Business Analyst, ITIL, CBAP

AMIT SAWHNEY (MBA, CBAP, ITIL, MCSD, SFC)mailto:*********.**@*****.***

Tel: 778-***-**** E-mail: *********.**@*****.***

mailto:*********.**@*****.***

DOMAIN EXPERTISE

Investment Banking Private Equity Portfolio Management Fund Accounting MBS Credit Derivatives Fixed Income securities Transfer Agency FoHF

I am a Senior Business analyst with extensive experience in developing solutions that help clients optimize IT investments. Demonstrated skills as a functional expert on project teams to define requirements and liaison with the developers to ensure requirements are met. Experienced in developing test plans, strategies and conducting User Acceptance Testing for financial systems implementations and systems fixes and enhancements.

CORE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL AREAS

Stakeholder management Business Process Improvement Test planning

Project Management Risk management Quality Assurance

SUMMARY

●10+ years total experience and 7+ years in North America as a business analyst with the track record in developing customized solutions thereby helping the organizations achieve its strategic goals for reduced costs, and improved performance.

●Admirable experience in working together with end users, business representatives and the programmer analysts to deliver efficient and cost-effective solutions that meet the needs of the organization.

●Experience gathering business requirements and writing functional specifications and have proved time and again as effective.

●Experience of using Modeling techniques such as use case diagrams, data flow diagrams, process flow diagrams and flowcharts for requirements elicitation.

●Experience with design and development of interfaces with in-house systems as well as with external systems such as custodians, market data systems etc.

●Strengths include big picture focus while developing Strategic Business Solutions which may include mission statements, value propositions, critical success factors, project management, ROI, GAP analysis

●Proficient in planning and execution of projects in a time critical environment

ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS

●MBA (Finance) from North Dakota State University, USA

●Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced computing from Center for Development of advanced Computing (CDAC), Ministry of Information Technology, Govt. of India

●Post Graduate Diploma in Information Technology (PGDIT)

●Bachelor in Commerce (Hons.) from Delhi University, India

EMPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY

●Permanent Resident of Canada

CERTIFICATIONS

●Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP)

●Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD)

●ITIL v3 foundation certified

●Scrum Fundamentals Certified (SFC)

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

●Member of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA)

Work EXPERIENCE

Polaris Financial Technology Feb 2014 - Present

Client: ANZ Bank

Title: Senior Business Analyst / Project Manager

Role: As a member of the Lync 2013 implementation team my role was to determine the scope for implementation and identify and mitigate risks.

Responsibilities:

●Worked along with the Business users in defining the scope and prioritizing the requirements.

●Coordinated with the tower leads/ Product owners to identify server, storage & networking requirements for implementing Lync 2013 in production.

●Facilitated meetings with business users to identify opportunities for business process improvement and presented ideas to the engineering leadership team to make improvements.

●Conducted stakeholder analysis and prepared RACI matrix.

●Prepared Requirements management plan and Communication plan to address the information needs of the stakeholders.

●Provided direction to the team and enforced project deadlines and schedules by resolving complex issues within the critical path.

●Proactively Identified issues/risks in implementation and developed strategy for risk mitigation.

●Defined testing requirements together with the QA & Testing Team as well as the key business users.

●Designed UAT test plans, schedules and handled the entire responsibility for UAT testing, defect resolutions and issue resolutions including the implementation of issue escalation procedures.

●Constantly reviewed the Business analysis approach throughout the project in order to make sure that the requirements are traceable, testable and readily modifiable so that necessary changes could be made before moving them into production.

Accomplishments: Successfully migrated all 20,000 plus users across various geographies to Microsoft Lync 2013 and enabled the use of advanced features such as A/V conferencing and VOIP services that saved the organization thousands of dollars and provided as a unified communications platform

Skills/Techniques used: Enterprize analysis, Project risk management, Stakeholder management, Elicitation, testing, documentation, time and scope management, Communication and presentation.

