Senior IT Professional

Performance-focused leader credited with deriving solutions that drive out cost and provides quality improvement. Proven resource that can provide big-picture and functional-level solutions through outstanding technical leadership, business acumen, and vendor management.

Notable Achievements

Increased IT Effectiveness – Increased IT effectiveness for a client by developing a remote development center to increase IT velocity, and decrease costs. The team effectively provided both, and continues to support key client initiatives. Cost re-engineered an IT organization through cost reductions of non-core competency functions, and re-aligning those savings to more strategic IT initiatives.

Increased Quality and Performance – Improved software development quality for a client as shown by the dramatic reduction of problem tickets and production code stability. Improvements realized through the creation of a separate production support team, as well as the implementation of best practice processes, increased testing capabilities, and organization re-alignment.

Increased Cost Savings – Reduced IT costs for a client through the implementation of a creative team build out and development program that has reduced overall resource costs over $1M annually.

Thought Leadership – Recognized as a leader regarding emerging technologies and how to better align IT services to create more business value. Lead engagements that assessed overall IT effectiveness for numerous clients. Also performed as lead assessor for a number of clients regarding the recommendation of technical and non-technical solutions including Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence, Testing Automation, and Financial Transaction Processing.

IT Governance – Provide thought leadership regarding IT Governance issues such as Enterprise Architectures, Processes and Security. Lead engagements ranging from Project Management Office (PMO) implementations, to engagements surrounding security assessments and remediation initiatives.

Partner and Vendor Management – Built relationships with vendors and other companies that help deliver or extend delivery capabilities. Developed and managed vendor relationships that reduce costs and improve service surrounding the support of non-core competency IT functions.

Career Progression & Detailed Experience

Progressive Retail Management Feb 2016 – May 2017

Progressive Retail Management is a national retailer offering clothing, accessories, and personal care products for men and women. PRM, and our associated brands, reaches out to over 14 major markets throughout the US. PRM currently operates 56 brick and mortar stores, as well as several e-commerce platforms, that support our multiple brands.

Director of IT

Responsible for every aspect of IT including all hardware and software strategy, portfolio management, planning, delivery, and support across the company including corporate and retail store resources

Brought in to mature the IT organization to become more efficient and effective

Managed and mentored all IT personnel

Re-built relationships across organizations, starting at the C-level down, in efforts to provide a stronger IT voice, as well as work with the business units to better understand needs and improve IT focus

Executed a cost re-engineering initiative that reduced costs from non-core competency areas and realigned those savings to more strategic, IT core competency areas

Built and managed vendor relationships to improve and upgrade serve with reduced costs in a number of areas including corporate and retail store communications, printing and copier services. Realizing over a 40% reduction in costs

Defined, and drove the processes required to get the organization PCI certified including physical, network, and software security improvements and upgrades

Implemented a company-wide mobile tablet program for use by corporate and store personnel in efforts to improve communication, and reduce training and travel costs

Implemented an Agile software development approach, utilizing the JIRA tool suite, to better support software and Network admin projects and support.

Turned around a very troubled development project implementing a new, custom developed, Point of Sale application utilizing the .NET tech stack.

Implemented a wireless backup solution to support 99% uptime at the retail stores

Implemented smaller projects that successfully improved business and warehouse operations

Fetter Logic / Fidelity Investments Sep 2014 – Feb 2016

Fetter Logic was a financial services company, based in Denver, that provided solutions for independent, bank, and insurance company affiliated broker-dealers supporting the front, middle and back office. In October of 2015, Fetter Logic was acquired by Fidelity Investments. After assisting with the acquisition and resulting transition, although I maintained the role and responsibilities of Vice President of IT at Fidelity, I felt my skills and experience were better suited elsewhere.

Vice President – Delivery

Responsible for adding structure and procedures to the Development and Project Management teams to improve the delivery process supporting a heavy development schedule for new products and revenue

Responsible in keeping the development team and project management teams engaged, on track, and effective

Provided depth to the departments and assist in team planning and foster growth. Encourage department communication and responsibilities as well as collaboration with other departments and clients

Implemented best practices within the PMO from idea to deployment

Implemented an agile development management approach

Executed processes with internal and external stakeholders to determine priorities by balancing revenue needs and planned growth

Executed projected and actual cost analysis of projects

Created a level of predictability in workload, staffing, and project scheduling

Mentored resources and pushed cross-training efforts to develop department managerial skills and nuild depth to individual departments

Increased and enforced standardization in project documentation.

