Harlan Thomas

Oak Park, Illinois ***** adaf30@r.postjobfree.com 708-***-**** linkedin.com/in/harlan-thomas/

IT Management Professional

Accomplished and visionary professional with extensive experience leading IT, project management, and service delivery processes. Stellar record of managing IT operations of global enterprises, leading cross-functional teams, identifying, mitigating, and reporting incidents, conducting root cause analysis, and implementing necessary counter measures. Instrumental in implementing IT systems and solutions, administering multi-million dollar budgets, overseeing multiple projects, defining and monitoring metrics, and achieving maximum customer satisfaction. Proven record of ensuring seamless organizational performance through exceptional management, communication, interpersonal, and problem solving skills. Proven expertise in:

Strategic Planning & Execution

Incident Management

Program & Contract Management

Vendors Relationship Management

Cost Minimization

Customer Service

IT Operations Management

Release Management

Quality Assurance & Control

Contracts Management

Performance Optimization

Technical Support

Change Management

Deployment Management

Strategic sourcing

Preventive Maintenance

Process Improvement

Team Training & Development

CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Saved $1.5M by spearheading banking automation projects of five banking systems.

Administered $1M worth OpEx and $2M worth CapEx IT budgets respectively.

Oversaw operations of mission critical application Risx-Facs, generating annual revenue worth 200M.

Improved critical system reliability to 100% by implementing $500K tech solutions, involving amelioration of antiquated SIPR network.

Expanded Service Desk service to 50 US states, UK, India, and Canada, increasing number customers from 4K to 20K+.

Automated department using electronic documents, storage, and automation software, improving efficiency and accuracy and reducing manual labor by 25%.

Enhanced customized reporting capabilities by shifting reporting infrastructure from Cognos Reporting Tool to a proprietary software.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

SMS Assist – Chicago, Illinois

Operations Analyst, 2019 to Present

Perform extensive, accurate analyses existing IT operations to collect data, develop solutions, and meet business needs.

Streamline processes by collaborating with cross-functional teams on identifying and resolving issues, formulating documents/reports, executing ad-hoc projects, and ensuring adherence to overall procedural standards. Achieve maximum customer satisfaction by maintaining congenial relationships with clients, responding promptly to client requests for services, and keeping accurate record of service procedures.

Key Contributions:

Displayed exceptional performance and resolved an average of 100 tickets per week.

Implemented relationship management best practices in overseeing 15 vendors.

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., Rolling Meadows, Illinois

Global IT Operations Manager, 2012 to 2019

Oversaw overall procedures, including budget administration, data analysis, performance evaluation, recruitment and training, ticket management, change management, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance.

Authorized to maintain IT systems as well as infrastructures, monitor daily claims, detect frauds, execute incident response plan, mitigate issues, establish and track vendor KPIs, formulate reports, and streamline processes. Collaborated with IT security team and service providers on IT infrastructure security and quality service provision respectively.

Key Contributions:

Reduced management costs by 17%, increased self-service usage by 28%, and improved IT and end user experience by devising and implementing service catalogs using Remedy and Service Now.

Authored and published KnowledgeBase templates and documentation requirements across IT Operations Department, increasing actionable documentation for critical systems by 90%.

Upgraded RMM system, increasing accuracy and reliability of alerting and reducing volume of tickets by 68%.

Improved vendor support by 15% through client contracts and agreement reconciliations.

Standardized internal/external customer support, streamlined operating procedures, saved 1K man-hours, and enhanced quality of customer service by reorganizing team.

Utilized automated technology to implement a practice that reduced downtime by 35% and increased reliability of systems.

Developed and implemented impeccable training-project plan for 25 Operations Analysts.

Oversaw five offshore resources.

Network Operations Center Manager, 2011 to 2012

Streamlined network processes by spearheading team of Network Operations Engineer, monitoring networks, managing systems, processing data, and performing network, hardware, and circuit troubleshooting.

Steered network optimization, conducted capacity planning, executed incident response plan, deployed network-monitoring, analysis, and reporting tools, evaluated performance, formulated reports, and complied with standards. Analyzed staff performance, proposed and implemented necessary changes, and provided guidance and training to staff.

Key Contribution:

Directed growth and development of Network Operations Center that increased shift coverage and cross-training opportunities for personnel by 50%.

Developed training and project plan for 20 Operations Analysts.

Led 24/7 global team, providing incident management and communication services to organizations and customers.

Reduced critical outages by 15% by developing metric reporting process, accurately identifying incident patterns, and acquiring valuable insight regarding client single points of failure and lack of redundancy.

Service Desk Manager, 2010 to 2011

Orchestrated and executed service desk procedural policies, oversaw service desk procedures, delivered 24/7 support on incidents and outages, and directed recruitment and training activities.

Defined performance goals, led service desk team, planned projects, allocated resources optimally, and monitored as well as evaluated service desk metrics and staff performance. Analyzed ticket trends, presented proposals and solutions, conducted root cause analysis, formulated necessary documents, responded to customer queries, and assisted with informed operational decision-making.

Key Contribution:

Steered operations of supporting customer base with 25K customers.

Resolved an average of 2K tickets monthly.

Increased first call resolution from 60% to 85% and Tier 2 effectiveness by authoring ITIL-compliant SOPs and OLAs for Tier 2 incident response, resolution, and escalation, while collaborating with Tier 3 engineers.

Displayed exceptional team leadership and guidance on managing ~800 support calls per week and achieving 94.5% satisfaction rate consistently for two years.

Enhanced team skillset by implementing training best practices, reducing average talk time from 13 minutes and 46 seconds to 9 minutes and 47 seconds.

Managed level-3 staff of five employees and Indian offshore level-2 staff of 35 people.

Additional experience as Data Technical Lead Coordinator at Verizon Wireless

EDUCATION & CREDENTIALS

Master in Business Administration Master in Project Management – Keller Graduate School – Chicago, Illinois

Bachelor in Business Administration – Devry University – Chicago, Illinois

Certificates:

Leadership Essentials & Risk Management – Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

IT Service Management – People Certified ITIL Foundation

Technical Skills:

Batch Processing UNIX Network Troubleshooting Cognos Reporting Tool Remedy HP Non-Stop Servers ServiceNow Jira SAS SAP Citrix Microsoft Exchange Microsoft Servers 2012, 2016 Active Batch Work Flow Automation Software Microsoft Active Directory IBM Gentran EDI Software Microsoft SharePoint Concur Expense Software SalesForce Software Microsoft SCOM Microsoft SCCM Cisco VPN Cisco CUCM Cisco Anyconnect Amazon Connect Verint Work Force Optimization Software Playvox Work Force Management Software IEX Total View Work Force Management Software Microsoft Project Microsoft Hyper V Cyber Ark Security Software Shadowbase Data Replication Software LogMeInRescue - Remote Support Software

Key Projects:

Email Migration of 30K users Automated Software Implementation Enterprise-wide Server Update

Office Migration ORION Implementation for Service Level Monitoring Quarterly Software Upgrades

FTP Utility Upgrade Implemented Service Organizational Control 2 (SOC2) Application Migration Project

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