Senior Solution Manager/Technical Support Manager

Syed Ahmed

Cary, North Carolina

919-***-**** *******@*****.***

https://www.linkedin.com/in/syedahmed3/

QUALIFICATIONS PROFILE

Highly effective Senior Technology professional with extensive management experience specializing in strategic business leadership, technology expertise and generating revenue growth. A technical leader, recognized for strategic and proactive management approach with a performance-driven mindset, and an entrepreneurial spirit. Expert at overseeing strategic planning, product roadmap development, lifecycle management, market analysis, business case development, market requirements definition, competitive product positioning, and go-to-market strategies. Strong combination of business acumen, technical expertise, customer focus, complex project management, and cross functional team collaboration.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Business Leadership ~ IT Management ~ Strategic Planning and Implementation ~ Quality Assessment ~ Escalation Management ~ Vendor Management ~ Customer Oriented ~ Project Management ~ Technical Support ~ Networking ~ Cisco Technologies ~ IP Telephony ~ Unified Communications Manager (BE6K & Spark) ~ Data Center ~ IaaS/PaaS/SaaS Cloud Services ~ Agile/Scrum ~ DevOps/CICD

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Cisco Systems, RTP, NC

Senior Manager, Solution Engineering/Customer Advocacy 2004–2017

Managed end-to-end solution level validation of $4B collaboration solution portfolio of Cisco Unified Communications System including IP Telephony, Contact / Call Center, Hosted Communications Systems (HCS), Hosted Contact Center (HCC), Telepresence, WebEx, Data Center and Managed Services.

Researched, designed and implemented long-term strategic plans for IP Telephony deployment models and architecture for small to medium size customers. Presented proposals to upper management and served as the primary point of solution contact from project/program inception to first customer shipment.

Supervised the development, test, deployment and support of software releases; collaborated across partner organizations and reduced cost of over $250k implementing the Software. Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model from Waterfall to Agile/Scrum methodologies, which improved Release Cycle timeline from 12 to 5 months.

Developed strategy and presented technical whiteboard demonstrations of Cisco networking, architecture, hardware/software design, automation and performance results to clients, upper management and customer base.

Led cross-functional engineering teams in solution design, architecting, deployment, and end-to-end solution level test validation of Voice network / application products (Voice, Video, Email, Chat, WebEx, Telepresence, Contact / Call Center software, BE6k, SPARK Managed Collaboration) and vendor products as integrated systems. Partnered with the WebEx team to deliver Cloud and Hybrid based Audio/Video Meeting Rooms.

Led cross-functional teams in developing and testing of software/hardware products from various business units for On-Prem, Spark Cloud and Hybrid Unified Collaboration Solutions in alignment with continuous integration and continuous delivery method using Jenkin’s CICD tool.

Managed multiple groups of engineers to design, develop, test Cisco products and collaborate with external vendors including Red Hat, NetApp, Microsoft, EMC, and Nimble in delivering innovative, on-time, world-class Cisco Communications products to the market.

Worked with architects, technical marketing engineers (TME) and vendors towards development and execution of solution level test plan and generated Cisco Validated Design (CVD) and Solution Reference Network Design (SRND) documents of Cisco Collaboration and infrastructure solutions in Data Center products.

Developed pre-sales content (presentations, demo scripts, demos, videos, webinars) on Cisco Unified Collaboration and Data Center solutions for customers and partners. Collaborated with company proposals team as product experts to help create RFP and RFI responses. Customers include Facebook, Wells Fargo, Walmart, Verizon.

Performed as a technical point of contact for the account managers; provided guidance and training on Cisco products and solutions. Ownership of adherence to project plans, progress reporting to senior management, and presenting solutions and strategies to ensure momentum.

Increased feature velocity by implementing improved agile practices. Oversaw efforts in gathering requirements, implementing processes, defining strategy, go-to-market planning and initiatives towards software development and solution testing for 50+ software products and 2 Collaboration Systems Releases annually.

Conducted 50+ EBC Customer Briefings on Cisco Unified Collaboration vision & strategy. The Executive Briefing Center makes each customer visit meaningful because it is specifically designed to foster creativity, collaboration and technological advancement.

