Neil M. Simons Greater Boston MA & Pittsburgh PA 724-***-**** *********@*****.***
www.linkedin.com/in/neil-simons
Extensive Quality Management, Product Management, Brand Management, Technical Marketing and Project Management experience addressing organizational, market and customer needs; A successful leader of organizational improvement and realization of objectives by working with people through vision and tactical execution.
Brand, product and functional life-cycle management (Concept through Sunset)
Requirement identification and communication (MRD, PRD, Use/Role case, etc)
Agile, Hybrid and Waterfall methodologies from architecture to interface (Cloud, SaaS, mobile, installed, digital and e-com, big data, hardware and software, consumer, departmental and enterprise)
Advanced analytical skills and business case creation
Quality Management Systems with process design and continuous improvement (Six Sigma and Lean methodologies to ISO Specification)
Accomplished in quality, security and regulatory audit management
Directorship level cross functional, budget, P&L and human resource management
Healthcare and manufacturing vehicles including; ISO 9001, CMS, Sarbanes/Oxley, HIPAA, ACA, FDA, OSHA, physical and IT security standards
Product Management; Involta July 2017– March 2018 Pittsburgh, PA
Provided and directed product leadership through offering definition and delivery for a national public and private internet cloud services and products provider.
Brought transparency and process to an established business's diversified product practices and product sets. (change and project management)
Assured products were defined, developed and delivered according to the Involta business, Sales and Customer need.
Created the definition, understanding and positioning for multiple lines of IT related offerings including; IT Security and Compliance, Public Hybrid and Private Cloud Migration, Disaster Recovery and Backup as a Service (Dr/BaaS), Storage as a Service (StaaS), Managed Services, Software as a Service (SaaS), Co-location and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) within a distributed IT Data Center operation.
Business Consultant; Growth Analyst, Branding and Marketing, Product, and Process Consulting; Independent Consultant December 2015 – Present Pittsburgh, PA
Marketed and provided management consulting services to clients focusing on identification and improvement programs and approaches to attain improved performance outcomes within and across multiple functional areas. Client work has included change management program creation, marketing, document management, process improvement and quality management across multiple industries including manufacturing, consumer products and technology.
ISO 9001 Quality Officer (QM); Senior IT Infrastructure Analyst, Strategic Marketing Analyst
Highmark; HM Health Solutions February 2011 – December 2015 Pittsburgh, PA
Directed, Program Managed and established the multi-site ISO 9001 Quality Management System within Output Services division (250 people). Including audit, Business Process Design and Documentation, Quality Metric definition control and measurement, IT security, compliance control, risk management, employee training, waste and fraud management, etc. across and throughout all functions within the organization.
Incident management and mitigation; Root cause analysis, reporting, process analysis, data, interview and other analytic activity based quality control from process and continuous improvement perspectives. Corrective action and mitigation creation with all corporate and regulatory communication reporting, risk management creation and program management for implementation of actions resulting from incidents
Project Managed compliance, risk management and audit obligations with healthcare and industry regulatory entities for division.
Directed and Product Managed, branded, researched, evaluated, validated and Managed IT infrastructure related initiatives related to business and technical processes.
Served as Product manager and Product owner roles utilizing Agile methodologies while managing and executing the delivery and marketing of a suite of Online Health Tools (Quality measures, cost of care, provider/network ratings, plan specific coverage information etc), promoted branding strategies, Managed UI and structure for consumer, provider and business transactional communications.
Program Managed, designed and executed the branding marketing, strategy, planning, resourcing and execution of corporate initiatives including those within a high volume (+1.8B images and over 175M transactional documents/yr) IT driven e-doc delivery, print and mail environment for the insurance and healthcare industry.
Manager of Product Management and Product Marketing
Smead Manufacturing September 2006 – April 2010 Hastings, MN (Remote Employee)
Developed product business plans, branding strategies and tactics for consumer, commercial and government records information management (RIM) software, services and consumables to meet managed P&L responsibilities.
Program Managed the transition from a product centric focus to the creation of a market driven vision and developed the roadmaps supporting this effort utilizing Agile methods.
