Magdi “Mike” Odeh

IT Director

adkahv@r.postjobfree.com • 773-***-****

linkedin.com/in/magdi-odeh-a5797714 • Palos Heights, IL

Summary

Creative and innovative information systems director with 24+ years of demonstrated proficiency. Excellent interpersonal skills, written and verbal communication, and supervisory capacity. Proven experience challenging the status quo to effectively integrate IT and provide value to all lines of business. Familiarity with cloud services (VPC), data center orchestration, automation, SDI, VDI, security architecture, and ITSM. Strong organizational, financial, and analytical skills. Established skill designing, implementation and supporting enterprise-scale infrastructure platforms and ensuring the consistent delivery of reliable and quality systems.

Technical Proficiencies

Management Skills

Business Development, Architecture, Technical Expertise, customer Service, Project Management, software development, business Process, RFP, Vendor Management, Professional Development, Problem and Incident Management.

Enterprise Systems

Payment Processing, Automated Billing Systems, Customer Relationship Management (Microsoft CRM, Salesforce), Business Continuity Planning, Enterprise Resource Planning (Lawson, Workday, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics) SaaS

Cloud Computing

AWS (Azure, Auto Scaling, Lambda, Snow Family, Batch, Containers, ECs, EKS, Aurora, S3, CloudWatch, Managed Services, MonogDB, RDS, Workspace, IAM, Artifact, Secrets Manager, WAF, Data Lake) Azure (Data Lake, Cloud Services, AKS, Red Hat OpenShift, Databases, DevOps tools, Hybrid + Multicloud)

Product Management:

Scrum methodology, Agile methodology, Product Roadmaps, User Experience design, Product lifecycle management, Requirements gathering, Relationship management, DevOps, CI/CD Pipeline.

Databases

SQL, Oracle, MonogDB, Data Lake, MySQL

Career Experience

FHLBC – Federal Home Loan Bank Of Chicago, Chicago, IL 04/2013 – 12/2020

IT Support Manager, Assistant Director, 04/2017 – 12/2020

Managed 120+ critical applications serving 300+ member banks hosted on 3500+ cloud (AWS) servers. Directed IT Operations and oversaw, planned, and disbursed $5M budget, tracked and enforced deadlines. Performed database management duties and provided 24/7 support on critical processes. Created and executed AWS cross region High Availability and Disaster Recovery for applications and databases to ensure continuous service. Liaised with developers, users, and other teams. Supervised external vendors; negotiated contracts; created and delivered statements of work, RFPs, and RFQ; assessed work products and deliverables. Analyzed systems and hardware; tested security and vulnerabilities; created fixes and automated validation enforcement. Organized and led disaster recovery testing for infrastructure, software, and hardware. Researched customer issues and proposed resolutions based on perceived client needs. Reported, monitored, and resolved organization-wide IT outages. Tracked KPIs and other metrics to address and improve system availability and uptimes. Collaborated with internal and external support to solve system problems. Coached staff in management methodology, bank business, and policy; implemented training recommendations to improve staff performance. Established business continuity plans and conducted disaster recovery exercise to ensure vital systems and services were available and maintained within a 24-hour timeframe in the event of adverse physical condition.

Improved and build upon system hardening, vulnerability management, and automated validation and enforcement of baseline security standards using various orchestration and automation tools and platforms.

Spearheaded new DevOps initiative focused on Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD). Initialized and created support for bank’s first microservices architecture and container management.

Executed ticketing system process improvements and trained staff on new procedures, resulting in 40% reduction in ticket closure time and routing errors, .

Developed and managed the orchestration, provisioning, and operational automation practices and standards for operational purposes using tools such as Ansible. BMC Control-M, Chef and Jenkins.

Reduced overnight batch issues by 70% which resulted in a 90% Morning SLA availability of Systems.

IT Support Manager, Problem Management, 12/2015 – 04/2017

Created new IT problem management processes and deployed new procedures, including actionable deliverables, process roadmaps, and a resistance management plan to address problematic systems and users. Liaised regularly with senior leadership, team leads, and other key stakeholders. Managed user expectations with clear timelines and consistent processes. Developed new data categories to capture relevant metrics. Collated data and presented necessary results to senior managers and leadership.

