Les Connell

Professional Profile

Account Chief Architect

Americas Architecture Practice

Strengths

Technology Strategy

Application Architecture

Enterprise Architecture

Integration Architecture

Solution Architecture

Data Warehouse Design/Development

Technology Innovation

Skills

AWS and SAAS

CRM

Agile Methods (SCRUM)

Innovation Program

Technology Strategy and Roadmaps

Solution Architecture

Enterprise Architecture

Application Architecture

Information Management Architecture

ETL Architecture

Enterprise system design and analysis

ITIL

RDBMS

Decision support reporting

Healthcare (Pharma, Payer, Provider), Telco (landline), Energy, Transportation (Airline)

Spoken Languages

English (fluent)

Les joined HP in May 2006 as a modernization architect for the Application Modernization practice and later joined the Information Management and Analytics practice specializing in leading architecture, design and deployment of business intelligence solutions using a variety of technologies across several industries. Les also served as the CTO for both the modernization and the Data Management practices. Les later joined the Architecture Practice for the Americas and served as the Account Chief Architect for four accounts while at HP.

Before joining HP Les was the Director of Applications, Integration and BI at Fossil, Inc. in Richardson Texas where he lead the SAP Applications and Data Warehouse implementation in the US, Canada, France, Germany and Hong Kong. Les’ team rolled out a worldwide reporting structure developing large scale data warehouse solutions and data reporting facilities for common financials and country specific needs.

Les also lead the innovative early Amazon Web Services initiative to integrate Fossil’s e-commerce systems to extend to the Amazon.com web site. AWS was used to establish multiple store fronts at Amazon.com in a software as a service mode.

Les was also the chief technologist for the Fossil, ecommerce sties, both B2B and B2C

Prior to Fossil, Les was a Director of Architecture for Sapient’s Energy and Communications practices.

Education:

BBA with focus on Information Systems, University of Houston at Clear Lake

Organization: HP Architecture Practice

Role: Account Chief Technologist

Activities:

NASCO:

Lead on-going innovation initiatives including Big Data, Mobile, Security, Cloud and Modernization

Lead a Healthcare Systems Correspondence opportunity utilizing HP ExStream for both Claims and Membership.

Developed and lead a technical quality assurance program.

Work closely with the NASCO CTO to bring the greater HP to NASCO for competitive advantage.

Technologies:

DB2, DB2 CDC, Claims, Membership, SOA Integration, ETL Architecture

Last Work Experience:

Oct 2013 – March 2014

Organization: Americas Architecture Practice

Role: Enterprise Architect

Activities:

Aramark Uniform Services

Lead an engagement to perform a Health Check on Aramark’s E-commerce system to determine if the system could survive the upcoming black Friday demand. The engagement included multiple load testing / analysis cycles and culminated with tactical recommendations to get them through Black Friday, but strategic recommendations to re-architect the system.

Lead a follow up engagement to determine Aramark’s requirements and needs and recommend an e-commerce platform to build the new strategic B2B and B2C system. This Engagement included interviewing key business and IT stakeholders to determine the system that would best meet their strategic needs.

Les Connell

Work Experience

May 2006 – Sept 2016

Organization: HP Architecture Practice

Role: Account Chief Architect

Activities:

BCBS Arizona:

Technology leader for a team of 100 consultants

Worked with Microsoft Dynamics CRM social media extensions

Consulted on Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation

Partner with customer to deliver Population Health Analytics

Solution Architecture

Lead on-going innovation initiatives including Big Data and Modernization, SAAS and Cloud architectures

Developed a technology innovation program that was a coordinated program between HP and BCBS Arizona that lead to several technology and social innovation programs.

Introduced AWS cloud architecture as innovative solution

Developed and lead a technical quality assurance program.

Delivered a technology futures presentation at the BCBS Associations annual conference.

Evaluated applications for SAAS opportunities

Technologies:

DB2, DB2-CDC, SQL Server, Business Objects.

Wellmark (BCBS Iowa, BCBS South Dakota)

Technology leaders for a team of 150 consultants

Lead the architecture and implementation of a modernized Membership system using SCRUM. The solution reached across HP DB2 and IMS hosted systems using CDC and DataStage ETL into to the customer midrange Data Warehouse.

Implemented the modernizing of Wellmark’s membership application transforming it from PACbase and IMS to Websphere Java and DB2.

Designed a future state enterprise architecture roadmap including an SOA, ESB and J2EE solution from their mainframe COBOL/Assembly language application for claims and membership.

Integration and leadership of account and customer governance processes

Created a blueprint for transformations of large systems

Mentoring and career advising for both HP and customer staff

Technologies:

DB2, IMS, CDC DataStage ETL, Business Objects, Websphere JEE

Selected Projects at HP

American Airlines:

Lead technologist in a project to evaluate the systems of Americans 3 regional carriers and make recommendations for remediation including moving to a SAAS model

Architected an Cloud recommendation

Lead a team to interview critical airline employees and IT staff in the evaluation of the systems

Architected an AWS recommendation

Used modernization techniques and methodologies to evaluate rate and rank the critical airline systems.

