Quality Assurance Management

ROBERT J. NEUMANN

* ******** ***** ******** ****, MA 02467 617-***-**** ******.*.*******@*******.***

SENIOR EXECUTIVE PROFILE

Information Technology Executive with 25+ years of experience in diverse roles serving as a Chief

Information Officer, Vice President, Director, Consultant and Project Leader, for professional services

organizations in both domestic and international markets. As a leader, manager, and practitioner of

technology solutions, have established a proven track record of supporting corporate goals and visions.

Excellent strategic and analytical skills combined with the ability to lead teams and quickly improve

operating results. Strengths also include:

Strategic Planning & Execution Project Planning, Execution & Rescue

Aligning IT with Business Strategy & Objectives Problem Solving & Innovative Solutions

Creating & Sustaining Competitive Advantage Strategic Sourcing & Cost Management

Implementing Governance & Change Management Communicating & Negotiating

Process, Efficiency & Productivity Improvement Building & Motivating Teams

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

SUFFOLK CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., Boston, MA April 2007 to November 2008

Suffolk has been recognized as a national construction leader and is one of the largest and most

successful privately-held building contractors in the country. Suffolk has main offices in the Northeast,

Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and West Coast regions, with 300+ construction sites and over 900 employees

delivering $1.7B in annual revenues.

Vice President & Chief Information Officer

Reporting to the CAO, provided strategic input into business strategy development including key IT

investment advice based on sound business rationale and ROI. Advised the Executive Committee

regarding key IT trends, technologies, risks, competitive threats and significant issues that may create

opportunities for, or risks to, IT’s ability to deliver on objectives. Directed the implementation and

execution of new and upgraded applications and systems within budget parameters, via well defined

plans, including procedures, deadlines and accountability. Led an IT staff of 22, with three direct reports

(Business Systems, Help Desk/Desktop Support, IT Infrastructure), and managed an Operating Budget of

$4M and a Capital Budget of $3M.

• Demonstrated excellent leadership skills to bring stability to the IT Department, by redesigning the

structure of the department to operate more efficiently and effectively. Built a strong, cohesive team

with the right skills in the right functions, to support Suffolk’s operations for the long-term.

• Hired a new Help Desk Manager and worked with him to transform a lackluster, reactive Help Desk

team into a well-respected, efficient and proactive team which constantly exceeds Customers’

expectations. This transformation included the successful deployment of a Help Desk Ticketing

application along with Service Level Agreements and Customer Surveys.

• Created and initiated strategy to rationalize IT costs and charge Customers for: IT support services;

desktops and laptops; software licenses; hardware and software maintenance and support costs;

software development projects; disk storage; data and voice lines and usage; and cell phone

equipment and usage. Ultimate goal was to generate a reasonable profit (5-10%) within three years.

• Negotiated with Sprint to reduce a multi-year Sprint/Nextel wireless contract to one year, with a 12%

discount to gain $200k annual savings.

• Negotiated new deal with Verizon Wireless to gain an additional $176k annual savings. The deal

included free devices for 800 employees, with a $100 credit for each line transferred from Sprint, and

a signing bonus of $90k. After switching to Verizon Wireless, maintained a cordial relationship with

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Sprint, resulting in a reduction of the Early Termination Fees from $225k to $70k, which was paid

with the $90k Verizon signing bonus.

• Coordinated the deployment of EMC’s E-Mail Extender and Disk Extender to provide automated E-

Mail archiving and data de-duplication, to streamline the E-Mail archiving process and reduce

required disk storage. Influenced EMC’s CEO to absorb $220k of EMC consulting services, hardware

and software to rectify an unsuccessful implementation which never met the original requirements.

• Developed strategy to deploy EMC On-line Disk-to-Disk Backup and Data De-duplication

technology to eliminate the continual backup problems in the Data Center and at job sites, and, to

reduce the rapidly growing volume of storage space required. This resulted in an annual savings of

$50k and highly reliable backups which could be easily and rapidly restored. This strategy will be

extended to become an integral part of the Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity solution.

• Consolidated Voice and Data lines from multiple providers to AT&T to gain an annual savings of

$240k, and at the same time, migrated to AT&T’s MPLS network to provide improved performance.

• Implemented Server Virtualization to reduce the number of physical servers, replace end-of-life

servers cost effectively and reduce maintenance and support costs, thereby achieving a one-time

savings of $130k and annual savings of $95k. This also reduced the amount of time required to

configure new servers from a day to less than an hour.

