Senior IT Leader

H. Lamar Heller

224-***-**** ************@*****.***

Technology Strategic Planning / Technology Team Building and Leadership

Senior IT leader responsible for creating strategic plans for enterprise wide technology platforms and systems that provide effective and efficient solutions to meet business objectives, pain points, and problems. Successfully collaborate with executives and business partners to promote existing technology capabilities, as well as identify gaps and innovative solutions based on business needs. Evaluate and deliver solutions that support throughout different lines of business and divisions utilizing enterprise solutions, standards, and objectives.

Professional Experience

Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurant; Countryside, IL

Senior Director of Enterprise Applications 2015 – Current

Responsible for technology applications and tools to support the business functions, as well as provide strategic direction and tactical delivery of all business applications. Managed the enterprise applications team, while partnering with business users, and managing vendor relationships for the definition, design, development, and implementation of the application portfolio

Collaborate with senior leadership and business areas to determine technology needs and priorities to achieve business objectives

Maintain a strategic roadmap with recommended solutions utilizing current and new solutions to meet the required objectives

Implementing a Salesforce platform to replace legacy wine club membership and loyalty platform that was obsolete, including working with vendor and offshore teams

Walgreens; Deerfield, IL

Senior Program Director – CRM, IT Strategy and Innovation 2011 – 2015

Work within the Customer Care Operations group, creating and managing the strategic IT capabilities roadmap, supporting IT programs for Walgreen’s Customer Care Centers and Customer Care Operations

Work with Business and IT leadership to set IT objectives, goals, and priorities to support Customer Care Operations growth, consolidation, and improvements

Managing teams to implement a CRM integrated desktop based on Salesforce.com across all business units leading to $62M in annual benefits through improved operations, increased revenue, and enhanced customer satisfaction

Manage teams to rollout centralized voice system to 8600 stores that exceeded business needs and delivered a better customer experience

Work with CIOs from other business and IT divisions to insure synchronization of technologies and programs with enterprise solutions

FlexC3, LLC; Chicago, IL

(Boutique Consulting and Hosting Company offering small business and contact center consulting and hosted services; Company sold in 2011)

Enterprise CIO 2005 – 2011

Led team that designed, programmed, and implemented a cloud based contact center and SMB communication solution

Created strategic technology roadmap to support both internal operations, as well as hosted products to support company objectives and growth initiatives

Provided strategic IT support and advisory services to clients

IT Director – Comcast Communications 2007 - 2011

Worked with business partners at client and the internal product development team to design and implement technology for voice, email, chat, Co-Browsing, SMS, and fax to create a virtual contact center

Senior Infrastructure Architect – US Cellular 2010 - 2011

Developed High Level designs to support transformation of contact centers and implementation of a new VoIP contact center solution

Improved operational efficiency by over 25% through consolidation of technical support teams and outsourcing of services and support

Contact Center Technology Director - State Farm Insurance 2008

Developed roadmap for moving legacy system IVR to a new speech recognition IVR

Improved both project efficiency and support objectives through strategy to split teams supporting projects and provide day-to-day support

Senior Program Director – Orbitz 2006 - 2007

Designed and implemented an international intranet web application providing cost savings of over three million dollars annually

Managed the implementation and enhancement of Oracle based financial systems, including establishing an on-going iterative release cycle

Senior Project Consultant - GE Rail 2005 - 2006

Led collaboration with business and IT executives to build business consensus on enterprise solution needed to address issues with customer support systems

Managed team to upgrade and provide integration between Oracle Financials, Siebel, ERP Applications, and custom built web applications to the legacy billing and customer support systems, working with internal staff, domestic & offshore consultants

Dobson Communications; Oklahoma City, OK

(Dobson Communications was a wireless company that operates under the Cellular One Brand in most markets and Dobson Cellular in some other limited areas. Bought out by AT&T)

Senior Director of IT – Internet, Middleware, Contact Center, and POS Systems 2004 - 2005

Led day to day administration of internet, POS, contact center systems, and middleware systems, rollout of new internet ecommerce site for two different brands, bringing POS systems in-house, and design, development, and rollout of new middleware interfaces. Served as key member of the IT Senior Management team

Managed the design, development and rollout of a full ecommerce site, including backend connectivity to handle credit card processing, credit checks, and order fulfillment. This rollout exceeded executive and board of directors’ expectations by over 20% from sales, as well as self-payment and self-activation options

Designed, developed, and implemented a middleware system, providing integration between over 250 internal and external systems, which has grown to handle over 2.5 million transactions per month and over twenty million dollars in value a month

Managed the transition of a POS system to internal staff from an external vendor to support over 1000 retail stores

Built a complete team to support, maintain, and enhance the POS system, while reducing annual maintenance and support costs by over $2.5 million a year

CCC Interactive, Inc; Houston, TX

(CCI is a 450 seat Telemarketing and Customer Service Call Center Outsourcer that sold outsourced call center services to MBNA, Reliant, Intergy, and other companies. CCCI supports businesses within the utility, financial services, emergency services, telecommunications, and vacation industries.)