Staff planning, budgeting & development

Work with upper level management to discover creative solutions to timeline and resource issues

Owned the architectural road map for the company’s product offerings

Western Union Dec 2013 – Sept 2014

Western Union is a financial services and communications company, serving over 70 million customers in 200 countries. Based in Englewood, CO.

Solution Delivery Manager – Big Data & Analytics

Responsible for the Delivery of Western Union’s Corporate Data Warehouse supporting all of WU’s non-digital financial processing products, considered to have one of the world’s largest data sets.

Lead a team of 30+ local, remote, and offshore resources regarding the 24x7 support of, and enhancements to, the Data Warehouse.

Lead the identification and implementation of short and long term strategies to improve customer experience, increase efficiencies, and improve the overall operating environment. Actively seek ways to apply appropriate technical solutions to business problems and ensure they are aligned with business and IT goals and objectives.

Provide direction in relationships, influence business sponsors and other key stakeholders to set up projects up for success and work collaboratively to build winning teams

Provide vendor management, including SLAs and resource management, in a highly outsourced, shared services delivery approach.

Process owner for internal DW initiatives including project initiation through implementation. Define project roadmaps and ensure that all projects meet identified schedules, deliverables, are within budget, and are implemented following the appropriate change processes.

Provide a focal point for the business, and provide a customer-focused approach when engaging business and other stakeholders.

Define and ensure adherence to processes defining workflows, activities, and deliverables.

Ensure compliance with policies, standards, and controls to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Western Unions assets and business knowledge.

Systems Engineering Services April 2004 – Dec 2013

Privately held professional IT consulting firm that provides strategic and tactical services to fortune 500/1000 companies. SESC has offices in Denver CO., Washington D.C., and Atlanta GA. SES focuses on the financial processing, healthcare, and telecommunications industries.

Sr. Director / Project Manager

Developed and managed a software development organization consisting of 80+ resources covering the complete software development lifecycle, from program and project definition through production support.

Provided expertise in the financial / credit card processing industry. Extensive experience in both issuing banks and merchant acquiring environments.

Provided direction and assign priorities where necessary to ensure project success and resource utilization.

Hands on project management and leadership supporting the follow through of the processes and methodologies to properly address and track issues, risks, and report on projects within the organization, supporting both Waterfall and Agile methodologies.

Responsible for the overall success and quality of the respective programs and projects.

Technical skill sets include, but is not limited to the J2EE tech stack, the .NET tech stack, the Oracle tech stack (DB, OBIEE, ADF, SOA, IAM, etc.), Javascript, AJAX,JSON, and other front end web development technologies, the LAMP stack and other open source technologies, Quality Center/QTP, and Selenium

Provide C-level consultation to clients including fortune 500/1000 companies including Home Depot, WorldPay, Barclay, McKesson, Gambro, Level 3, and Qwest.

Provided IT consultation and thought leadership including, but not limited to: credit card / financial processing, mobile solutions, software development practices, data warehousing, enterprise architecture, and test automation

Provided organizational consultation services including, but not limited to, overall IT organization strategies and methodologies, project management, development management, testing management, and production support management.

Provided consultation services regarding the IT support of regulations and standards such as PCI DSS.

Developed and implemented Information Security Standards and Policies to support required standards, regulations, and best practices.

Responsible for managing P/L for the respective client relationships, programs, and projects. Develop business cases and plans where necessary.

Some detailed examples are as follows:

Example 1

Developed and managed a remote development center comprising of over 80 resources, including, but not limited to PMs, architects, BAs, developers, testers, and infrastructure specialists.

Team focused on using both the J2EE and .NET tech stacks for web based applications.

Lead engagement planning, budgeting, and staffing

Responsible for the overall P/L for the center.

Worked with US and UK executive (C-level) and non-executive stakeholders by providing thought leadership and developed solutions regarding a number of client strategic initiatives.

Implemented a Project Management Office (PMO) to support the project pipeline that funnel through the development center.

Implemented standards and processes, both Waterfall and Agile, to support our client’s national and International needs, including activity and deliverable types.

Provide vision and direction regarding technical architectures, options, and recommendations.

Example 2

Provided consultation regarding the need to increase development quality, increase overall IT maturity, and increase overall IT throughput.

Developed a remote production support group. This group helped to not only increase software development and lowered incremental cost of growth, but it also helped to provide a mechanism that increased the quality of software development and overall IT maturity.

