Project Management

MARILYN BALASSI

www.linkedin.com/in/marilynbalassi

*** **** **** ******, ***. 5C 646-***-****, 212-***-****

New York, NY 10021 **************@*****.***

SENIOR BUSINESS ANALYST / PROJECT LEAD

Business/Product Knowledge: Retirement plans and related laws, fixed income (including MBS and swaps) front, middle and back office, trade processing, mutual fund accounting, fund of funds, cash allocations, reporting, reconciliation, and reference data. Extensive knowledge of Microsoft products including Visio.

Business Analysis: Full systems development life cycle and project management in an Agile environment including scope definition (business impact, assumptions, constraints), business function requirements (requirements gathering, current system review, use cases and user stories), user external design (screens and reports), logical data and process model, business process models, data flow diagrams and context diagrams, control and performance requirements (security, audit and regulatory), system interface requirements, conversion requirements and strategies, unit, system and user acceptance testing and quality assurance.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

TIAA-CREF (Contract for 3 years) Jan 2014 – Dec 2016

Lead Business Analyst

Subject matter expert - served as point person for Custom Portfolio Model Service (CPMS) to investigate and respond to all inquiries. Fielded all troubleshooting requests so that applications functioned as intended.

Worked with cross-functional team of Program Managers, Product Managers, Project Managers and Lead Business Analysts in an Agile methodology environment to implement the Custom Portfolio Target Date Income project, which created a group of models containing TIAA Traditional. Agile methodology included participating in Sprint Planning, attending Scrum meetings and reviewing work outputs on an iterative basis.

Responsible for gathering, documenting, analyzing and assessing business requirements.

Conducted all requirements interviews, took ownership of the Business Requirements Document and other documents, presented overall requirements, developed use cases, facilitated detailed design sessions, identified and resolved issues.

Coordinated and facilitated senior leadership requirements review and approval sessions.

Ensured all requirements and documents adhered to established TIAA-CREF project standards.

Provided weekly project statuses as well as other metrics to communicate status.

Brought CPMS to a Business As Usual status via system enhancements, documentation and training.

STATE STREET BANK (contract for 18 months) May 2012 – Oct 2013

Senior Business Analyst

For a joint project with Alliance Bernstein, developed over 50 program specifications for analytics and market data which were to be used for the build out of newly generated reports supported by State Street Bank in an outsourcing scenario. The specifications were based on reviewing legacy specifications, sample reports and collaboration with the client, both business and technology.

Developed report specs.

Mapped data elements from Alliance Bernstein environment to State Street data marts.

Led QA sessions with Alliance Bernstein IT to obtain business requirements.

Analysis and design of State Street Central Footnote Module. This module was the core utility for all reporting applications to utilize in the footnote process.

FREELANCE EMPLOYMENT (part time) 2007 – 2011

Selected projects:

Sokol New York (a nonprofit) – Acted as point person for all IT related functions such as printers, desk top support, networking, setting up email lists, updating website.

Math/computer tutor

ALLIANCEBERNSTEIN, New York, NY 2004 – 2006

Senior Business Analyst

Lead analyst implementing trade order management system for fixed income trading desk.

Coordinated testing of Minerva application; developed test plan, identified defects, interfaced with vendor on resolution; robust test plan updated regularly to include tests for resolved defects.

Analyzed and designed reports for Fixed Income operations; realized corporate savings from automating manual processes, transferring processes from IT to operations and disabling older applications.

TIAA-CREF, New York, NY 1998 – 2004

Senior Business Analyst/Project Leader

Implemented transfer agent process to account for activity on a real-time basis including: NAVs of 60 funds to NASDAQ for publication in the newspaper, purchase, sale and other transaction data to accounting for over 200 funds to calculate cash available for traders, NAVs and trade data to transfer agent.

Set up internal accounting systems to process 175 funds associated with the tuition savings program.

Cash allocation for ‘fund of funds’ mutual funds, reference data, reporting, 529 plan reconciliations; built automated system to determine trades for 175 funds based on cash available, predetermined targets, actual targets and positions.

Implemented enhancements based on industry initiatives (Y2K), corporate initiatives (introduction of new funds), and workflow requirements (business continuity).

Built interfaces to transmit long term fixed income trades, position, security and pricing data to/from front office, middle office and back office applications.

PRIOR BACKGROUND:

JP MORGAN

Prepared process model and supporting documentation of proposed system aimed at reducing headcount and errors in processing payables and receivables.

Developed Reference Data logical data model.

Installed accounting application for Treasury department.

MERRILL LYNCH

Built new quarterly statement system for the Sharebuilder and Corporate IRA plans.

Analyzed, designed and implemented quarterly statement system.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

MBA - Pace University, New York, NY

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Chartered Retirement Planning Specialist (CRPS)

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