• Developed the strategy to deploy Voice over IP (VoIP) technology in a phased approach to all the

offices and job sites. The first phase was completed for the Boston, Falls Church and West Palm

Beach offices and a number of job sites. VoIP will eliminate a large number of disparate PBXs, the

maintenance and support costs for these PBXs, and the cost of long distance calls within Suffolk.

• Provided direction and oversight for the successful implementation of the Oracle/Siebel CRM

application (outsourced hosting) for the Business Development and Marketing departments, and MC2

ICE and OnScreen Takeoff, and Project Document Management (PDM) applications (outsourced

hosting) for the Estimating department.

• Directed upgrade projects for Oracle E-Business Suite and Markview 170 Imaging application.

• Deployed multi-point High Definition Video Conferencing across the Suffolk IP network for all

offices, to improve and facilitate communications as well as decrease travel costs.

• Coordinated the establishment of a new office in Falls Church, and the move to a new office building

in West Palm Beach, which included all IT-related equipment, VoIP equipment, and Video

Conferencing equipment. The moves were successfully completed on schedule and on budget.

February 2005 to October 2006

BUREAU VERITAS

CONSUMER PRODUCTS SERVICES DIVISION (CPSD), Taunton, MA

A leading quality assurance service provider to the consumer products and retail markets with expertise

in testing, consulting, training, inspection, auditing and social accountability. CPSD has over 60 offices

and laboratories in 40 countries with over 6,500 employees, delivering $302M in annual revenues. CPSD

also offers a global network of quality assurance services supported by 600 Bureau Veritas offices in 140

countries with a workforce of more than 20,000 employees and over $1.9B in revenues.

Vice President, IT Solutions

Reporting to the President, directed the development and implementation of business applications to

enhance competitive advantage by providing global integrated solutions to CPSD’s external and internal

Clients in Asia, the Americas and Europe. Formulated ideas for new functionality which was developed

and deployed to gain additional Clients and grow the business with existing Clients. Led an IT staff of

32, with two direct reports, to support the top 20 Clients and numerous other Clients worldwide, as well

as 6,500 employees, with an Operating Budget of $6.7M and Capital Budget of $5M.

• Restructured the IT organization to facilitate drastically improved performance on a world-wide basis.

• Developed IT Strategy which had to evolve to reflect the changing business environment,

requirements, and long-term objectives of major Clients. The strategy was developed to support the

business objectives, particularly the objective to grow the business to $400M by 2009.

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• Initiated process to evaluate and analyze various approaches for replacing non-scaleable legacy

systems with a highly integrated suite of applications versus a service oriented architecture using web

services. The strategy was designed to maximize the use of out-of-the-box applications.

• Developed short-term IT strategy to enhance existing systems which reduced the time to capture Test

data by 71%; increased volume of Test Reports processed per month by 54%; decreased monthly

Labor Costs by 9%; decreased monthly Overtime Hours by 44%; improved metric to meet Clients’

expectations for Test Report Turnaround Time from 80% to 96%; improved accuracy of Test Reports

from 85% to 99%; reduced time for Clients to Review Test Reports: Carter’s 60%; Dillard’s 30%;

Target 10%; Williams-Sonoma 70%.

• Influenced major Clients (Ann Taylor, Carter’s, Dillard's, Gymboree, Limited, Target and Williams-

Sonoma) to utilize enhanced IT solutions, providing average productivity gains of 300%.

• Retained largest Client, Target, by responding promptly and providing an IT solution to satisfy their

requirements, which improved data integrity and reduced time for Sample Receipt data entry by 83%.

• Secured a new contract with Home Depot by responding rapidly with IT solutions to satisfy their

stringent requirements.

• Directed the effort to streamline and automate the process at Dillard’s when the Vice President of

Operations discovered that his Production Director was being transferred and would not be replaced.

• Evaluated issues Carter’s Process Compliance Manager’s team would face with her maternity leave,

and provided EDI solution – three people entering data were reassigned to more productive tasks.

• Worked with the Director of Compliance at J.Jill to understand the time management problems he

was facing when his staff of three was eliminated - devised IT solution to solve workload problem.

• Strategized with Clients to discover and understand their needs and provide Business Intelligence

tools to mine their data in order to make strategic business decisions related to their QA programs.

• Managed IT department’s costs to be $1.3M (19%) below budget through negotiation of contracts and

pricing, and judicious resource management.