Presented findings and recommendations to the 3 regional presidents of the airlines including the appropriate operating model for each class of application (SAAS or Inhouse)

Aramark Uniform:

Lead a team to stabilize/ Aramarks B2B and B2C ecommerce platforms to withstand the black Friday and seasonal demands

Remediated issues found and load tested until complete.

Presented findings and recommendations to the CIO and direct reports

Improved the ecommerce throughput over 100% in a successful remediation and had an excellent black Friday

Covance:

Lead a team to stabilize/modernize a worldwide drug trial system that would allow the customer to double and triple the drug trial volume and provide an expanded reporting facility to accommodate the new business. The project included a current state, future state and gap analysis as well as a roadmap for implementing the new architecture that included both infrastructure (storage and server) and application modernization.

Developed a testing strategy for both functional and performance testing

Organization: Americas Architecture Practice

Role: Principal Solution Architect

American Airlines:

Architected a solution to modernize a mainframe reporting solution to an Oracle data warehouse solution using Informatica and Oracle data warehouse technologies. The solution involved moving a legacy reporting system to a more sophisticated multi-dimensional analysis capability to give the marketing department a competitive advantage with existing data.

Architected a solution to take the Cognos reports in the marketing datamart to a mobile solution using smart phones and implementing the Cognos mobile solution.

Facilitated a disaster recovery review for key applications

Wrote a whitepaper on capacity planning for AA Architects

Created a modernization strategy and proposal for a Customer Loyalty for several mainframe applications to be re-architected to lower cost state-of-the-art systems.

Technologies:

Oracle, Cognos, Informatica. Oracle

2001 – 2006

Organization: Fossil, Inc.

Role: Director of Applications, BI and Integration

Activities:

Senior IT management position responsible for enterprise application development and application integration, including enterprise business intelligence and data warehousing.

Responsible for 4 e-commerce websites including Fossil.com, Fossil’s B2B site and Amazon.com web services SAAS model.

Responsible for Fossil’s worldwide Business Intelligence strategy and

Implementation using SAP BW and Cognos ETL and BI toolsets.

Implemented BI solutions in the Americas, Germany, France and Hong Kong.

Implemented CRM call center application

Lead integration team for 19 interfaces with Webmethods/Business Connector for the initial SAP implementation.

Architected Fossil’s integration of SAP Retail to SAP wholesale using SAP XI and IBM WBI.

Responsible for enterprise architecture and integration.

Responsible for project and application architecture for migrating Fossil.com to Websphere Commerce.

Developed and implemented an architectural design methodology for making architectural decisions.

Migrated Fossil’s technical staff from an RPG AS400 environment to SAP/Unix/DB2

Created a three year architecture roadmap for moving Fossil to J2EE via SAP Netweaver and Websphere including a SOA architectural design.

Designed and began phase 1 implementation of an enterprise architecture using SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) per the roadmap.

Aug 1999 – Jan 2001

Organization: Sapient

Role: Director of Technology for Energy Communications practices

Activities:

Technology director in two different practices responsible for the career development of the 80 technical resources in the Texas region.

Developed a startup e-commerce site as a spin-off company for a Fortune 500 energy enterprise.

Delivered a multi-channel call center self service employee benefit application for a major airline.

Developed an application and integration architecture for a major energy company to connect a J2EE customer self-service application to a CICS CIS application.

Developed and proposed a technical architecture to support a petroleum pipeline tracking application for a Fortune 500 energy company.

Nov 1992 – Jul 1999

Organization: BSG Consulting

Role: Technical Director

Activities:

Advanced from consultant to senior consultant, technical manager and technical director while at BSG.

E-commerce and integration practice lead for the southwest region

Responsible for e-commerce and CRM projects technical architecture development and implementation, including software development, middleware/interfaces and database systems.

Led a large process and technology re-engineering effort at a major computer retailer. The project included the re-engineering of business systems division of the company and included the package selection of both sales force automation and B2B e-commerce systems.

Conducted a project assessment of both application and architecture for a large construction company. The assignment included the state of the project and its possibility of success. The assessment looked at the team, technology and architecture of the system.

Lead designer of a telecom billing system for a major wireless company using Forte, a distributed object development tool.

1989 – 1992

Organization: University of Texas Health Science Center Houston

Role: Developer IV Supervisor

Activities:

Department level supervisor responsible for all areas of technology for the Pathology department of the UT Medical School.

Supported the computer needs of 133 employees including help desk, phone systems, desktops, servers, applications infrastructure.

Developed an anatomical pathology application updating medical records with test results.

Developed a clinical pathology application for storing the results and charging patients for clinical tests.

Integrated department applications to the Heath Center’s mainframe billing system.

Provided pre-browser Internet connectivity for the research scientist using ftp, Archie, and WAIS in 1989.

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