Manager Management

Russ Cole

Email: *********@********.***

Address: *** ********* ****

City: Chapel Hill

State: NC

Zip: 27514

Country: USA

Phone: 919-***-****

Skill Level: Director

Salary Range: $125,000

Willing to Relocate

Primary Skills/Experience:

See Resume

Educational Background:

See Resume

Job History / Details:

430 Lakeshore Lane

Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Phone 919-***-**** *********@********.***

SUMMARY

Senior Information Technology executive with significant accomplishments in creating and motivating teams to achieve business results. Communication and customer management skills to identify/prioritize business opportunities and align with the most effective technology strategies. Strong organizational and planning skills that ensure successful delivery of projects, providing the appropriate balance between strategic and tactical goals. Excellent analytical skills to evaluate process and identify best practices. Managed large organizational units with operating budgets up to $8.5 million.

EXPERTISE

Development of High Performance Teams * Customer Management * Strategic Planning/Product Development * Project Office/Project Management * Software Development * Help Desk Management * Process Analysis * Vendor Management * RFP/Contract Negotiations * Change Management * Audit Compliance * Disaster Recovery Planning * Efficient hardware/software lifecycle management

EXPERIENCE

Investors Title Insurance Company, Chapel Hill, North Carolina - $100 million Insurance Underwriter

Vice President Information Systems (2004- 2012)

-Responsible for the total information technology investment: Software Development, Infrastructure/Network Support, Telephony, Help Desk, Operations, Security. Responsibilities include administration of up to 20 reports and a $2 million budget.

- Developed the Information Systems Strategic Plan aligning technology initiatives to business goals. Elements of this plan include development of the technology road map, moving software development into a web-centric . net services oriented environment, simplification of the technical infrastructure, re-positioning the Help Desk to a comprehensive customer support center, and implementation of a high performance employee development program.

- Managed the upgrade of PC and server hardware/software for over 350 users at 70 office locations.

- Replaced un-supported Clarus and proprietary legacy financial systems with industry standard Lawson systems with integration to remote retail production systems resulting in the elimination of manual processes and reduction of ten Finance positions.

- Developed web based electronic order submission system saving agency users 10 minutes per file processed.

- Implemented Project Prioritization, Project Management, Quality Assurance methodologies.

- Established Customer Care Committee, made up of Business System Owners, to establish required IS Service Level Agreements and provide ongoing review and feedback to improve IS effectiveness.

- Initiated a comprehensive review of all IS internal controls with the subsequent implementation of policies, procedures, and systems allowing for a successful Sarbanes Oxley audit.

- Developed and implemented Business Continuation Management and Disaster Recovery Procedures.

- Developed and implemented process to cost effectively manage long term technical upgrades and capital expenditures.

- Recommended and implemented a VMWare virtual machine consolidation strategy for all home office servers resulting in a 66% savings in server/deployment costs while improving deployment speed and disaster recovery capabilities.

-Recommended and implemented Open Source Software Strategy to reduce the total cost of software ownership.

GMAC Insurance, Winston-Salem, North Carolina - $1.3 billion Insurance Carrier, (1991-2003)

Director - Applications Development (1996 - 2003)

-Responsible for new software development supporting the Agency Marketing channel. IT customer executive to the Agency Marketing channel. Overall departmental administration for up to 45 reports with a $5 million budget.

- Increased sales and reduced cost $6 million per year by leading the development and deployment of an Internet based policy sales and customer servicing system used by GMACI Independent agents to quote, underwrite and bind policies. Also used by the insured customer to make payments, and inquire into policy data.

- Developed and implemented the executive committee directive to create a business project prioritization process to allocate IT resources to the highest priority corporate initiatives.

- Managed the Agency Marketing channel relationship and project portfolio to ensure customer satisfaction.

- Reduced cost by $10 million annually and improved service to the customer through self-service Interactive Voice Response applications.

