Management Sales

RAJ GURUSWAMY

Summary

Business Savvy, Technology leader with over 25 years of hands-on management experience in software, hardware, education and R&D. Dynamic and Spirited Entrepreneur with proven ability to hire Talent, build relationships, develop policy, streamline processes and manage P&L. Proficient in IT, Business Transformation, Change Management, Software Engineering, R&D, Project & Portfolio Management, Supply Chain Management, and Consulting services. Extensive experience in leading teams of 150+ focused on Government, Finance, Healthcare, Hi-Tech and Software industries. Broad software lifecycle experience including Definition, Planning, Requirements Analysis, Design, Development, Quality Assurance and Production Support Services. Experienced with articulating business vision and develop the technology roadmap that aligns with corporate strategy. Valued problem solver to resolve complex situations involving diverse people and technology.

Career Highlights

Solid diverse hands-on experience in Infrastructure, Application Support, Business Analysis, Software Development, Quality, Project and Portfolio Management and Software Release Management

Managed IT budgets of $10M+ and headcount of 100+ comprising of Architecture, Development, Quality, Support and Project Management skills. Proficient in SDLC and PMBOK.

Proven expertise in managing full life cycle of programs from Business Requirements to Production Support Services and deploying, executing, time bound mission critical applications

Experienced in both sides of outsourcing, by setting up, transition, managing onsite/offshore operations for Fortune 500 clients and by engaging offshore partners for Application development and production support

Solid experience in people management from hiring, mentoring and inspiring to exceed performance expectations

Managed consulting practice with P&L responsibility and revenues of $35M

Instrumental in building long term relationships with existing customers and grew business to generate several million dollar revenues in additional areas of business

Effective in breaking complex business problems to provide solution and guidance

Adept in providing quality service with optimal CAPEX, OPEX, Infrastructure, Licenses and personnel resources

Go-To person to resolve complicated situations involving diverse technology and people

Professional Experience

CO-FOUNDER & CEO - CLOUD CONNEKT (Technology Startup) 03/2013 to 12/2015

Established a Company, organized funding, created Corporate Strategy & Business Model, assembled the team to deliver the products with superior customer experience

Lead and Mentored a team of talented professionals to create scalable architecture and deliver products

Strategized, Designed and Delivered the ‘Intelligent Personal Assistant’ App to schedule, plan and ease the work of the person. The integrated product intelligently searches through the emails, helps schedule meetings, helps to plan the logistics for the meetings, plans the day and also reminds about missing reservations

Intelligent Personal Assistant integrates with Mobile App and external services like Travel Agents

Created an Innovative distributed product ‘Shop-Ping’ to ping customers to shop at specific stores based on their wish list, sales, coupons and their geographic locations

Established Continuous Integration, Automated Reviews, Automated Testing processes

Implemented and Drove the delivery of the Mobile Applications

SENIOR LEADER - PORTFOLIO & RELEASE MANAGEMENT 03/2012 to 02/2013

VISA INC. (Financial Services) - Consultant

Created software delivery strategy for the Revenue systems team and helped to adopt agile methodology

Reviewed end-to-end from Requirements to Support processes to identify Gaps, Issues and Improvements. Helped to increase productivity by 40% and cost savings by 20%

Managed Project Portfolio, Resource Planning and Release Management.

Created and Managed Quarterly Release plans, methodology and communications to global audience

Created and Managed Release Health Dashboard using Microsoft SharePoint

Created and Delivered Presentations on strategy to influence the stakeholders and business leaders to adopt

DIRECTOR, IT, ENGINEERING & PMO - INVISALIGN (HealthCare) 05/2005 to 08/2011

Engineering and IT representative in the Corporate Business Council to strategize and plan product roadmap

Strategic Technology partner to HR, Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, International & Finance organizations

Relationship Partner to Microsoft, AT&T, Oracle, SAP and offshore vendors

Software Engineering:

Turned around and rebuilt the software team, established governance, SDLC guidelines and communication

Led the team to deliver the flagship 3D software that was delayed over 2 years in less than 90 days

Created the Business Analyst practice to ensure customer business requirements are clearly understood and translated in to software requirements, thereby reducing rework by 90%

Led the product localization in major European and Asian languages enabling business growth by 30% in 2 years

Liaised with Regulatory affairs to bring all technology components to the FDA quality, risk and Hippa requirements

Interfaced with R&D to translate ideas to products in collaboration with the Marketing team

Product Delivery Management & Program Management (PORTFOLIO & PMO):

Managed Global cross-functional teams of 100 members to deliver large programs in a strong Matrix organization

