Sales & Implementation Manager

Bob Edelman ***@*******.**** 312-***-**** Crystal Lake, IL 60014 LinkedIn

Implementation Manager

Technology Solutioning/Implementation/Delivery, Product Technology

Technically Adept• Solution Focused • Innovation • Creativity

Technical Project/Product Sales Focus: Enthusiastic drive to improve technical product outcomes, meet customer objectives, and drive company revenue growth.

Business Analysis Expertise: Results-driven understanding of business needs, processes, and drivers. Ability to effectively translate these insights into technical requirements, specifications, user stories, and acceptance criteria.

Technology Leadership: Proven track record of excelling in designing, delivering, and managing educationally oriented enterprise-class systems and technology solutions. Ensuring the successful implementation of technology initiatives is key.

Trusted Technical/Business Advisor: Maintaining operational discipline through strategic planning, vision, and forecasting. Ability to provide guidance and insights that plays a pivotal role in achieving projected outcomes.

Product Strategist • Strategic Insight • Resource Management

Career Narrative & Impact

Independent Consulting – Chicago, IL

Focusing Upon Technical Solutions & Delivery March 2023 – Present

•Overall Summary: Executed successful configuration and implementation of cloud-based and on-premises environments. Analyzed complex data collections and provided essential guidance to drive strategic decision making. Recommended cost-effective technical solutions to improve efficiencies and performance with follow-through to implementation and delivery.

•Notable Project: Document Dematerialization – Served as senior project manager for discovery and analysis phase of digitization/dematerialization of paper records held by heavy equipment leasing company – precipitated by relocation of corporate office to new location with reduced document storage capacity.

RedShelf, Inc. – Chicago, IL

Manager of Software Development November 2021 – February 2023

•Overall Summary: Established close collaboration with product and business leaders to effectively provide increased value to organizational initiatives. Served as technical product owner for data and analytics team. Guided diverse group of software developers in the construction and enhancement of Educational Technology capabilities for the organization including integration with Learning Management Systems and Publisher learning platforms using both standard API integrations (ex. LTI) and specialized frameworks. Established close collaboration with product and business leaders to effectively provide increased value to organizational initiatives. Mentored both peers and direct reports in assisting them to attain their potential and provide increased value to the organization.

•Business Expansion: Contributed significant leadership and architectural direction in incorporating an integration with a consortium of higher education institutions for digital textbooks and personalized learning materials. This effort also involved building system monitoring dashboards to guarantee maximum system uptime.

•Product Management: Translated intricate business requirements into actionable stories and epics for development teams thereby effectively bridging the gap between business stakeholders and technical teams. Crafted user stories that not only aligned with business objectives but also provided clear and concise guidance to development teams. Contributed significantly to successful project deliveries and fostered collaboration across diverse cross-functional teams.

•Continuity Maintenance: Undertook the responsibilities of the team's Tech Lead and Project Manager when necessary due to staff departures. Successfully managed and organized User Acceptance Testing (UAT) in the implementation of data warehouse-based financial reporting using Snowflake and Retool.

•Enhanced Data Integrity/Alignment: Initiated the revised integration of client/customer information using different/improved systems of record including the devising of effective methods for accurate alignment with internal systems resulting in reducing the need for manual intervention.

CME Group, Inc. – Chicago, IL contracted under Great Software Laboratory, Inc. and TradeHelm, Inc.

Senior Technology Analyst / Engagement Success Leader July 2018 – November 2021

•Overall Summary: Provided technical analysis for projects including migration from legacy platforms and transition to new data sources for referential information within the Common Applications & Reference Data Services group at CME Group. Devised and developed specialized tools to aid development and quality assurance testing to ensure accuracy of system outputs. Role with GS Lab expanded to include responsibility and single point of contact representation and management of on-shore and off-shore resources engaged with CME Group.

•Integration of Acquired Business: Assisted in the analysis and documentation of system flows in integrating a new business acquisition, which involved devising an innovative customer self-service paradigm with significantly improved UI/UX.

•Promoting Knowledge Sharing: Educated, administered, and demonstrated the utilization of Salesforce CRM as a key element in the financial customer onboarding process and the provisioning of new financial products. Also imparted training on the usage of Splunk for collecting valuable usage metrics.

Kaplan, Inc. – Chicago, IL & New York, NY Overall: June 1992 — March 2017

Executive Manager, Content Systems – Kaplan University January 2009 – March 2017

•Overall Summary: Built, launched, supported, and scaled technical initiatives focusing on Customer/Client Management and Content Management from the ground up — overseeing strategy management, operations, financial oversight, business development, and administration. Directed a team of 5 to 30+ direct and indirect reports.

•Management of Offshore Resources: Supervised offshore development and QA teams based in New Delhi, responsible for significant testing and major development initiatives. Managed a Mexico-based team offering managed services and technical support.

