Joe A. Canas, MSc IT, CSM, PMP

**** ** ***** ** *: 305-***-****

Miami, FL 33175 ac6ezz@r.postjobfree.com

IT Project Manager

Interested in a System or Business Leadership Position role within an Information Technology Department/Division

Decisive, action-oriented and results-focused professional offering many years of IT experience with last 14 years focused on project management with direct reports. Offer outstanding talents in resource loading (recruiting/staffing), resource leveling (sharing resources), team building, team consensus, budget management, developing project scope (budget, timelines, and delivery dates), customer relationships, cost avoidance, continuous design improvements, and conducting status meetings, and customer reviews. Driven by new challenges and desire to be successful in all endeavors. Enjoy navigating all aspects of complex projects. Demonstrated skills in delivering revenue generating IT platforms utilized in e-commerce credit, debit and prepaid card systems, insurance claim systems, electric utility maintenance tracking systems. Excellent team leader, project manager, and motivator that is willing to get in the trench and champion a “whatever it takes” mentality to get the job done right the first time.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

FIRST DATA CORPORATION (Financial Services) – Remote from Kendall Oct 2016 - Present

IT Project Manager - Consultant

From the standpoint of product project management and planning, I have daily oversight on requirements validation for an FDC client which supports their website (i.e. Synchrony Bank CC website a former division of GE Capital) used by cardholders to review statement and current CC activity. I have oversight in system design and managed verification, construction and testing, data conversion validation, integration and system testing, quality assurance and UAT. In working with Vendor, utilized Infrastructure Lifecycle Management (ITIL) governance awareness and techniques. Not only responsible for on-time delivery of the project completion but also budgetary considerations such as project sizing estimates, cost variance tracking, and managing project resources effectively. I am in daily and weekly communication with PMO Management, Functional Area Managers, and Program Managers regarding project status reporting. Lastly, a deep understanding of the payment processing industry with detail knowledge of the credit card value chain regarding authorization, tokenization, encryption, transmission protocols and a solid understanding of PCI-DSS. While working at First Data, I began as a software engineer working on the development of what eventually became FDC’s North Platform working with the ISO-8583 format specification. I eventually became the IT Director of the group responsible for the HDC team, which is a core group in support of the mission critical system known as the North Platform. This is primarily a frontend user app dev experience working with Client and technology side to make changes to existing website. From a technical perspective, this required knowledge of SQL Server and ETL methods to migrate data and establish metadata in new repositories. This required keen understanding of business requirements and reporting needs of the business and working in concert with Business Stakeholders, Platform SME, Data Architects, and Business Analyst.

VIAMERICAS CORPORATION Miami, Florida Oct 2014 - Sep 2016

IT Project Manager - Consultant

As one of the Project Managers with the integration of mobile devices and Money Transfer as a Service platform adds fully integrated, seamless and secure international money transfer capabilities, including single sign-on, complete transaction histories and easy repeat transactions with previously saved recipients, all of which are available through the developed platform for Money Transfer as a Service (MTaaS). The company in its goal to digitally transformation itself, a project was initiated in 2014 to embark on building a new digital brand and identity that ultimately resulted in the completion in late 2016 of the online platform. Through Vianex, Viamericas online brand, customers can send money using a credit/debit card or directly from a bank account. Eventually, the ability to send cash will be available by starting a money transfer online and finishing the transfer at any of the thousands of Viamericas agent locations throughout the country. Viamericas spent 2016 working on the final leg expanding its business channel strategy. The new digital channel, called Vianex, provides a direct-to-consumer digital platform (govianex.com and the digital app Vianex) as well as APIs using PHP and XML that allow partners to offer financial services like money transfer, bill pay and check processing. The Vianex platform offers Viamericas' core alternative financial services to a broader customer base anywhere in the world. Worked on cash letter project to create and maintain cash letter data interchange using ANSI X9 standard for sending, storing, and receiving money transmittal purposes.

FIRST DATA CORPORATION (Financial Services) Omaha, Nebraska Aug 2012 - Sep 2014

IT Project Manager - FTE

As project manager, responsibilities driving to successful completion of a variety of projects ranging from e-Commerce application development to infrastructure to client request to updating reports, to printing and embossing Credit Cards on multitude of systems ranging from Distributed to Mainframe and Unix based platforms. The projects all used waterfall methodologies working closely with Business liaisons and the use of Clarity as the basis of all project reporting and task assignments. The environment is a matrix oriented organization were resources are acquired to fulfill requirements initially for project conception and initiation thru planning & design phases and then through Build and Test Phases. Project implementations were prescheduled to meet client expectation throughout year to maximize effectiveness and reduce client and platform disruption. It was expected that 30 to 25 simultaneous projects on average was the normal work load. My last assignment was the implementation of a very large scale, cross-functional, strategic initiative on behalf of Synchrony Bank (i.e. GE Financial Web Server replacements).

CITIGROUP INC. (LATAM Division) Ft. Lauderdale, FL Jan 2012 - Jul 2012

Senior IT Project Manager

As Sr. Project Manager, was main contact point between tech resources and stakeholders for rollout of new transmission platform across all Latin American countries. The group focused on system that dynamically fed Rates, Yield Curves, Spot, and Cross Currencies tailored for each country. This required collaboration with in country Product Control Unit, Treasury, Operations, and QA groups assuring all dates and deliverables were met according to specifications. Built detailed project plans and worked with Business Representatives to create BRD documents for each country due to varying customs. I managed project estimating activities and worked daily with technical teams. Worked with QA and development teams to synchronize scope and coordinate efforts. Kept all project lifecycle documentation properly updated.