Polaris Financial Technology July 2013 –Jan 2014

Client: Citibank, New Jersey

Title: Senior Business Analyst

Role: As a member of the bank’s CCAR reporting team, I was involved in performing GAP analysis on core origination platforms such as loan origination systems (LOS) and mortgage origination systems to gather system requirements for CCAR reporting

Responsibilities:

●Analyzed information requirements to recommend design approaches for optimizing conceptual, logical and physical database model for CCAR reporting.

●Lead a team of Jr. BA’s to capture and document business requirements using requirement elicitation techniques such as interviews, focus groups, brainstorming sessions etc.

●Prepared requirements traceability matrix and maintained requirements throughout the development lifecycle.

●Verified requirements to make sure that they are consistent, complete and unambiguous.

●Developed Project plans and specifications and provided management oversight to the projects.

●Involved in planning & training the users for generating various Crystal Reports for regulatory reporting.

●Ensured that the cross-functional global teams (in U.S. and India) are collaborating seamlessly.

●Developed and managed client relationship with executive-level decision makers and stakeholders.

●Prepared the Release Schedule and ensure that the release schedule is reviewed by the development, design and testing leads before sharing it with the stakeholders.

●Worked along with the business users to prepare test scenarios, test cases and test data that covers all aspects of the system so that a successful User acceptance testing can be carried out.

Skills/Techniques Used: Process modelling, Data modelling, GAP analysis, Data analysis, Elicitation

Tools and Technologies Used: Blueprint, SQL, Crystal reports, Tableau, Ms Project, Visio, UML, ERwin

Polaris Financial Technology July 2010 – June 2013

Client: Bank of New York Mellon, Wilmington DE

Title: Senior Business Analyst

Role: As a member of the Alternative investment services technology team my job was to provide expertise in resolving production issues in LPS (Limited partnership system) and Sungard Investran, produce customized reports and design solutions for meeting business requirements.

Responsibilities:

●Engaged business stakeholders and system owners to understand and document business requirements to meet the business goals and objectives.

●Maintained product backlog and developed user stories for release backlog

●Developed test plans and test cases for integration, system and acceptance testing in order to ensure that the solution meets the business requirements. Facilitate user acceptance testing with the business users.

●Created Mock-up GUI (user interfaces) for better visualization and understanding of the software solution.

●Created driver reports in Investran, report writer module.

●Prepared requirements packages and conducted structured walkthroughs to receive user signoff

●Ensured technical faults were escalated to the appropriate Group and resolved within defined service level agreements.

Accomplishments: Developed crystal reports for automated generation of call letters, distribution letters etc. resulting in reduction of manual errors and improved turnaround time.

Skills/Techniques Used: Communication with all levels of the management, Root cause analysis, Solution design, data analysis, Gap Analysis, Incident management, Elicitation.

Tools and Technologies used: Crystal Reports, SQL, Ms Excel, JIRA, HP Quality Center, Ms Project

Innovations Software Technology (Robert Bosch Group) Feb 2010 – July 2010

Client: Fannie Mae, Washington DC

Title: Principal Consultant

Responsibilities:

●Managed all project deliverables within the scope of the Release 2.1 of credit risk rating platform at Fannie Mae.

●Took ownership of the issues and documented the business requirements for the rating models to be implemented within the Credit risk rating Platform (CRRP).

●Analyzed the data requirements and developed rating methodology for scenarios involving multiple lien and structured facility.

●Developed the overall test plan and test cases for system testing.

●Overlooked the system testing and assisted the project team in executing the test cases and documenting test results in HP Quality center.

●Produced documentation for all rating models (where each model related to a different property type) for the benefit of an independent validation and verification team and developed a user guide for the end users.

Sunmerge Systems Inc. Feb 2008 – Feb 2010

Client - International Finance Corporation, Washington D.C.

