Director IT - Technology Service Operations and Release Management

Shannon M. Szpindor

***** ****** **** ***** ****: (571) 359 - 1388

Waterford, VA 20112 Email: *******.********@*****.*** ********@*****.***

Professional Summary

Highly accomplished and results-driven Director of IT with extensive experience in release management and the financial industry. Adept at leading cross-functional teams, implementing efficient release processes, and driving successful software deployments. Excellent leadership abilities combined with my background in Service Assurance, System Administration, Business Process, Requirements Analysis, Project, Change and Release Management make me an invaluable asset in driving organizational success.

I am an effective communicator with strong relationship-building strengths and a proven track record of successfully leading various IT teams. I enjoy working collaboratively with various technical teams, customers, partners, and project stakeholders in the successful delivery of software projects.

Relevant Experience

Finance of America Companies (remote)

Director IT – Technology Service Operations and Release Management (February 2021 - present)

IT product owner for Microsoft Azure DevOps

Responsible for implementing effective release processes to ensure SOX compliance

Implemented an operational and successful release management process from the ground up to fulfill SOX controls and audit requirements

Mentored and developed a high-performing team of IT professionals, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement

Responsible for day to day application operations and all release management functions

Responsible for providing support and release management to all business areas

Continuously improved change and deployment procedures and implemented solutions to meet SOX controls

Works collaboratively and regularly with risk management and audit teams to identify, mitigate and implement solutions to reduce risks

Managed various initiatives and projects for technology improvements and efforts

Ditech Financial LLC (remote)

Director IT – Service Assurance (October 2019 – January 2021)

Reporting to the CIO, managing IT Service Assurance teams including the Identity Access Management, Service Desk and ITSM tool teams:

oManaging and prioritizing day to day ticket queues for all teams

oOverseeing the day to day Service Desk operations, as well as Incident Management triage for all priority 1 and 2 incidents and following through with resolution and root cause analysis

oThis also includes drafting and making sure communications are sent out as needed

oResponding to audit needs as needed

Change Manager: overseeing IT change management operations in the Estate, running CAB (Change Advisory Board) calls and making sure all changes are vetted properly before implementation

IT Project Manager: wind-down planning and activities for the Ditech Estate involving working together across the entire company to plan the shutdown of our infrastructure and applications, reduction of storage, right sizing applications that need to remain with the Estate and identifying and storage of data that needs to be retained

IT Owner for Atlassian Jira all product decisions, user management, as well as project management and automation

OpsGenie administrator: user management and ensuring that all technical teams have schedules and escalations properly set up and up to date

Confluence administrator: user management as well as management of documentation within the application

Project Manager: successfully rolled out new ITSM tool, Jira, replacing ServiceNow for our Service Desk, Access and IT requests, Knowledge Base, Change Management, Problem Management and Project Management areas

Successfully managed the roll out of new Service Desk chat service

The Judge Group (contracting for Ditech Financial LLC), March 2015 – August 2018; Ditech Financial LLC, August 2018 – September 2019 (remote)

Senior Business Systems Analyst

ServiceNow ITSM tool application administrator, team lead and Business Systems Analyst for the ServiceNow application team

Responsible for intake of business enhancement requests, gathering and documenting requirements, gathering UAT sign off and confirming business owner sign off

Responsible for coordination of monthly releases of enhancements and updates to the application based on business requests

Responsible for technical team coordination of releases, including deployment preparations, deployment coordination and post release check out

Responsible for coordination of ServiceNow upgrades, including upgrade review, planning, testing and implementation

Facilitated monthly Demand Board reviews with key application stakeholders to prioritize enhancement requests and schedule changes for upcoming releases

Facilitated various stakeholder meetings as required and document and distribute meeting notes and action items

Provided and maintained end user and incident support for the ServiceNow application as needed

Ditech Financial LLC (formerly GMAC ResCap and Ditech Mortgage), Fort Washington, PA – October 2009 – January 2015 (remote)