Developed and managed a remote development center comprising of over 50 resources. This center reduced the client’s cost of growth, a well as provided processes, communication structures, and overall best practices to help increase overall IT maturity within an agile environment. In addition to cost savings, the intent is also to develop processes and structures that can be successful with numerous remote centers, including offshore. The teams focused mostly on implementing application utilizing the J2EE tech stack

Provided C-Level consultation regarding software development best practices and solution oriented thought leadership.

Example 3

Development of testing automation capabilities for the organization, as well as assisting in the definition of an overall testing strategy that included the use of automation.

The successfully implementation allowed for an increase in testing capabilities, decreased test cycle time, and helped to reduce overall software project costs.

First Horizon Merchant Services July 2002 – April 2004

FHMS (now Elavon) provides end-to-end payment processing services to merchants and financial institutions in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Europe.

Information Systems Manager

Responsible for managing the Requirements Analyst Group, ensuring processes and procedures are followed in order to support timely delivery of a quality product to our development group, testing group, and customers. Additionally responsible for overall team structure, resource management and forecasting support for all projects, reporting to executive and other management areas, and training and mentoring of staff.

The group performed Business Analysis activities, becoming the point of contact between the business and the development community. Responsibilities also include process definition and improvement.

Improved requirement quality. Instituted Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System (DOORS) for requirements management thereby formalizing a manual process to include baseline, traceabilty, and change control functionality.

Knowledgeable of all functions and processes that reside within the business organization including customer service, fraud & risk, accounting & financial analysis, IT support, and sales.

Participating member of the Information Systems management group. Managed activities regarding the definition of strategic and tactical activities, as well as the definition of processes within a rapid application software development environment.

Participated in vendor product demo regarding portal, application server, and OLAP applications.

Utilized UML to communicate system functionality and business process with the user community, functional and executive management, and Information Systems and Information Technology development staff.

Idea Integration October 2000 – September 2001

Idea Integration provides professional consulting services throughout the United States. Idea Integration is a subsidiary of the MPS Group.

Telecommunication Global Manager

Consulted with leading telecommunication companies, including AT&T Broadband, WildBlue Communications, and Qwest.

Lead and participated in product demos and customer presentations, built customer relationships, defined specific sales strategies, and was involved in other pre-sales activities.

Created and managed the creation of detailed response documents including statements of work and project plans to various clients Request For Proposals (RFPs), Request for Information (RFI) and Request for Quotes (RFQs).

Provided subject matter expertise and thought leadership in the telecommunication industry and expertise and best practices in Next Generation Operational Support Systems (NGOSS) solutions for Idea Integration’s Denver office.

Conducted extensive vendor evaluations of leading EAI middleware, OSS Billing, Provisioning, Service Management, Network Management, and Front End vendor applications.

Performed the role of solution architect at Qwest Communications regarding the development of a SS7 network planning application.

Qwest Communications International October 1999 – October 2000

Qwest is a leading provider of voice, video, and data internationally.

IT Manager

Managed and mentored a group consisting of 20+ software developers, DBAs, system engineers, and software testers regarding the requirements analysis, development, testing and production support of an IP Resource Management system (J2EE based) as well as production support and enhancements of Vitria, an off-the-shelf EAI solution (also java based).

Responsible for development and production support a billing correlation system used within the IP and Hosting billing streams (Perl based).

Managed all activities in the group including costs and deliverables with an annual budget approximately $3.5M.

Involved heavily with the strategic and architectural positioning of all three applications within the IT organization.

Involved with providing vendor analysis of off-the-shelf software development tools including the BEA, Caliber, and Rational product suites.

Developed, implemented and managed an internal software development process to support quality and timely deliverables.

Managed vendors concerning outsource development resources, as well as third party applications.

American Management Systems May 1996 – October 1999

AMS is a technology and management consulting firm.

Project Manager – U S WEST DSL Fault Management

Functional Manager – U S WEST Wireless Customer Care/Ordering/Billing Systems

Programmer Analyst – U S WEST Customer Care/Ordering/Billing Systems

MCI Communications

MCI (Verizon) provides business and residential voice, video, and data services internationally.

Systems Analyst / Production Support Analyst June 1994 – May 1996

Production Support Analyst

Education

Colorado State University June 1994

BS/BA with a concentration in Computer Information Systems. Minor in Economics

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