Established solutions management, systems integration & test automation teams improving productivity by 45%

Guided the implementation of PMP based processes and continuous integration methodology

Created cross functional Change Management team, governance and processes

Created the enterprise portfolio to enable Executives to align priorities

Transformed the product development and delivery methodology to a, streamlined, predictable and supportable model. Increased product delivery from 1 product release a year to 4 major and 12 minor releases a year

Information Technology Services & Operations:

Transitioned custom in-house HRMS application to more robust Cloud based SaaS solution

Reduced technology footprint by standardizing on the hardware and software, which enabled cost savings by way of License fees, training and support structure. Outsourced routine support tasks to offshore partners

Built key business partnerships with Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, AT&T and vendors

Streamlined the corporate desktop and application helpdesk processes and enabled a SLA based service model

Improved the 24x7 global Manufacturing operations by optimizing the Order to Invoice process and by providing real time data analysis increasing productivity by over 20% and reducing the cycle time by over 75% for key customers and billing time by over 25% with cost savings of over $1M/year

Developed in-house Sales forecasting application using .net and Excel that saved $400K per year and increased the forecast accuracy by >300%. Integrated forecast and reporting with Salesforce.com Marketing Cloud

Architected the development of a Sales Operations Dashboard to enable executives view up to date sales and performance data and provided an analysis of Key Performance Indicators

Business Intelligence, Analytics, Reporting & Data Services:

Reduced the reporting technology footprint by consolidating several tools and technologies used across the company into a single Analytics/Reporting system. This resulted in a savings of $1.2M/year, increased the speed of reports delivery by 200% and increased the accuracy by over 98%

Created the Global Data Management and Business Intelligence Strategy

Introduced the self-service reporting solutions to all departments saving over $650,000

SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER - CISCO INC. (Hi-Tech) - Consultant 07/2004 to 04/2005

Senior Program Manager responsible to manage in-house and COTS Finance applications stack

Conducted Risk Analysis, RFP Reviews, Project Reviews, Schedule Assessments and Resource Planning

Managed concurrent projects from inception to implementation by guiding global teams

Provided project updates to Global audience and Executives on regular basis

Managed SOX verification team to analyze Quote to Order data from EDW and Sales Data Mart

Resolved several long difficult & complex open issues with innovative ideas saving $3.5M in costs

Pro-actively reviewed and upgraded systems with cannibalized components to provide upgraded software performance at zero costs

REGIONAL MANAGER - TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES (Software) 10/1997 to 06/2004

Managed an 80-member team of Project Managers, Engineering Managers, onsite and offshore professionals focused on Infrastructure, Help Desk, Business Intelligence and Application Development in Java and .net

Oversaw the Development, Delivery, Installation, Customization and Client Acceptance of all Software Systems and System Integration projects with values up to $25M for customers in Finance, Technology and Government

Interfaced with Senior and C-level executives for pre-sales and to provide project updates

Responsibilities included Business Planning, Pre-sales, Project Delivery, Project proposals, Project Charter, Project Planning, Risk Analysis, Change Management, Budget Management, Software Testing and Talent Management

Created and guided the enterprise wide implementation of PMBOK based processes

SENIOR MANAGER - CMC LIMITED (System Integration) 02/1989 to 09/1997

Managed a team of 150 and a budget of $3M to implement several high profile, mission critical projects

Architected, Developed and Implemented several large scale enterprise software applications for Transportation, Sports, Finance, Supply Chain Management, Security and Technology support

Led the Infrastructure team to design/build Data centers, provide System, Network and Storage support

Product Manager to manage several products, evaluate and select vendors, own billing and payment processes

Created strategy and provided guidance to educate/train customers non-technical work force, in technology use

Built strong relationship with customers to grow and expand business

ENGINEER (R&D) - INFOSYS (Technology) 10/1987 to 12/1988

Designed and implemented several hardware and firmware solutions on Intel and Motorola platforms

Awards & Voluntary Contribution

Several Appreciation Awards from Employers and Customers

Founded and Funded a Trust to provide education assistance to poor, high performing students in India

Founded and Funded a library to provide free literary service/mentorship to aspiring youth in India

Education

Bachelor of Engineering (ECE), CEG, Anna University 07/1983 – 05/1987

Master of Science (Systems & Information), BITS, Pilani 07/1991 – 05/1993

Certificate in Fundamentals of Finance – UC Santa Cruz, CA

Certificate in Financial Accounting – UC Santa Cruz, CA

Certificate in Management Principles – UC Santa Cruz, CA

Project Management for IT professionals – Santa Clara University, CA

Certificate from MongoDB

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