Senior Business Systems Analyst – (March 2014 – January 2015)

Gathered and produced high quality requirement specifications to support functional design development for various projects

Developed, documented and implemented change and release processes specifically for the onboarding of the Encompass application, a vendor supported loan originations system

Coordinated resources and facilitated “Go Live” implementation activities of the Encompass application into Production

Acted as project manager to oversee the planning, creation, testing and implementation of the Encompass Pipeline Management workflow solution tool. This involved business planning, gathering and documenting technical business requirements, coordinating testing for multiple queues across all business groups and coordinating the implementation of multiple queues simultaneously

Additionally responsible for documenting training materials, providing demonstrations, facilitating testing efforts and organizing infrastructure teams to successfully implement the Pipeline Management workflow solution tool

Acted as a support team member to monitor Encompass application incidents, troubleshoot and work to a resolution

Configured and implemented various enhancements to Encompass application per business requests

Senior Release Manager (October 2009 – February 2014)

Managed software releases from planning and development through production for over twenty applications supporting multiple business units through various environments. This involved coordinating with development, infrastructure, change management, and business-facing technology teams to ensure deployments are successful and conform to corporate policies

Acted as team lead, responsible for the overall execution of the Release Management process including creating change requests, securing implementation resources, gathering required documentation and coordinating the implementation and testing efforts

Acted as an extension of the Change Management team providing the essential oversight and guidance, ensuring successful deployments and complying with the Change Management process

Acted as member of the Change Advisory Board (CAB)

Worked collectively with the application teams, implementation teams, support teams, business analysts and project managers to ensure successful releases

Managed Emergency Change Requests to restore service or correct issues requiring immediate attention

Responsible for all communication and notifications throughout deployments to stakeholders

Following Production Releases, worked collectively with appropriate technical teams to determine root cause analysis of deployment problems during a release and to mitigate potential ones going forward

Created, maintained, analyzed and distributed monthly release metrics and presentations to senior management

Experience with technical writing and gathering and documenting business requirements

Supported technology teams with continuity plans, disaster recovery testing, SOX documentation, and audit requests

Assisted with project management of several key projects in new Ditech Mortgage organization including focus on stand up of new mobility platform, move to virtual desktop environment, stand up of new data center and decommissioning of old data center

Successfully planned and facilitated all release activities for the implementation of the application migration to new data center

Control Point Associates, Inc., Chalfont, PA – June 2008 – October 2009

Administrative Assistant

North Penn Valley Boys & Girls Club, Lansdale, PA – June 1997 to May 2008

Assistant Executive Director – May 2006 – May 2008

After School Homework Assistance Program Coordinator/ Director April 2002 – May 2008

Summer Day Camp Director June 2004 – May 2008 (Camp Counselor June 1997 – August 2003)

Youth Program Director 2002 – 2004

Summer Day Camp Counselor 1997 – 2003

Education and Certifications

Montgomery County Community College – May 2007

ITIL v3 Foundations Certified

Strengths and Skills

Able to manage multiple tasks, assignments and projects simultaneously

Reliable, organized, and self-motivated

Approximately ten years of experience working successfully and effectively in a remote location

Able to work independently or in a team atmosphere

Excellent communication, interpersonal, and presentation skills

Proficient with Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook and Publisher, as well as basic knowledge of Project

Administrative experience with ServiceNow, Jira, OpsGenie

High level of sound logic and analytical ability where problems are unusual and difficult

Knowledge of tools, techniques and good practices for protecting the integrity of corporate data and associated processing, company technology practices, standards and procedures

Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC)

Ability to determine and meet customer expectations on solution development, audits, deployments, and frequency of communication

Experience working with Agile / Scrum methodologies

Ability to identify and document business requirements and interpret into technical requirements

Ability to communicate to a wide variety of audiences, both business and technical

Ability to understand existing business processes and assist with efforts to re-engineer processes

Proficiency in project management

Ability to facilitate, conduct meetings, gather information and present statuses effectively

Contact this candidate