Santhosh Dharma

adl8c1@r.postjobfree.com 207-***-****(M)

US Citizen

Summary

Over 22+ years of progressive IT experience in global delivery, account, program management, operations, consulting, leadership & farming, with the history of being a trusted adviser/consultant to senior leadership. Demonstrated the ability to work, collaborate & succeed in complex fast-paced organizations, developing solutions to complex problems, building strong relationships & creating value for Fortune 500 clients in Insurance, financial services, auto parts, transportation, diversified, magazine fulfillment & State Government client engagements.

Areas of Expertise

Account/Engagement Management

P&L management

Due Diligence, Proposals & Sales

Program & Project Management

Strategic IT Planning

Custom Software Development

Resource Management

ITSM Implementation

Disaster/Business continuity

Testing/QA/Rollout/Support

Engagement Governance

Release Management

Agile & Waterfall Methodologies

Vendor Management

Systems Migration/Integration

Capacity Planning & Estimation

Team Building & Mentoring

SOX, HIPAA, ISO, PCI

Leadership, and Process and Methodology Development

Experience in managing change through leadership on large programs and projects, helping businesses meet their objectives through IT transformation.

Proven leadership in the implementation of improved process and technology initiatives across the organization - function as a change catalyst for process improvements.

Excellent negotiation and influencing skills, and the ability to develop long-lasting relationships with client leadership.

Experience leading and managing in complex business environments.

Experience in CMMi Level 5/SOCII assessment and certification program, helping clients mature their business and IT processes.

Experience Highlights

Managed and executed Application Managed Services (AMS) engagements in excess of $10M Yearly P&L.

Led the Application Modernization and consolidations for Individual, Group and Voluntary business systems, which was a result of Mergers and Acquisition at a large disability insurance services provider.

Excellent analytical skills and the ability to translate complex business information into meaningful insights.

Collaborate with the business stakeholders on business strategy, OLA and SLA goal setting, and improvements. Projects that I have led and managed have resulted in SLA improvements, defect, and job failure reductions greater than 10% against benchmarks

Strong background in managing the business and IT programs using standardized methodologies (Waterfall, Iterative and Agile) adapted to meet the needs of the organization.

Ability to make detailed assessments of technology, operations, and infrastructure.

Implemented organizational and operational changes that resulted in 5% cost reduction year-over-year.

Managed up to 240 applications online and batch cycles support, SLA management, RCA & Service Improvement Plans.

Instrumental in setting up an Incident Management, Request Fulfillment Center, Problem Management & shared services processes.

The ability to prioritize effectively on projects and the skills to adapt quickly to new challenges and concepts.

Significant experience in Application Managed Services (AMS) has resulted in driving pursuit wins.

Conceive and manage capacity Plans and monitor utilization trends.

Professional Certification & Recognitions:

PMP Project Management Professional from Project Management Institute (PMI)

CSM Certified Scrum Master® from Scrum Alliance

Six Sigma Black Belt Certified from Expert Rating

ITIL v2011 Foundation Certified from Loyalist

Internal Auditor Certified for ISO 9000 from QAI

Dynatrace Partner Foundation & Control-Up Foundation certified

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Business and Technical Accreditation

Recognized by Covansys CEO for representing SQA, SCM Process owner in SEI CMMi Level 5 assessment

Recognized by Scicom CEO & EVP for leading Scicom SOCII certification

Professional Experience

Employer: Scicom Infrastructure Services Inc. 1/2019-Current

Employer: IRIS Software Inc., USA 11/2016-1/2019

Employer: Computer Science Corporation (CSC) USA 6/2001–8/2016

Employer: Covansys Corp Chennai, India 10/1997–6/2001

Clients: Leading Bank in South East, Auto parts & Transportation 1/2019 – To Date

Role: Director – Enterprise Delivery, Outsourcing & Pre-Sales

Responsible for managing end to end delivery of managed services engagements & Provide leadership for the Enterprise Command Center function to ensure that critical systems are monitored 24x7 and Incidents and Problems are managed effectively for Fortune 500 companies.

Published an Article on “Command and Control Center – Best Practices”

Link for the article

Establish & Manage Network Operations Center/Command & Control Centers to manage Alerts, Incidents and Problems

Help Implement Industry leading Application, Server & Network monitoring tools for setting up an “Eyes on Glass” Infrastructure

Ensure enterprise-wide system availability through monitoring all applications and systems, leading efforts to recover systems experiencing outages or degradation of service, and leading efforts to resolve re-occurring system issues across the enterprise

Lead and managed 3 Incident Managers & 30-member team who are responsible for providing Help Desk, L1, L2 & L3 Infrastructure and Application Support

Provide effective team leadership, including information flow to and from operations during project work

Ensure adherence to IT methodologies, processes, and standards for providing continued Operations support

Monitor and report progress on business readiness targets, business engagement activity, training design and deployment activities, key operational metrics and return to productivity measures

Responsible for Identify skills gap & develop staffing plans to address training opportunities

Perform Appraisals and provide feedback, development goals & coaching on a regular basis

Manage the Major Incident & RCA process

Responsible for SLA’s and KPI’s

Design reporting standards for management on the Alerts/Incidents and Continuous improvement activities

Lead the SOCII certification effort working with the certification vendor

Responsible for all Pre-Sales/Solutioning, Transition and Steady State Operations for any new client Onboarding

Client: Big 4-Ernst and Young, Alpharetta GA 11/2016 – 1/2019

Role: Transition & Deployment Management – Service Delivery Global Markets Portfolio

Responsible for Transition & Deployment Management of Brand Marketing & Communications, Corporate Responsibility, and Business Development & Knowledge Portfolio programs/projects using Waterfall & SAFe Agile methodology.