AMSTAR SYSTEMS, Weston, FL Aug /2010- Jan/2012

IT Project Manager

Electronic Medical Systems (EMS) utilizing experience in Medical Insurance Claim Systems and Credit Card Processing Systems, consulting / designing a standardized message-based specification that will be flexible, portable between systems, efficient and be able to be put in front of an ISO committee and eventually integrated into a commercial grade claim processing system that will begin development 1Q-2012. In the process of completing the Project Charter and working on the Project Scope Statement that will include a preliminary SOW. Additionally integrated VISA/MC backbone for POS. Worked to completion of the Project Charter, Project Scope Statement, SOW, 12 month forecasted budget, and resource plan. Development turned over 3Q-2012 to client with project 4 months ahead of schedule.

FIRST DATA CORPORATION (Merchant Services) Coral Springs, Florida Aug/1997 - Dec/2010

IT Director

As functional/project manager of one of the primary transaction processing portals at First Data Corporation (world’s largest e-Commerce processor), responsibilities include a matrix-oriented organization as a project manager for the completion of all projects for this group using full product life cycle implementations which entailed 8 simultaneous projects on average. This involved original platform development and any subsequent enhancements or customization, peak season preparation, annual compliance, and maintenance projects utilizing traditional software development life cycle (SDLC) methodology (waterfall). Technologies used were IBM Mainframe: COBOL2 / CICS / VSAM / DB2 / TCP-IP / SFTP. Data exchange technologies centered on ISO 8583, EDI (X12 850), and proprietary standards required by banking clients using XML. Responsibilities included working with developmental staff and cross functional groups during all project phases, including, project initiation, planning, brainstorming, execution/development, testing, implementation, and support endeavors to develop, maintain, and customize all internally developed applications. These projects were managed using Microsoft Project until transition to Clarity platform in 2010 and all project artifacts were stored on SharePoint. Extensively trained in management programs while at First Data such as SEI/CMM, Project Management, First Leaders, Team Dynamics, Corporate Ethics, and many other areas. The last major project I worked on with my team was the TransArmor project, which involved adding encryption, and tokenization to the portion of the Acquiring platform called Host Data Capture (HDC). As IT Director of HDC, my responsibilities were managing the technical resources and the 24/7/365 application platform that captures all the transactions from the Frontend Switches and then reformats them to all our backend settling platforms. Approximately 10 years of Project Management experience was attained while at this position while managing both onshore and offshore resources, project deadlines, and performing architectural duties as well.

JOHN ALDEN LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Miami, FL 1992 - 1997

IT Manager – B.E.S.T Claim System

Responsible for Analysis & Major Enhancements to the online (CICS) Group Health Claims Systems. Major projects were the implementation of the Dental Claims System, and PPO Processing for Intermediate Group. Responsible for R&D and Deploying an OS/2 Programmer Workstation(PWS) environment for Downsizing Maintenance, Support & Development of the Claims Systems for the System Support Personnel. This reduced DIRECT development costs by 45%. The Architecture of the PWS centers on the MICRO FOCUS WORKBENCH & IBM CICS OS/2 platform. Prior to this, was responsible for the Research & Development of Cross Systems Platforms for Downsizing the Claims Production Systems to a SUN & PYRAMID / UNIKIX / MICRO FOCUS platform. Worked on project to create and maintain Explanation of Benefits (EOB) using EDI for data interchange for storing and printing purposes.

EDUCATION:

Master of Science in Information Technology with a concentration in IT Security (MSc IT) – FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

GPA: 3.9 on a 4.0 scale.

Bachelor of Business Administration Majoring in Computer Information Systems (BBA) – TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

College Honors: Graduated Cum Laude; GPA: Major 4.0, Overall 3.4 on a 4.0 scale;

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS:

Member of PMI (Project Management Institute) 2010 to Present

Member of Scrum Alliance 2012 to Present

PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS:

PMP #: 1412909; PMI ID: 2049971; Expires: 05-24-2020; Certified ScrumMaster; Member#: 000174119 Expires: 02-01-2020

SUMMARY OF SKILLS INVENTORY:

PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS: MS Project, MS Team Foundation, CA Clarity PPM.

MICROSOFT OFFICE TOOLS: (proficient in all tools): Project, Word, Excel, Outlook, Visio, and PowerPoint.

OPERATING SYSTEMS: Windows 10 and 7; Windows Server 2014; Ubuntu/Linux

LANGUAGES & TECHNOLOGIES: Off host: Python, C, PHP, XML, Delphi, Oh host: ISO 8583, EDI (X12 850), ANSI X9, IBM mainframe stack as indicated above

LANGUAGE SKILL: English: Speak/Read/Write fluent; Spanish: Speak fluent; Read/Write adequate.

MILITARY: United States Navy; 4 years active, 2 Reserve; Good Conduct Medal Awarded; Honorable Discharge; DD214 available on request.

WORK AUTHORIZATION: United States citizen (passport is up-to-date).

REFERENCES: Available on request

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