Created pricing models, brand and product positioning and product marketing for multiple sales and GTM channels.
Initiated and maintained strategic alliances and channel partners to support new business and technical capabilities.
Served as an industry subject matter expert and contributed to the general body of knowledge to the RIM markets and compliance with regulatory issues inclusive of CMS, FDA etc. through speaking engagements, the publication of white papers and journal articles.
Manager of Product Management
Print Inc. (Bell and Howell) February 2005 – May 2006 Bellevue, WA
Directed product strategies and tactics for solutions to meet P&L obligations and market needs inclusive of company branding, software, hardware, finance & services.
Program managed the introduction of product management processes and Agile development tactics within the company.
Managed staff of 3 in the creation of the standards against which “best of breed” product elements were evaluated, selected for inclusion, released and managed for the duration of the product lifecycle meeting both business and customer requirements.
Promoted the Branding of Print, Inc.’s offerings.
Director of Product Management, Business Information Delivery Systems
Captaris (Open Text) February 2003 – October 2004 Bellevue, WA
Directed staff of 15 direct reports and P&L obligations in the creation and communication of the requirements and vision for a new/enhanced ECM, document management company product direction. This resulted in the investment in the creation and promotion of new product lines, the divestiture of company assets and the initiation of M&A actions which gained critical technologies while generating aggregate revenue.
Managed the research and production of product requirements, business cases and the content for all related documents, presentations and communications for the development and presentation of Business Information Delivery solutions to the market under agile and hybrid development practices.
Conducted due diligence for M&A candidates.
Acted in role of global advocate and apostle for the concepts of Business Information Delivery within industry as a tool for both business management and compliance with regulatory concern such as SOX, FDA and CMS.
HIPAA and Privacy Consultant
Independent Consultant May 2002 – May 2003 Silver Spring, MD
Provided marketing and HIPAA compliance consulting services to small to mid size medical practices relating to practice management, process optimization and information technology.
Senior Product Manager, E-Content Management & Workflow Systems
OTG Software (EMC) August 1999 – April 2002 Bethesda, MD
Managed staff of 5 direct reports in the research and production of product requirements and creation of content for all related documents, presentations and communications inclusive of business cases, positioning, pricing strategies, marketing content and market analysis for a line of fourteen client server, web based and SaS product offerings representing 53% of the company’s software revenue.
Coordinated all aspects of the cross-departmental planning and delivery efforts required to bring products to market through multiple channels of distribution.
Quantified and defined the strategic initiatives for future product and market opportunities inclusive of technical innovation and meeting regulatory initiatives (SOX, CMS, FDA etc).
Established Agile processes for product enhancement and implementation management.
Product Manager, Electronic Document and Web Systems Division, Manager of Business Resource Services
Group 1 Software (Pitney Bowes) July 1995 – August 1999 Lanham, MD
Manager of BRS (7/95-4/96) Product Manager EDS (9/96-8/99)
Managed staff of 4 in the provision of comprehensive business and marketing support for the indirect channels organization.
Program managed the product and marketing obligations to the indirect channel sales representatives and over 75 partners.
Initiated and participated in M&A opportunities
User’s Conference Chairman; coordinated seminar and classroom sessions a vendor exposition and functions.
Additional: ZyCO International, Gaithersburg, MD. August 1994-May 1995; Computervision Corporation, Bedford, MA February 1991-July 1994; Matrix Software Technology Corporation, Boston, MA August 1989-January 1991. United Software Security, Incorporated, Vienna, VA March 1988- July 1989 Tandy Corporation, Radio Shack and Computer Center, South Weymouth, MA October 1986-February 1988
Education
Bachelor of Science, Management
Ithaca College, Ithaca NY
Master of Science, Management
Lesley University, Cambridge MA
Continuing and Professional Development:
Pragmatic Marketing; Product Management, ASA; Continuing Executive Development Series (strategic development, program planning, quality management, and 5 other modules), Dekra ISO 9001;2015 migration classes, HMHS; Six Sigma process improvement