Engaged key IT partners and Business stakeholders in monthly meetings to discuss, identify, educated and prioritize outages, trends and resolutions resulting in a reduction of reoccurring outages by 35%.

Built cross-functional relationship with business and technical teams; facilitated engagement through training, focused on creating a total quality, client-services oriented and issue resolution culture and empowering teams to drive change.

Researched and created new process to identify, evaluate, and classify all problem incidents and resolutions, reducing reoccurring outages by 35%.

IT Support Manager, Application Support, 04/2013 – 12/2015

Supervised 12 staff composing the Application Support team, responsible for maintaining 120 Enterprise applications, IT infrastructure (datacenter, network support, patching, remediation, and telecommunications), and cross-functional services. Created and applied new IT strategies. Enforced ITIL compliance in 24/7 IT operations. Physical and virtual environments included vSphere, Amazon Web Services, Citrix, Xendesktop, XenApp and WYSE thin clients. Monitored server health and upgrades to meet SLA. Oversaw company-wide hardware upkeep, including DEV machines, conference room equipment, desk phones, and network switches. Supervised external vendors and consultants; created and delivered statements of work, RFPs, and RFQ; assessed work products and deliverables. Contributed to planning sessions with senior leadership and advised on best practices and IT capabilities; developed new projects targeting Vision and strategic plan. Targeted continuous improvement in IT processes and efficiencies. Participated in Agile Scrum initiatives. Improved system capacities through redundancy at local and Geo levels.

Built and expanded the Application support team to manage over 120 enterprise applications including infrastructure all while providing 24/7 support and meeting 99.999% uptime and reducing multiple teams and costs. . .

Migrated multiple systems to AWS without interrupting business critical applications, resulting in 99.99% uptime.

Conceived and deployed departmental reorganization; relocated datacenter, databases, and help desk to adjacent locations; evaluated team members and assigned relevant staff based on complementary knowledge and technical skills.

Executed planning, design, and initialization of High Availability /Disaster Recovery contingency datacenter to upgrade system-wide dependability.

Chicago Community Trust, Chicago, IL 07/2007 – 04/2013

Manager of Support Services and Project Manager

Supervised 3 staff. Oversaw and maintained complete IT infrastructure, including A/V, helpdesk, telecommunications, and 24/7 user support. Created and administered new support systems for software updates, EDM, network patches, Cisco PoE Switches, firewalls, and application rollouts. Managed department budget planning and spending. Integrated IT systems. Installed and integrated new products such as SQL databases, Windows 7 & Office 2010 rollouts, VoIP phone systems, e-mail host migrations, and reconciliation of physical servers to virtual servers. Monitored system security. Supervised external vendors; negotiated contracts; created and delivered statements of work, RFPs, and RFQ; assessed work products and deliverables.

Created special database to interface with legacy Sybase database and integrate salesforce and other databases into a cohesive dataset.

Reduced SLA time and improved uptime to 99.9% building out a High Availability/Disaster Recovery plan.

Developed and deployed an image system process which reduced new systems deployments by 75% allowing IT staff to work on other projects and provide better customer service.

Additional Experience

Technology Support Specialist, Falkor Group, Chicago, IL

MIS Manager, Neopharm, Inc., Waukegan, IL

Desktop Support Lead, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Chicago, IL

Project Manager, ABN Amro, Chicago, IL

Technical Support Specialist and Tier III Helpdesk, IBM/Lucent Technologies, Lisle, IL

Desktop Support Specialist Tier III and Project Manager, NORC at University Of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Technical Support Tier II, Helpdesk, and Lan Admin, Acxiom, Inc., Chicago, IL

IT Manager and Network Administrator, Friedman Properties, Chicago, IL

IT Manager, MPI Media Group, Orland Park, IL

Computer Technician, PC Support, and Help Desk, Comp USA, Chicago, IL

Education

Master of Science in Information Technology

Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 2012

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, 2009

Professional Training

DevOps Implementation: DevOPs, 10/2019

Problem Management: Problem Management Institution, 10/2018

Licenses & Certifications

ITIL 4.0 Certified, PeopleSoft, 2019

ITIL 3.0 Certified, PeopleSoft, 2014

Lean Six Sigma White Belt, 2019

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