GETRONICS, Tewksbury, MA September 2004 to November 2004

Getronics, a Netherlands-based company, is one of the world's leading providers of vendor independent

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions and services, with approximately 22,000

employees in over 30 countries and ongoing revenues of US$3.2B.

Global Program Director (short-term engagement)

Directed a Global Remote Managed Services program to provide Network and Desktop Outsourcing

support services to external and internal Clients. This included achieving Information Technology

Infrastructure Library (ITIL) technical capability and process alignment, and deploying functionality for

Identity Management, Managed Services Portal, Reporting and Analytics, Password Management, and

Self-ticketing.

TATUM PARTNERS, Boston, MA March 2004 to September 2004

CIO Partner

Tatum Partners is a national professional services firm providing experienced CFOs and CIOs to

hundreds of emerging growth, middle-market and large multinational companies on a permanent, interim

or project basis. The firm’s unique service model permits a company to employ a partner in flexible, low-

risk engagement structures while allowing the employed partner to continue to benefit from Tatum’s

extensive intellectual capital.

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INTERTEK – ETL SEMKO, Boxborough, MA 1997 - 2003

A leading provider of product safety and performance testing, and certification services, with annual

revenues of $180M; in 41 locations with 1,800 employees.

Vice President & Chief Information Officer

Reporting to the CEO, provided leadership and strategic direction for ETL SEMKO’s global operations

(North America, Asia, and EMEA). Partnered with functional counterparts throughout the division to

ensure technology solutions were implemented to improve the customer experience and provide

management with the tools necessary to create and sustain competitive advantage. Implemented solutions

and improvement initiatives designed to stimulate growth, increase profitability, reduce costs, and

streamline processes to maximize efficiency and productivity. Led a 40 person IT department (5 direct

reports) to support 1,800 employees worldwide, with Operating budget of $6.8M and Capital budget of

$4.5M.

• Restructured the IT organization to eliminate regional conflicts and improve performance globally.

• Researched and deployed Oracle Applications; a highly integrated ERP system to improve

operational efficiency by 6%; eliminate redundancies, improve utilization from 65% to 73%, and

measure performance. Project turnaround time decreased from 20 days to 15 days.

• Chaired and directed a cross-department team to implement an optimization strategy for Oracle

Project Accounting; maximized the utilization of data and reports to effectively manage our business.

Backlog reports provided improved forecasting capability which was within 4% of actual revenue.

Cost budgeting provided the information to determine which service offerings to drop when

profitability was below a specific threshold. Compliance for Expense and Time entry into the system

improved from 46% to 98%.

• Outsourced the DBA function as well as the server hosting to Oracle. This service provided 24x7

Support and 99.5% system availability while reducing our annual costs by $280k, plus an additional

one-time savings of $500k.

• Renegotiated new pricing model with Oracle, to achieve $400k (one-time) savings on licenses,

$54k/year on Maintenance and Support, and $77k/year on Database Administration and Applications

Hosting.

• Implemented a Disaster Recovery plan.

• Managed the IT department’s costs to be $388k (10%) under budget through the negotiation of

contracts and pricing, and astute resource management.

• Implemented IT Policies & Procedures to introduce control and organization for managing data and

tracking of hardware and software assets.

• Influenced divisions to enroll in the same Microsoft Select Agreement, thereby generating additional

savings of 15% for those already enrolled in a different agreement, and 50% savings for those not

enrolled at all.

• Partnered with HP/Compaq to gain very favorable PC pricing which includes free extended three year

warranties and free next-day on-site service.

• Managed the Y2K Project to a successful conclusion, minimizing the costs.

Acted as global CIO for INTERTEK – LABTEST due to the requirement made by many of the large US

Clients such as BJ’s, Disney, Home Depot, JC Penney, Macy’s, Nike, Philip Morris, GAP and others,

who insisted on working with an IT Executive who was US-based.

• Worked with Clients’ senior management and IT teams to understand their goals, objectives and

requirements, and successfully implemented cost-effective solutions.

• Developed processes to reduce costs for both Clients and LABTEST.

• In order to satisfy Clients’ requirements, devised low-cost solutions to rapidly integrate LABTEST’s

systems with Clients’ systems to provide improved and more rapid service.

• Salvaged the Y2K Project and brought it to a timely and successful conclusion.

