ZAKI AHMED
Contact Infol: *********@*****.***
Data enthusiast with 8 years of experience working with reporting technologies and source data systems. Experienced in various BI applications such as:
DATA COOKBOOK
INFORMATICA, SSIS
OLAP CUBES
IBM COGNOS REPORTING SUITE
COGNOS TM1 – PLANNING ANALYTICS
TABLEAU
MICROSOFT EXCEL
SPREADSHEET SERVER
SQL SERVER, ORACLE, AS400
Experienced in Financial, Pharmaceutical, Higher Ed, Government and Health care Domains
Team player with good interpersonal and communication skills
Successfully managed data analytics projects from initiation to delivery
Experienced in leading highly active and dynamic Reporting environment
Appointed by Executive VP of Touro College to serve on the operating committee as Touro’s Enterprise Reporting Lead
Expertise working with business users and understanding their Analytical needs
Designed Reports with dynamic functionality to work for High level Management down to Project Associates with integrated security
Expertise translating business requirements into technical specifications
Experience working with Senior management in designing high level Reports/Dashboards
Experience worked with business owners in standardizing business process for better data consistency for Reporting
Trained Business users on Ad-Hoc reporting tools like Cognos Query Studio
Good understanding of business process especially in the Financial, Higher Ed and Insurance areas
Extensively worked on Banner/ODS solution for Higher Education by Ellucian
Developed interim Reporting solutions using Custom built databases and ETL system as needed
Managed gathering of business requirements documented them technically with all phases of SDLC life cycle
Experience in IBM Cognos administration, Metadata Modeling, Multidimensional modeling, Report Development
Experienced using Framework Manager, Transformer, Reporting, Versioning tools in Windows environment.
Extensive expertise in Cognos BI Reporting Suite and Tableau (learning), recently implemented at Touro
RLJ Lodging Trust Bethesda, MD 11/2017– present
Business Intelligence Specialist
RLJ Lodging Trust is a hotel investment company focused on acquiring premium-branded, focused service and compact full-service hotels. RLJ Lodging Trust has a portfolio that consists of 155 properties with approximately 30,200 rooms located in 26 states and the District of Columbia and an ownership interest in one unconsolidated property with 171 rooms.
Source and transform data from internal and external data sources through tools and programming methods.
Used ETL (SSIS) to develop jobs for extracting, cleaning, transforming and loading data into data warehouse.
Troubleshoot and resolve data quality issues and maintain high level of data accuracy in the data being reported.
Use data to tell a story that is useful to support operational and financial departments.
Identify actionable insights, suggest recommendations by effectively communicating findings to cross functional groups
Design, develop, and deploy reports using Cognos
Create and publish Cognos Framework Manager Models to meet business requirements and preparation of business view.
Create advance reports using COGNOS Query Studio and Report studio,
Manage security of reports and models based on role
Design, develop and deploy prompted reports and dashboards in a Cognos and environment
Implement error handling, auditing and reconciliation and balancing mechanisms in ETL processes
Assist in the data and analytics strategy for the company and work with the senior management team to set the strategic objectives for the company and measurement through KPIs
Distill information in an easy to present and digestible manner to non-technical personnel
Scheduled monthly/weekly/daily reports to run automatically onto the Dashboar
Touro College and University Systems New York, NY 2/2012-2/2013 & 11/14 – 11-2017
BI Reporting Team Lead
Touro is a sponsored independent institution of higher and professional education. Recently acquiring New York Medical College in New York, Touro now serves a widely diverse population of over 18,000 students across 30 schools in 4 countries and offers a range of graduate programs, including Education, Law, MBA, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work, Technology, and other degree programs that prepare graduates for professional careers.
Responsibilities:
Manage Touro’s enterprise reporting environment
Work with functional leads (Finance, HR, SAS and Executive Management) in analyzing new reporting needs
Appointed by VP of Touro College to serve on Touro’s Operating Committee as the Enterprise Reporting Lead
Oversee ongoing Reporting projects
Develop and manage reporting process, standards, deadlines and implement best practices
Provide guidance and support to Business users related to Reporting
Work with the team to develop Reporting solutions utilizing external and legacy data as needed
Design Analytics for Senior Management
Design Metadata models for reporting
Implemented Data Cookbook for data governance and as a means to standardize data definitions
Provide hands on expertise with Cognos, Report development, Metadata modeling, Security and Administration
Training business users on Cognos ad-hoc Reporting features
Actively guiding a project to migrate our key Finance reports into our new Tableau environment
Work with Auditors in keeping the Reporting environment compliant with university policies
Provision users with access to Reports as needed
Recently implemented Tableau, working with business users and consultants to design operational Reports
Environment: IBM Cognos 10, Tableau, Crystal Reports, Microsoft Office, IBM AS400, Oracle 12C, SQL Developer, SQL Server 2012 R2, SSIS, Open LDAP/AD, Banner, ODS
Bank of America New York, NY 2/13 - 11/14
Sr. Cognos Consultant
Responsibilities:
Interact with stakeholders and end users in translating high business requirements into meaningful technical specifications
Design Reporting solutions using IBM Cognos
Consult stakeholders on their analytical needs
Create relational and multi-dimensional, DMR models
Develop multi-dimensional cubes using Transformer
Perform Report optimization, fixes and enhancements
Design interactive capabilities using Cognos Active reports to adapt with mobile consumers
Scheduling, Organizing, Distributing and Implementing Security with Cognos administration
Design application security needs within Cognos
Work with DBA’s in developing solutions to support reporting needs
Work with various teams in developing key reporting projects as per strict BOA standards and client needs.
