Management Quality Assurance

Niel B. Harris

** ******** ***** *********, ** 10583 ● Home 914-***-**** Mobile 602-***-**** ● ******.*****@*****.***

OVERVIEW

A mission critical delivery executive with an exceptional ability to efficiently identify and resolve complex challenges that deliver

improved business, technology and organizational capability. Strong record of success defining IT Strategy, creating robust IT

architecture, and global data center operations business application solutions in financial services, retail, logistics, education and non-

profits. Known for dynamic leadership with strong direction, problem solving, planning and execution skills; empowers/ mentors

employees with a hands-on management style. Managed multi-million dollar budgets and globally dispersed personnel. A passion for

developing and coaching people and organizations has resulted in repeated global technology and process implementations.

SPECIALTIES

Global Technology Strategy Development, Delivery and Operations ● Enterprise Change Management ● Financial Strategy and

Management ● Transformation and Implementation ● Company/Business Restructuring ● Virtualization ● ERP Solution

Implementations ● Cloud Computing Solutions ● ITIL Service Management Methodologies ● Outsourcing ● Managed Services ●

Technology Refresh ● Data Center Consolidation and Build-out ● Project Management

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

OMJ Group Solutions – AZ/New York 10/2011 – present

Provider of technology and business consulting services partnering with clients to build effective IT organizations, innovate & grow,

reduce costs, manage risk & regulation and leverage their team’s talent.

President & Managing Director

• Consulted and advised a major medical institution on implementing managed desktop services for over 10,000 different types of

endpoints.

• Consulted and advised a major supplemental insurance institution on business continuity strategy and approach, and

infrastructure cost reduction.

Apollo Group (University of Phoenix) – Phoenix, AZ 8/2009 –

7/2011

Leading provider of higher education programs for working adults in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Vice President, Hosting Services

Reporting to CIO, recruited to lead technology refresh and turnaround and drive IT delivery of infrastructure, database and software

solutions. Accountable for all global architecture, engineering, build and operations. Challenged to improve process, delivery and

establish IT cost transparency to the business customers.

$50M+ budget, 6 direct reports, 100+ professionals, 5 locations

Accountabilities and Accomplishments:

• Oversaw all architecture, engineering technologies, operations and lifecycle efforts for 6,400 servers, 31,000 desktops, 600

databases, 1,100 web servers and 3.5 petabytes of storage.

• Data-center design and build-out for 10K square foot extension of existing datacenter while consolidating from 6 datacenters

down to two. Established third-level global operations support (US, South America and Europe).

• Drove standardization, optimization, virtualization and automation to maximize efficiencies and reduce costs ($4.5M reduction)

for hosting business applications/services. Implemented managed IT services for global partners.

• Implement on-premise and AWS Cloud IaaS and PaaS capability reducing delivery from 3 weeks to 4 hours.

• Led extensive ITIL service management process and tool rollout execution for incident, problem and change management

utilizing the HP tool and increasing availability from 98.1% to 99.8%.

DHL – Arizona & Connecticut 4/2001 – 7/2009

Global logistics, supply chain and express delivery company offering services in 220 countries worldwide.

Head of Operations Infrastructure Services

Reporting to CIO, recruited to provide global executive leadership to cross-platform teams supporting all hardware, applications and

software operations including zSeries, Linux, UNIX, Wintel and database technologies in US, Europe and Asia. Built five year

technology roadmap for executive business leaders.

$70M+ budget, 5 direct reports, 150+ professionals, 3 locations

Accountabilities and Accomplishments:

• Led the infrastructure build-out of 50K square foot datacenter, consolidating and integrating applications and infrastructure from

14 datacenters to one.

• Implemented globally dispersed disaster recovery system across Europe & Asia for mission critical services.

• Directed the implementation of ITIL Service Management Framework. Implemented and used extensively configuration

management, incident management, problem management and change management with the HP Service Manager tool.

• Global integration/implementation of JD Edwards, PeopleSoft HR, SAP/Hyperion and Kronos.

• Implemented virtualization project; reduced Informix database license/maintenance costs from $3.4M to $180K by re-hosting

from HP-UNIX to ZLinux on the mainframe. Rolled out Microsoft Exchange to 40,000 seats; reduced annual mail-messaging

costs by $7M.

Davidoff of Geneva – Stamford, CT 12/1997 – 2/2001

Swiss-based men’s luxury goods retailer of premium cigars and men’s clothing accessories.

Director, Information Technology

Reporting to COO, recruited to establish an IT organization, select and implement an ERP solution, POS systems and back office

applications.

$2.5M+ budget, 2 direct reports, 18+ professionals, 8 locations

Accountabilities and Accomplishments:

• Architected, designed and built an IT infrastructure to support nationwide group of retail locations.

• Supervised building of new data center to support US operations including network/data infrastructure, AS400s, and servers,

hosting business applications, point-of-sale, and email systems.

• Led the implementation of JBA ERP systems.

• Established global integrated inventory and point of sales systems working with partners in Switzerland.

Harwell Technology Resources – New Rochelle, NY

Founded/led management-consulting and technology services company.

Principle & Managing Director 1/1990 – 10/1997

• Recruited/managed 160 Architects/Engineers; built annual revenues to $11.5M

• Clients included Major Surgical Institution, Large Non-Profit Community Organization, Technology Company and NYS

Government Agency. Client projects included:

o Major Surgical Institution. Planned and directed roll-out of 1400 workstations that supported the nursing stations and

clinical staff while providing clinical application training.

o Large Non-Profit Community Organization. Planned and directed the build-out of datacenter that housed network and

hardware platform infrastructure and supported the coding, quality assurance testing, user acceptance testing and

implementation of one of the mission critical client-server applications. Installed email and scheduling along with

establishing internet access and an organizational homepage.

EDUCATION / CERTIFICATIONS

Colgate University, Chemistry

Programming & Systems Institute, Diploma, Applications Programming & Analysis

New York University, Certificate, Executive Leadership Development

ITIL Foundation Certified 3.0

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