line profitability, overall book quality, monitor Agency behavior, and effectiveness of new product appetite initiatives.

Accomplishments:

Selected as National lead for multiple key workflows including Sarbanes-Oxley control testing.

Developed and implemented new forms of audit procedures to stabilize unprofitable Dwelling Fire and Property lines of business.

Developed enhanced Underwriter training curriculum and led multiple new hire training courses.

Underwriting Manager Jun 2007 - Jan 2014

Led team of Underwriters and Specialists for Safeco, AFI, and CCIC platforms to ensure daily production, time service, and quality.

Directly responsible for personal development and performance of Underwriting teams and application of quality assurance standards.

Performed departmental process audits and performance review for Underwriters and Specialist.

Participated in interviewing, hiring, performance reviews and development of staff.

Accomplishments:

Managed and supported workflow integration for internal employees as well as Independent Agents through OCAS and Safeco mergers and platform transitions. Supported multiple states and regions simultaneously through book and product transfers between platforms as well as closed LOBs.

Zone leader for Safeco Systems Platform migration including Underwriter training and Agency communication. Coordinated migration of Agency Market business to target Safeco zones and supported legacy Agents through completion.

Team and UW region lead for multiple Agency Market state migrations to Safeco platform. Coordinated Agency engagement and training for platform and book transitions.

Coached teams through integration of Liberty Management Systems (LMS), a software lean model.

Functional Expertise

Facilitating Agile ceremonies and events.

Coaching, developing, and Mentoring.

Shield teams from distractions and removing impediments.

Collaboration and communication across value streams.

Constant advocate for Agile practices through all organizational levels.

Results driven, through constant reflection and continuous improvement.

Skills

Agile Methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) Leadership Coaching & Mentoring

Microsoft Office Suite Analytical Skills

Confluence/Jira Organizational Change Management

Training & Development Facilitation

Education and Professional Development

Certified Scrum Master Scrum Alliance 2023

Associate in Personal Insurance Insurance Institute of America 2009 Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter American Institute for CPCU 2005 Certificate in General Insurance Insurance Institute of America 2002 Bachelor of Science in Education Bowling Green State University 1995

Training

Jira Administration 2023 Agile Project Management 2023

Agile for Distributed Teams 2023 Advanced Agile 2022

AWS Well-Architected Framework 2022 Scaling Agile 2022

Becoming an Agile Coach 2021 Advanced Scrum 2020

Certification Prep Scrum Master 2020

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