Utilize versioning tools like SVN Tortise and Motio CI-PI
Work with offshore teams for application Development, Testing and Production rollouts
Arinc Annapolis, MD 9/09 - 2/12
Sr Cognos Consultant
Arinc is the leading manufacturer of aircraft to control tower communication devices. It works with government agencies to develop state of the art communication concepts and devices that are also being utilized in commercial airlines. This Project is based on creating complex reports and dashboards for Department of Defense.
Environment: IBM CognosBI, TM1, Planning Analytics, SQL Server
Synchronoss Technologies Inc, Bethlehem, PA 02/09 to 8/09
Cognos Report Consultant
Synchronoss technologies is the leading service provider for Telecommunications industry. Synchronoss will speed, simplify, and automate the telecom-service fulfillment and order management processes of activating their customers and delivering communications services across interconnected networks, focusing particularly on customers acquired through Internet-based channels.
Responsibilities:
Gather and analyze business requirements from users and business community.
Use Sharepoint for requirements management, test plan, test lab, and defects management process tracking
Develop Framework Manager models using dimensions (DMR modeling) and analyze using analysis studio
Utilize advanced features like Conditional Formatting in Report Studio in generating multipage reports
Support business users in generating ad-hoc reports using Query Studio
Design complex report filters, prompts, sub reports and drill through capabilities
Develop and execute unit test plans
Performed BI content administration tasks including scheduling and content management
Administer user access to reports
Setting up environments for Reporting (development, testing and production)
Design sophisticated reports using Cognos 8
Work on metadata modeling to link data needed on reports
Responsible for creating users, groups and roles to manage security.
Environment: IBM Cognos 8 BI, Cognos Connection, Report Studio, Query Studio, Analysis studio, Metric studio, Event studio, Frame Work Manager, Oracle 10g,Oracle 9i, SQL, Scheduler,XML and Windows.
Commerce Bank Brooklyn, NY 09/08 – 12/08
Cognos Consultant
Responsibilities:
Work with Business users in gathering business intelligence, requirements and operational needs
Work with a team of Developers, Analysts and Super users to document requirements
Develop complex Reports and Dashboards presenting KPI’s and Alerts
Design reporting solutions using IBM Cognos Reporting Suite
Customize Reporting portal with branding colors, logos and images
Perform Report migrations from IBM Cognos 7 to version 8
Optimize reports to meet business needs and industry best practices
Develop metadata models for Reports development
Analyze data issues using Analysis Studio and Query Studio
Analyze database storage and work with DBA’s to meet Reporting needs
Redesign reports from Microstrategy to IBM Cognos
Create Transformer Models, Cubes and Dimensional Reports
Troubleshoot day to day Report and Data issues
Environment: IBM Cognos 8 BI,Cognos Connection, Cognos Go office Connection, Report Studio, Query Studio, Analysis studio, Metric studio, Frame Work Manager, DB2, SQL, XML and Windows NT/4.0.
Assurant Health Milwaukee, WI 03/07 to 04/08
Report Developer
Assurant Health is built on the cornerstone of consumer choice-providing ongoing flexibility and choices in health financing solutions as well as choice of providers. Primary products include individual medical, small group, short term and student health insurance products, consumer-choice products such as Health Savings Accounts and Health Reimbursement Arrangements, as well as non-insurance products.
Responsibilities:
Report migration from legacy Reporting system to Cognos
Design reports using Excel and Report Studio, Reportnet
Implement security by adding users and groups in access manager and assigning roles
Develop Reporting level security
Install framework manager to Power Users and provide access to the data source
Work in multitier environments (development, testing and production)
Content deployments across environments
Develop ad-hoc reporting interfaces using Query Studio.
Responsible for solution-oriented complex reports using Report Studio
Implement automated Report distributed to several Insurance Agents by Bursting
Troubleshoot existing ReportNet Reports with issues
Environment: Reportnet, Cognos Connection, Report Studio, Query Studio, Frame Work Manager, Oracle 10g,Oracle 9i, SQL, Scheduler and Windows NT/4.0
Technical Skills:
BI Tools: IBM Cognos Reporting Suite 8, 10, 11 (Active Reports, Business Insight-advance, Transformer, Powerplay), Microsoft Excel, Spreadsheet Server, Tableau 10, Web Reports, Motio CI-PI, SVN Tortise subversion, SSIS, SPSS
Operating Systems: Windows 95/98/XP/2000/2008R2/7/8, UNIX/ Linux (Learning).
Languages: SQL, PL/SQL, MDX, HTML, XML, XHTML, Python, C#
Databases: Oracle 12c/11g/10g/9i/8i/8.x, MS SQL Server 7/2000/2003, 2008 R2, DB2, Teradata, AS400 and MySQL
Other Tools: Oracle SQL developer, Toad, Deployment Tool & Migration Utility, Teradata SQL Analyst,Test Directory,
Microsoft SharePoint, ODS, Banner Oracle Forms, Evision Scheduler, Zendesk, Budget pack, Oracle VM,
BI Validator, Metadata Manager (BSP).
Education: Colorado State University, Global Campus: Candidate for BBA in MIS & Business Analytics (Continuing)