Supervised cross-functional global teams with members located across India, Singapore, United Kingdom, and United States. Worked in varying shifts and provided after hours support while on-call. Responsible for providing day to day technical management and process guidance on development activities.

Provided leadership to motivate and build teams that included hiring, coaching, mentoring, task management, meeting deadlines, creating work-plans, and managed performance of technical team members. Received Pulse Survey Best Manager Award.

Cisco Systems, RTP, NC

Technical Leader/Manager, Customer Advocacy 1995-2003

Outstanding record of accomplishment for providing Cisco Technology solutions support to Service Provider and Enterprise customers that met demanding time restraints and exceeded expectations.

Effectively researched, analyzed and provided ongoing design and development support of Data Center solutions architecture/deployments to Customer and Sales teams resulting in wins over competitors and generating $MM in revenue.

Worked with sales and customers to develop enterprise solutions and provided supporting documentation to enterprise customers.

Designed, developed and implemented several tools and processes to enhance the customer support delivery model; Used configuration tools to provide accurate bill of materials.

Guided Global Technical Support teams in resolving critical issues using all elements of technical support including workflow and escalation management.

Provided escalated case assistance/resolution to global TAC TRTs, CAPs, NSA, Sales Team, and Consultants as a Lead Escalation Engineer and maintained a high level of customer satisfaction. Received best Customer Support Award for Service Excellence.

Generated technical tips, frequently asked questions and case studies for Enterprise and Service Provider customers; actively participated in open forums on customer problems and solutions.

Focused on technical support engineers’ development, training, coaching and evaluation resulted in achieving customer satisfaction ratings well over 90% each year in Customer Advocacy BU.

Authored lab testing, curricula, and questionnaires for the Cisco Certified Internet Expert (CCIE) certification examination for Cisco Networking features.

Notable Accomplishments:

Contributed to the expansion of the Cisco IP Communications and Collaboration Technology business from startup to more than $4B in revenue.

Developed and managed a budget of $25M for Customer Service BU to deliver world class technical support to Cisco clients.

Delivered key features allowing Cisco to create a cloud based (Hosted) Unified Communications platform for the Federal Government; allowing for the potential of hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue during the next 5-8 years

Improved CUCM and Collaboration Management software quality (field level quality) by 50%+ through implementation of improved AGILE/SCRUM development practices with latest software releases. CUCM was ranked one of the top products by Cisco Partners.

Conceptualized, researched, analyzed, built and managed the virtualized Data Center that offered IaaS and PaaS environment to 20+ upstream product teams for production load, and trials for enterprise customers.

Orchestrated data center moves and installation in multiple locations at Singapore and India reducing significant operation budget (OPEX) cost.

Researched and introduced global standardization of ITIL processes across all primary Data Centers yielding a 32% improvement in system uptime performance.

Single handedly developed and delivered Cisco product training and presentation to worldwide Technical Assistance Centers, System Engineers, Consultants, and Customers. Received best Training and Technical Delivery Award.

Improved customer technical support efficiency 20% by streamlining team support activities, process improvement and standardizing responses to common questions and problems.

IBM Corporation, RTP, NC

System Engineer/ Software Developer 1989-1994

Lead architect for developing strategies, objectives and design of Serial Optical Channel connection from IBM 3747/3746 to Host Mainframes. Responsibilities include project management, research and analysis for system test design, system test case generation, and timely execution of test cases.

Researched, designed and implemented Regression Test Network to maximize regression of Advanced peer-to-peer Networking (APPN) and VTAM/NCP network node and provided networking solutions to customers in a compact package.

Led teams for research and analyzing recurring problematic situations, defects, productivity impacts. Successfully implemented defect prevention process from causal analysis, market driven quality assessments, ISO 9000 audits, process reviews and analysis of error prone areas.

EDUCATION

Master of Science in Computer Engineering GPA: 3.5

North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering GPA: 3.5

Northeastern University Boston, MA

CERTIFICATIONS

Cisco Certified Internet Expert (CCIE) – Routing and Switching

Cisco Security Ninja Green Belt – Cloud Security

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