•LMS Migration: Led efforts in the migration of a large-scale Learning Management System implementation from Pearson/eCollege to D2L/Brightspace. Included aligning goals and objectives with the vendor (D2L) and internal Academic Team resources and providing related training and documentation.

•Product Innovation: Pioneered the technical analysis, specification, software development, and deployment of a Java and XML-based Content Management System (CMS) for delivering eLearning content via Akamai CDN to various Learning Management Systems used by the organization.

•Technological Innovation: Achieved reduction in content production time and staff by 80% through the implementation and migration to an inventive, internally developed Learning Content Management System (LCMS) used for the learning content of the organization’s business units.

•Vendor Negotiations: Successfully renegotiated Akamai CDN vendor contract to a tiered pricing model, resulting in a 58% decrease in monthly fees.

•Project/Product Management: Contributed to several special project initiatives, such as:

oVendor selection and evaluation of a replacement Learning Management System (LMS)

oImplementation of new UI/UX specific to campus-based blended eLearning courses

oVendor selection and implementation of Human Resources Document Management System

oImplementation of iTunesU support within online courses

oAchievement of an electronic course/program catalog using Ektron CMS

oConfiguration/on-site supervision of live video streaming for large-scale events using Akamai CDN

Senior Manager, eLearning Technologies – Kaplan Professional Education Jan 2000 – Jan 2009

•Overall Summary: Established a strong record of high performance in identifying and securing strategic opportunities. Managed a Java software development team varying in size from 5 to 20+ direct and indirect reports along with all aspects of electronic products used by two distinct business units, including disk-based, CD-ROM, online, and print/eBook/PDF products. Directed budget operating expenses of $3.2MM.

•Operational Leadership: Managed a large-scale software development project for a Java-based Learning Management System (LMS) and Learning Content Management System (LCMS), including recruitment and onboarding of new team members.

•Learning Content Management & Learning Management System Expertise: Acted as the primary liaison for learning content management and system expertise, working closely with executive management and business product stakeholders.

•Training & Mentoring: Guided, trained, and managed teams responsible for the migration of existing eLearning content to a newly developed online course publishing platform.

•Joint Operations Team Leadership: Established the Joint Operations Team (JOT) with members from Kaplan DevOps and external vendors to manage daily eLearning systems and data center operations.

•Cultural Transformation: Fostered a shift from Waterfall to Agile methodologies among software developers, emphasizing feature development with a direct impact on revenue growth and cost reduction.

•Special Project Management: Oversaw several special projects in various capacities, such as:

oPrimary technical contact for disk-based and online learning products

oData center migration from New York to Chicago

oVendor selection and evaluation for a Digital Asset Management System (DAM)

oCollaborating to produce a complete course on CD-ROM used by financial securities individuals for licensing exams

Manager, Assessment Software Development – Kaplan Test Preparation June 1992 – January 2000

•Overall Summary: Designed, developed, and directed the development of an innovative customized assessment evaluation and feedback system propelling the organization into a new level of computer-based performance needs analysis for their customers leading to becoming a market differentiator that drove improved market share and dominance.

•Assessment System Software Development: Created, developed, managed, and supported a distributed database-driven software system to efficiently analyze student exam performance and effectively provide “expert-level” directed feedback.

•Product & Project Leadership: Took charge of the organization’s first lead management software system, ensuring its successful operation while a replacement system was under development.

•Enterprise-wide Implementation: Chose and Implemented the company's first effective email system.

Technical Skills

Java Application Server Environments Tomcat, JBoss, WebLogic

Technical Frameworks ReactJS, Hibernate, jQuery, Angular, Vue.JS, GraphQL, Next.js, Spring, Node, Django, Ruby

Learning Management Systems Canvas, Desire2Learn Brightspace, BlackBoard, Moodle, SCORM

Document/Media Management Systems OpenText Media Manager, Alfresco, Sharepoint, Google Docs

Database Systems Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, MySQL

Data Repository Systems Snowflake, Oracle Data Warehouse

Tools Confluence, JIRA, Docker, Kubernetes, Vmware, XML, XSLT, DITA, Kafka, ESB, Video Players

Source Code Control GIT, SVN, CVS, Perforce

Operating Systems Linux, UNIX, Windows, macOS, iOS

Cloud Environments Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai, Rackspace

Software/Web Aspects Java, Python, Typescript, Salesforce, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TableTop.js, C++

Applications (selected) MS-Office, Google Docs, Adobe Photoshop, Visio, OmniGraffle, MS-Project, oXygen, XML Spy

SDLC Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Waterfall

CI/CD CodeClimate, Jenkins, Pivotal, GitHub Actions

Education & Credentials

Master of Business Administration (MBA) University of Miami Coral Gables, FL

Bachelor of Science in Microbiology University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI

Spanish spoken as a second language

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