Title: Sr. Business Analyst/Project Manager

Role: As a member of the Implementation team my role was to provide functional expertise in replacing ICAS/e (a homegrown IT system) with Sungard Investran 5.0 (COTS product)

Responsibilities:

●Conducted JAD sessions with user groups to define AS-IS process flows, analyzed system impacts and requirements for IFRS

●Configured the Investran system accounting module for all business events related to the lifecycle of derivative and equity instruments.

●Provided assistance in loading the reference data to Investran using the Sungard’s data loading tool.

●Facilitated Working group sessions with the business users & key stakeholders to finalize the configuration requirements for Investran such as Chart of Accounts, Transaction types and JE templates.

●Acted as the single point of contact for business users, developers and Sungard consultants for resolving any issues related to requirements design and implementation.

●Documented the requirements and developed Functional Specifications and use cases.

●Worked on data conversion for the static data and reference data by providing data mapping and cross walks for the data points in the legacy system and Investran

●Assisted the QA team in writing Test plan and Test cases

●Executed Test cases and provided test results to the V&V team for promoting the code to Production

●Prepared user manuals and trained the users on Investran for conducting UAT and assisted them throughout the testing phase with issues/concerns

Skills/Techniques Used: GAP analysis, Elicitation,

Tools and Technologies Used: SQL, Ms Visio, Ms Powerpoint, Ms Excel, HP Quality Center, JIRA

Headstrong Inc. Aug 2007 – Dec 2007

Client: Capital One, Nottingham UK

Title: Business Systems Analyst – Contractor

Role: As a member of the Enterprise data warehouse implementation team my role was to prioritize requirements, organize requirements and maintain requirements traceability.

Responsibilities:

●Acted as the facilitator and chief moderator to identify and create business process models, task definitions and service definitions for the project.

●Facilitated the communication of business and technical requirements among the appropriate business and technical teams.

●Categorized the data uses as Key, mandatory and desirable based on the parameters as set by the EDW team.

●Organized regular meetings on a day-to-day basis to discuss the status of the team and resolve issues if any.

●Worked on providing crosswalks to the users from the present system to the new Data warehouse.

●Gathered functional requirements and Non-functional requirements for each of the data uses.

●Maintained requirement traceability matrix using DOORS

Accomplishments: Was able to successfully negotiate with the key stakeholders in bringing down the count of mandatory requirements from initial 220 to 80 thereby making a huge impact in the scope of implementation.

Skills/Techniques Used: Requirements Management and Communication, Elicitation

Tools and Technologies Used: DOORS, Ms Excel

Headstrong Inc.

Client: Morgan Stanley, NYC, NY April 2007 – July 2007

Title: Business Analyst – Contractor

Role: Private Equity Fund Accounting System Business Analyst

Responsibilities:

●Documented workflows & business requirements and obtained sign-off from project stakeholders on specifications.

●Prepared IT work Initiation documents detailing the need for change and the benefits from the proposed changes

●Performed GAP analysis to identify and suggest the functionality of changes

●Prepared detailed level Functional specifications for the developme

●Developed Use cases, sequence diagrams and activity diagrams

●Analyzed the impact of changes on the current business systems and suggested potential enhancements to make them compatible with the overall changes

●Documented business processes via models using MS Visio and UML

●Liaised with developers throughout the software development life cycle

●Performed User Acceptance testing (UAT) and provided training to the users.

●Reported to the senior management and key stakeholders on a weekly basis to provide a snapshot of the major accomplishments and to discuss issues if any.

Axis Telecom, Gurgaon, India

Business Analyst, IT Systems Feb 2003 – Jan 2005

Responsibilities:

● Gathered functional requirements for the IT systems.

● Translated the business requirements into IT application impacts and business process impacts using the project delivery framework followed by the organization.

● Assisted in the development of high level project plans, estimating, and financial tracking.

● Provided support to the users with production issues and enhancements to the systems.

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