Customer Service Project Manager

Richard Brooks

** ********** ***** . **** *******, NY 11768

631-***-**** (home) . 631-***-**** (cell)

***********@*****.*** . http://www.linkedin.com/in/rabrooks

A senior information technology professional with hands-on experience

motivating staff, directing projects, building client relationships and

bridging gaps between business and technology functions. A persuasive

communicator who leverages a highly collaborative style to drive results

throughout the organization. Proven experience in structured analysis,

business design and project lifecycle. Solid interpersonal skills with the

ability to communicate effectively to both technical and business

personnel at every corporate level. Experience includes building and

managing systems to support B-to-B and B-to-C business models.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Project Development & Management . Strategic Planning . Change Management

Applications Development . Team Leadership . System Migration and

Integration

Client & Vendor Management . Capacity Planning . Business Needs Evaluation

Quality Assurance . System/Software Testing . Long & Short Term

IT/Operational Planning System Migration and Integration . Data Conversions

SELECTED ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Managed the consolidation of a number of systems and customer databases

which contained over 3 million customer accounts due to a merger of three

club business, resulting in a long term saving of approximately $20M

(through software and software retirement, resource reduction and location

consolidations).

Initiated, managed, and implemented a conversion to Service Oriented

Architecture (SOA) for a web re-platform project. This conversion project

enabled fulfillment systems to be easily integrated to all web

applications. Effort contributed to sales revenue increases.

Developed and managed project plan for the implementation of a decision-

support database, which enabled the company to customize its marketing

efforts to highly defined customer targets, increasing customer awareness

of product and satisfaction.

Managed all aspects of the creation of a DVD subscription type club,

including its web presence (yourmovies.com). This included technical

design, resource planning and allocation, project management and execution

and QA testing.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

DIRECT BRANDS, INC., Garden City, NY

Director - I.T. Projects, 2011 - 2012

Responsible for directing all aspects of the project management office for

Direct Brands, a $500 million direct-to-consumer books, movies and music

business.

Organized and led the development of the Project Management team consisting

of business analysis and project management functions. Developed a process

and methodology for managing the implementation of new business concepts.

Established and implemented a master planning process used by executive

management to identify and set priorities for the business. Coordinated

the monthly prioritization process with key business leads.

Oversee the management of all projects within the company by aligning

business and information technology resources to achieve corporate goals.

DIRECT BRANDS, INC., Garden City, NY

Director - Applications Development, 2005 - 2011

Successfully directed applications development activities for the core

fulfillment systems supporting both B-to-C and B-to-B processes.

Functional areas supported include customer service (200+ representatives

managing customer contact with 7.5 million active accounts), transaction

processing (data entry, scanning and payment processing systems handling

120,000 customer orders per day) and distribution.

Led a staff of 50+ professionals organized into four application teams

across four U.S. locations. Regular, independent staff surveys

consistently reflected a high degree of staff motivation, job satisfaction

and team spirit.

Responsible for developing and managing an annual budget of over $6 million

in staff salaries, consulting, hardware, software and T&E.

Managed the development and implementation of numerous service oriented

architecture applications J2EE, Websphere, Oracle, .NET and COBOL. These

systems were the first SOA compliant application for the company and

integrated with existing legacy applications, including mainframe

fulfillment (COBOL, DB2) and the online customer service system (VB.net).

Responsible for all aspects of the customer fulfillment system, including

maintenance, new development, production support and system upgrades.

Areas of the system include new member enrollment, order processing,

product returns, A/R, royalty, shipping and account maintenance.

Managed all aspects of an initiative to expand the available number of

product SKU's, from a limitation of 100K to 1 billion. Tasks included

technical design, staffing, project planning and management, coordination

and execution of data conversion and migration and post production support.

Managed relationships with many external staffing contractors, acquiring

consulting services on an 'as needed' basis, in tandem with appropriate

cost control.

Implemented an off-shore staffing solution, where recently reduced existing

staff levels were augmented with off shore staff, utilizing 'ramp up/down'

methodology, resulting in a potential savings of $350K/year.

BOOKSPAN, INC., Garden City, NY

Project Manager/Senior Developer - CRM Applications, 2000 - 2005

Responsible for supporting the development and maintenance of several

internal Oracle based CRM applications, with a user community of over 250

employees across multiple locations.

Created and executed several packages and stored procedures which converted

large amounts of data from an MS Access based marketing planning tool to

the legacy Oracle based tool. This conversion was part of a larger

enterprise wide conversion, after a corporate merger with a major

competitor.

Created and maintained over 50 custom Oracle Discoverer reports. Resolved

various user issues.

Developed and executed user training sessions for both the application as

well as the reporting tools.

Mentored several junior developers, focusing on both technical skill

development and business awareness.

DOUBLEDAY DIRECT, Garden City, NY

Senior Business Analyst, 1990 - 2000

Proactively communicate and collaborate with external and internal

customers to analyze information needs and functional requirements and

deliver the following artifacts as needed: (Functional requirements

(Business Requirements Document), Use Cases, GUI, Screen and Interface

designs).

Spearheaded a project to install new 100+ seat Telemarketing call centers

in 3 locations in the U.S., one location in Canada and one location in the

U.K.

Led a team which was responsible for the creation of the company's first

web presence in 1995. The company would go on to create of 40 eCommerce

sites.

Single-handedly developed the company's first Intranet site.

Responsibilities included design, creative, content and system

administration.

Recipient of the 1999 President's Award. This award is presented annually

to a select group of individuals who are deemed 'top performers' in the

company.

CHEMICAL BANK, New York, NY

Controller, 1988-1990

Responsible for managing the financial and accounting reporting

activities for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) department.

Communicate and work with business managers and staff to ensure accurate

and timely reporting of financial information.

Responsible for insuring that all cost activities are prepared, reported

and tracked accordingly

Prepare as well as provide directions in preparing audits, financial

statements and other fiscal reports

TECHNICAL

Service Oriented Architecture, Websphere/ATG based e-Commerce platform,

Java/J2EE, .Net, Oracle, COBOL, ERP, CRM, Data Mining Software, Oracle and

DB2 databases, Data Marts, Client server, AIX and Solaris based UNIX

servers, IBM Mainframe, Enterprise Service Bus utilizing IBM products,

Visio, MS Office Suite, MS Project, MS Visio, MQ series, CA-Clarity, TOAD,

PL/SQL Developer, QMF, SVN Subversion

EDUCATION

BBA, Business Administration, Dowling College, Oakdale, NY

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Agile and Waterfall Development Methodology

Learning Tree: SOA, Software Project Management, Oracle Development

Oracle University: PL/SQL Programming

Hofstra University UCE: Database Design, COBOL, C++, UNIX, .NET

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