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THE PARSONS CORP. – PARSONS SERVICES COMPANY, Boston, MA 1989 - 1996

A leader in many diverse markets such as infrastructure, transportation, telecommunications, advanced

technologies, aviation, commercial, environmental, planning, industrial manufacturing and

pharmaceuticals. Annual Revenue of $1.3B; in 56 locations with 8,000 employees.

Director, Information Technology

Reporting to the Chief Information Officer, directed 60 IT personnel (4 direct reports) responsible for

Client Consulting, Information Engineering, Applications Development, CAD and Computer Technology

for the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Managed the development and maintenance of Business Systems,

Project Control Systems, Engineering and CAD Systems, LANs, WANs and communications. Controlled

Operating budget of $3M and Capital budget of $2M.

• Reorganized the IT team to function more cohesively and efficiently in preparation for the integration

of acquisitions and deployment of globally shared applications and systems.

• Maximized total enterprise profitability by standardizing business applications and processes across

business locations worldwide, eliminating the diverse array of hardware and software being utilized.

• Managed the planning and analysis phases for the development of a highly integrated and

standardized corporate Financial, Payroll and Human Resource System on an IBM AS/400.

• Devised a communications link between the Banyan network and the IBM AS/400, providing users

with easy access to both environments simultaneously, and saved approximately $350k.

• Managed the development of an Executive Information System (EIS). Bridged Banyan, Novell and

Windows NT networks to facilitate local and worldwide E-Mail communications and file transfers

utilizing Lotus cc:Mail. Customized a Lotus Notes database for the Business Development Group, to

facilitate a workgroup environment and increase efficiency by 200%.

• Designed and developed a fully automated computer system to collect billing information saving

approximately $150k per month in lost revenues and duplication of effort.

• Applied a CASE Methodology to produce a Manpower Forecasting System which minimized

fluctuations in manpower, reducing hiring and training costs by 16%.

1981 - 1989

STONE & WEBSTER ENGINEERING CORP., Boston, MA

Supervisor/Systems Analyst

SPARKS & ELLIS, Cape Town, South Africa

Computer Consultant

SIEMENS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC., Boca Raton, FL

Telecommunications Software Engineer

SOUTH AFRICAN NAVY, Cape Town, South Africa

Systems Engineer in Charge of Submarine Simulators

EDUCATION

MBA Boston University, Boston, MA (Graduated with Honors)

BSEE University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa (Full Engineering Scholarship)

REFERENCES

Available upon request. Executive Management technological resources. active practical approach, hire, manage, develop direct attain strategic goals. Ensure content security technology sustainability scalability, internal external customer support service. operate high level “roll up the sleeves” dig details. Establish drive technical vision, set clear, consistent strategy drive technological development. Lead manage build technology platform supports product offerings, speed, simplicity, stability, scalability; easily support merger acquisition events. Lead manage move legacy systems/platforms new solutions. consultative collaborative fashion department heads, marketing, production operations technical advisor improve efficiency effectiveness. Lead cross functional teams achieve corporate wide technology solutions. Conduct research case studies leading edge technologies determinations implementation.

Evaluate equipment, software processes continuously, recommend changes, business rationale associated risks, direct implementation execution new/upgraded systems well-defined plans including procedures, deadlines and accountability. Maintain security data proprietary provide complete backup system failure disaster. Ensure adequate information security disaster recovery policies, procedures, awareness plans adequately support business requirements. Ensure availability security platform allows daily business operate, allows proactive evolution platform meet ongoing needs. Create, maintain enforce written policies procedures computer operations maximum efficiency cost containment. Compile review records determine department productivity, quality of output cost of service. Develop methods continually improve results. Establish methods quantify customer satisfaction respect expectations, cost quality. Validate measurements frequently in-person your customers leadership. Manage external support. hosted supported externally, ensure partner base right, expectations clear jointly understood, performance is in line with expectations. good

steward resources ensures control departmental budgets. Prepare manage annual capital budget. Ensure adequate operational policies, procedures, audit trails exist comply regulatory audits. Ensure users/customers provided professional, courteous timely support, training service. Structure, lead, train, develop staff maximum effectiveness. Stay abreast trends regulations effectiveness compliance. Actively effectively communicate, inspire motivate. Think act strategically proactively. Strong interpersonal, writing presentation skills. software development methodologies life cycles. leading testing/QA activities. project management among diverse groups. industry best practices. leading web development infrastructure teams, IT support activities. migrating infrastructures remote hosted environments. design implementation management large small networks. telecommunication systems voice over IP. supporting remote work locations.

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