- Implemented the use of structured development/testing methodologies, improving speed of delivery by 23%, implementation effectiveness and customer satisfaction.

- Significantly reduced on-going maintenance cost improved IT agility by consolidating redundant applications into common business components. - - Led the IT culture reinvention initiative resulting in improved departmental communication and employee performance management/development.

Assistant Vice President - Data Center Manager (1994 - 1996)

-Responsibilities expanded to oversee the EDP equipment acquisition department. 45 reports and $8.5 million budget.

- Worked with System Support to plan, negotiate and acquire data center hardware.

- Established and maintained 99.5% service level customer

agreements by directing on-going capacity planning and hardware acquisitions.

- Ensured the most timely cost effective hardware upgrades by monitoring and forecasting equipment usage trends. Ensured the best equipment acquisition price through competitive bids and negotiation tactics.

- Ensured the most cost effective equipment acquisition method (lease vs. purchase) through financial analysis.

Data Center Operations Manager (1991 - 1994)

- Responsible for the overall direction of the 24 hour/7 day data center operations, personal computer hardware/software support for the Winston-Salem main and Burlington branch offices and the internal centralized Help

Desk. Responsible for 43 reports with a $3 million budget.

- Successfully led the recuperation of a department in chaos to a high

performance team resulting in promotion to Assistant Vice President.

- Reduced annual hardware and personnel expense $1 million by consolidating the data center operations for an acquired company to the main office in Winston-Salem, while maintaining customer service level agreements.

- Defined and implemented service level agreements to meet customer needs for PC/Terminal and Telephone, problem resolution, installation and moves.

- Planned successfully implemented multiple hardware upgrades, i.e. CPUs, DASD, UPS etc.

- Defined and led the Board of Directors initiative to develop corporate disaster recovery contingency plans. This plan resulted in the ability to recover mainframe operations and critical business process within 48 hours of a disaster declaration.

- Increased the number of claims handled by a claims representative by 25% through work efficiencies created by the implementation of a claims imaging system.

- Reduced costs of printed reports $100,000 annually and improved service to the customer by implementation of on-line view, report distribution software.

Central Service Corporation, Greensboro, N. C. Financial Service Bureau (1982 - 1991)

Provides data processing services to over 70 financial institutions across North and South Carolina.

Assistant Vice President - Computer Operations, (1987 - 1991)

- Management responsibilities expanded to include Computer Operations and Data Communications for a total of 23 reports/5 direct reports. Computer Operations provided services 24 hours/7 days a week. Data Communications provided support for 3000 on-line devices at 420 remote locations.

- Improved data center services and customer relationships by leading the data center user priority committee.

- Led the federally mandated development and administration of the data center disaster recovery plan. This plan resulted in the ability to transfer the processing of 1.3 million accounts to an alternate facility within 48

hours of a disaster declaration.

- Provided disaster recovery training to on-line customers.

- Planned and coordinated 2 successful mainframe upgrades.

- Improved customer response time and system availability by leading the data communications network upgrade.

Quality Control Manager (1985 - 1987)

-Responsible for designing and implementing procedures to decrease the occurrence of errors and increase efficiency in Operations. Management responsibilities expanded to oversee the Quality Control and Distribution Departments for a total of 10 direct reports.

- Maintained 99.5% customer on-line availability by analyzing off-line batch processing cycle to increase efficiency and reduce overall processing time. -

- Significantly improved on-time delivery of customer data by restructuring

system-processing cycle to meet customer needs.

- Designed and implemented error reporting and balancing procedures to insure 100% success of electronic transmissions to and from the Federal Reserve Bank.

EDUCATION Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina

Bachelor of Science - Business Administration

Double Major: Finance and Marketing

OUTSIDE INTERESTS: USTA Tennis, Golf, Camping, Gardening, Snow Skiing, ASU Computer Science Advisory Board, The Chapel of the Cross Episcopal Church, NC Real Estate License, East High School Booster Club.

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