Stavan Desai

Plano, TX ***** adeeun@r.postjobfree.com Cell: 972-***-**** www.linkedin.com/in/stavand

SUMMARY

Experienced IT Project Manager and Systems/Business Analyst with over 9+ years of proven success bringing technology-based solutions from conception through completion to drive significant cost savings, propel efficiency, and achieve ambitious business goals. Creative problem solver integrating Agile methodologies to optimize results, while working collaboratively with cross-functional teams. Results-oriented professional eager to advance business acumen and knowledge to revolutionize performance at leading organizations by steering advancements in global technology services and operations.

SKILLS

Project/Program Management

System Implementations

Change Management

Risk Management

Vendor Management

Business Analysis

Data Analysis & Modeling

Product Management

Technology Consulting

Strategic Planning

Salesforce.com

SDLC Methodologies (Agile/Waterfall)

Microsoft Office Suite/O365

Smartsheets, QuickBase

JIRA, Intranet systems, SQL

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

HILTON (CARROLLTON, TX) Oct 2015 – Jun 2020

Implementation Project Manager, Global Deployment and Change Management

Led more than 325 Salesforce.com based Sales Systems implementation and hotel transition projects.

Managed the successful transition of home-grown Sales System platform project impacting 1200+ hotels.

Increased the project execution rate by 67% leading to improved team and customer success globally.

Engineered and successfully implemented the Agile Scrum framework within Hilton Global Deployment team.

Lead end to end system transitions and implementations starting from Pre-Sales, Sales, Implementation and Support.

Spearhead implementation of multiple project/program initiatives, collaborating with cross-functional teams and resources to achieve program and project milestones within established timeframes and budgets.

Collaborate with project managers, scrum masters, stakeholders and product owners to ensure the solution meets the product vision and business objectives and goals.

Ensure consistent visibility for program and project teams by monitoring and reporting business objectives, program/project achievements, and key indicators.

Communicate with stakeholders and executive/senior management and provide insight on issues and resolutions.

Lead the Change Management and Risk Management workshops for upcoming system releases and updates.

Work closely with Customers and Stakeholders on pre-sales, consultation services and portfolio transitions.

Collaborate with the Vendors teams on various projects including quotations, addressing issues and concerns.

Serve as a liaison between Hotels, multiple Internal teams, Vendors and Support to resolve identified issues.

Train new team members on the end-to-end Salesforce.com based Sales System implementation process.

Managed testing that includes preparing Test Plans, conducting actual Testing and UAT sessions.

Use MS Excel features like Pivot Tables, Vlookups, Charts and Formulas to provide weekly and ad-hoc reporting.

Track issues in JIRA to and coordinate the activities within the team.

Lead and coach the project team as appropriate and according to the needs of the individual project.

Develop and maintain effective and proactive relationships with all customers including suppliers and third parties.

Use MS Visio to design System Flow Charts/Diagrams and Business Process Models.

Great team player, experience working with culturally diverse teams and with offshore teams.

Recognized for excellent communication, people skills, project management capability, and the ability to successfully influence and drive consensus across cross-functional teams.

Defined data requirements, data validation and dashboard creation for metrics reporting to senior leadership.

BLACKHAWK NETWORK (LEWISVILLE, TX) Jun 2015 – Oct 2015

Systems Analyst III, Systems Analysis

Led Agile Scrum ceremonies like Backlog Grooming, Sprint Planning, Review, Daily Stand-ups and Retrospectives.

Conducted Sprint retrospectives and capture action items for continuous improvement with future sprint cycles.

Managed the sprint cycle and prepare/participate in Release Planning.

Collaborated with stakeholders, product owners, and users to define system, financial, and operations requirements.

Designed Statement of Work (SOW) by collaborating with Business Teams on project requirements and scope.

Drafted and presented the Level of Efforts (LOEs), Costs and Budgets by collaborating with Technical teams.

Maintained Agile Development Artifacts (Backlog Use Cases, Tasks, etc.) using JIRA, Smartsheets and Intranet tools.

Actively involved in coordinating the UAT to Sign-off for various phases of testing cycle such as Functional, Regression, GUI, Backend, Integration and testing.

Collaborated with teams to support the Project Deployment and Production Go-Live for the customers.

HILTON (CARROLLTON, TX) Jan 2012 – Jun 2015

Business Analyst, Technology Planning Sales

Managed Salesforce.com global field-test project and provide weekly updates to leadership and stakeholders.

Served as Salesforce.com Administrator managing users, creating Objects, Workflows, Validation Rules, Report Types and Actual Reports based on customer need

Spearheaded system and integration workshop leading to improved Lead/RFP tracking and revenue reporting.

Coordinated with multiple teams to develop business and functional requirement documents (BRDs and FRDs).

Analyzed data that involves maintaining information for more than 4,300 hotels globally on a regular basis.

Tracked project costs and budget by interacting with the project director and finance department.

Designed Agile user stories and requirements for a project to automate the current manual processes.

Coordinated User Acceptance Testing (UAT), test plans and acceptance criteria creation for testing teams.

Advanced MS Excel features to perform and present data analysis and reporting.

Use MS PowerPoint extensively to create slides and present those to appropriate Business and IT teams.

Use MS SharePoint for several projects to manage documents and create required views, lists, dashboards, etc.

BLACKBERRY (REDWOOD CITY, CA) Jun 2011 - Aug 2011

Associate Product Manager – Student

Responsible for gathering and documenting business requirements in an easy to understand format.

Documented and maintained Business Requirements Document (BRD) throughout the life cycle of project.

Conducted GAP analysis, Forecasting, ROI analysis, SWOT analysis, Cost benefit analysis and Competitive Analysis.

Consolidated application feedback from customers and accordingly communicated with several internal teams.

Coordinated and managed tasks between different stakeholders in Blackberry Product Migration.

Interviewed business area SME and carefully recorded the requirements in a format that can be reviewed and understood by both users and the technical team.

UT DALLAS (RICHARDSON, TX) Jan 2010 – Jun 2011, Aug 2011 – Dec 2011

Research Assistant

Performed analysis and market research to support a new Bachelor of Science in SCM degree proposal.

Managed several projects related to marketing and web for Supply Chain Management (SCM) Programs.

Coordinated project activities and tasks for student workers and volunteers for efficiency and effectiveness.

Managed and coordinated all activities related to organizing the SCM Director’s conference held at UT Dallas.

Extensively used MS Excel and MS PowerPoint to prepare charts and presentations based on requirements.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

Hospitality & Tourism Management, Florida Atlantic University 2020

SAP® Business Associate, Certification ID: 852****-****

MS Information Technology Management, University of Texas at Dallas 2011

BE Computer Science, Visvesvaraya Technological University (AIT), India 2009

AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS

Received Hilton CTO Recognition for ‘Going The Extra Mile’.

Received multiple Blackhawk Network ‘Above and Beyond’ recognitions from the Company President and CFO.

Received multiple ‘Catch me at my best’ recognitions from several team members at Hilton.

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