Interim CIO (Short Term Contract) April 2004 to July 2004

Developed strategic technology blueprint to meet the growth expectations of the executives

Created IT strategy, solution guidelines, and enterprise objectives to integrate with the overall Corporate Vision and Mission

ChaseCom, LP; Houston, TX

(ChaseCom, co-founded and funded by SBC, is an outsourcer for telemarketing and customer service, as well as help desk. Bought by AT&T.)

CIO 2002 - 2004

Responsible for the information technology infrastructure applications, including application architecture and development, technical support, security, voice & data network and project implementation. Managed the strategic and tactical planning, production, development and maintenance of enterprise wide technology solutions. Supported growth from 300 seats to 2000 seats over a 2 year period, while maintaining a level staff within the IT department

Developed and rolled out the companies first website, including an intranet/extranet to improve operational efficiency

Managed an IVR system implementation, from discovery to production support and rollout, capable of handling one million busy hour calls, including integration of full speech recognition to allow more user-friendly operation

Managed all IT functions, including Project Management Office, Help Desk, Enterprise Architecture, Network, Telecommunications, and Development Teams.

Established project management office to increase quality of projects delivered to internal and external clients, resulting in a decrease in rollout time by over 70%

Integrated infrastructure, including network, telecom, and servers, into centralized data centers

BusinessEdge Solutions, Inc.; East Brunswick, NJ

(BusinessEdge Solutions was a privately owned project management consulting company (owned by 4 partners with over 850 consultants) which has been merged into another company)

Senior Solutions Consultant 1997 - 2002

Worked with Client management, users, and IT staff to evaluate needs, reengineer processes, and define projects to bring successful technological solutions to the client’s business needs

Managed client personnel and vendor consultants to provide forecasts, budgets, and full life cycle project management

Participated on team that met with potential and existing customers to determine business needs and gaps and develop strategic solutions to meet those needs

Senior Contact Center Solutions Director - Sovereign Bank; Reading, PA 2001 - 2002

Created strategic roadmap for fully integrated contact centers, reducing costs by 20%.

Senior Technology Director – Prudential, Inc; Newark, NJ 1999 - 2001

Led team to build consensus on needs and implement a CRM application to integrate customers across the entire organization (Move from Mutual to Stock Company)

Improved Contact Center efficiency by standardizing and integrating processes across newly merged contact centers.

Senior Program Manager - Premera Blue Cross; Seattle, WA 1999

Managed the Program Management Office for a large Y2K project with a staff of over 100. Directed multiple call center implementation and integration projects.

Contact Center Program Manager – Western Financial Services, Corp 1998 - 1999

Defined, built, and implemented contact center applications and redesigned processes, improving customer satisfaction by 15% and costs by $125,000 monthly.

MIS Director/Controller – Stone Container Corp 1997 - 1998

Managed the internal IT staff for the local plant and two corporate divisions, including several large corporate projects to implement new or upgrade existing systems based on corporate standards and objectives.

Education

University of West Florida

Bachelor of Art in Accounting Information System

Community

Association for Strategic Planning; Chapter Board Member (; 2014-Current

Willow Creek Community Church; Section Leadership Team (South Barrington, IL); 2012 – Current

Willow Creek Community Church; PADS Van Driver (South Barrington, IL); 2013 - Current

Southwest PADS; Board of Directors (Chicago, IL); 2005 – 2012

Center of Higher Development; Board of Directors (Chicago, IL); 2006 – 2011

TTOI; Advisory Board (Non-Profit Computer Program for Children, Houston, TX); 2003 – 2005

Leadership Santa Rosa; Selected Member for 1998 – 1999

Florida Drug and Alcohol Abuse; Board of Directors (Insurance Relations); 1993 – 1995

Florida Health and Human Services – Board of Insurance; 1993 - 1995

Contact this candidate