Conducted a transition impact assessment and liaison with business and IT partners on creating and managing a transition plan to ensure a smooth and successful deployment of solution into production.

Led the assessment, analysis, development, documentation, risk, and implementation of changes based on request for change.

Crafted IT Operating model and align with the business operating model.

Analyze business process to review & present RPA (Remote Process Automation) business proposals.

Provide effective team leadership, including information flow to and from operations during project work using MS Project

Coordinate the business readiness plan, taking into consideration IT deployment, data migration, capability deployment (training and engagement activities) and any activities required to integrate new processes into the “business as usual” environment.

Co-ordinate and monitor the effectiveness of installations and de-installations of hardware and/or software.

Ensure adherence to IT methodologies, processes and standards for transition planning and support.

Develop implementation plans for dealing with complex requests for change, evaluate risks inherent in proposed implementations, and review the effectiveness of change implementation.

Assist the user community in the provision of transition support and change planning.

Monitor and report progress on business readiness targets, business engagement activity, training design and deployment activities, key operational metrics and return to productivity measures.

Client: A leading provider of payment solutions across industries including Fleet, Travel, Corporate, and Health & Employee Benefits 1/2015–8/2016

Role: Account Engagement Manager/Service Delivery Manager

Managed Multi-million Application Managed Services (AMS) portfolio with accountability across Program Management, Client and Senior Executive Stakeholder management, and Technology & Service Level Management.

Led due diligence, knowledge transition activities, along with the planning and execution of transition of ownership of more than 150 IT applications across multiple business lines and technologies.

Assessed client needs and expectations. Delivered creative solutions and managed operations to the client’s satisfaction. Tracking and reporting the projects using MS Project

Defined and implemented the governance structure needed for efficient communication, collaboration, and success.

Provided Service Delivery of IT solutions for all aspects of the contracted applications, by measuring performance metrics, and reporting to Executive Steering Committees. Monitored metrics for significant deviations in quality, cost or schedule.

Accountable for Software Development, Enhancements, and Application Support Maintenance.

Responsible for end to end management of support activities - Break Fix, Business Support, Infrastructure Changes, Disaster/Business continuity management, Quality Assurance and IT Operational Support.

Led initiatives in Regulatory/Risk Management and compliance -SOX, HIPAA, and PCI Compliance.

Collaborated with the client on adopting and executing against the appropriate project delivery methodologies (Agile and Waterfall).

Successfully collaborated with client’s IT management team in budgetary allocations for the CSC teams.

Provide inputs to the Sales / Marketing teams for RFP response and participated in contract negotiations, resulting in additional value-added services provided to the client.

Achieved Incident & Problem ticket reduction by 20% within 6 months after Steady State cutover.

Supervised, coached & mentored 10 Onsite and 30 offshore resources, and conducted performance reviews.

Client: A leading provider of disability, life, accident, critical illness, dental & vision insurance accessible in the workplace

Role: Service Delivery Manager & Program Management 1/2006-12/2014

Managed Multi-million Application Managed Services (AMS) portfolio with accountability across Program Management, Client and Senior Executive Stakeholder management, and Technology & Service Level Management.

Led due diligence, knowledge transition activities, along with the planning and execution of transition of ownership of more than 240 IT applications across multiple business lines and technologies.

Led account operations that include - Project setup, Initiate, prepare, follow-up of SOW for renewal, client invoicing & receivables.

Accountable for Software Development, Enhancements, and Application Support Maintenance.

Responsible for end to end management of support activities - Break Fix, Business Support, Infrastructure Changes, Disaster/Business continuity management, Quality Assurance and IT Operational Support.

Led initiatives in Regulatory/Risk Management and compliance –SOX and HIPAA compliance.

Provided Service Delivery of IT solutions for all aspects of the contracted applications, by measuring performance metrics, and reporting to Executive Steering Committees. Monitored metrics for significant deviations in quality, cost or schedule.

Partnered with IT & Business leaders in OLA, SLA goal setting

Accountable for meeting/exceeding the contractually obligated OLA’s & SLA set in the SOW.

Led the setup of ITIL (Incident, Request fulfillment, Problem, Knowledge management processes & teams).

Accomplishments from Continuous Improvement Initiatives and Optimization activities.

oSpearheaded reduction of abend ratio 10% YOY.

oAchieved 99.53% application On-time availability SLA against a benchmark of 94%.

oOptimize ratio of Onsite-Offshore resources to 10:90% from 70:30%.

Collaborated datacenter power outage and disaster recovery situations.

Supervised, coached & mentored 8 Onsite and 59 offshore resources, and conducted performance reviews.

Partnered with US, Ireland & India teams to execute the projects in “Follow the Sun” Model.

Identified Single point of failure (SPOF) and planned for backups.

Analyzed complex problems, provided solutions, and took critical decisions on application operations, data processing.

Received multiple recognitions for strong customer focus.

Role: Program Management: Managed and executed Multi-Million Dollar Program that included the following projects from Inception to Implementation.

oIndividual Long-Term Care (ILTC) Rate Increase Projects 5 phases from 2006-2014.

oTwelve successful applications Technology Conversions and upgrades from VB6 to C# & 2 ASP to ASP.NET.

oApplication Modernization for Individual, Group & Voluntary business systems that resulted due to a Merger.

oWindows platform upgrades and Distribution Support System (DSS) User Interface Modernization.

Collaborated with the Product Owner in the Scrum Master role for ILTC Rate Increase and DSS UI Projects.

Led the architecture design for ILTC Rate Increase Projects & SME for 20 Applications.

Led project risk assessments and defined acceptance criteria; balance project needs and operational support needs.

Reported status, metrics, and impact assessments to Client & CSC executive leadership.

Led, mentored, and monitored 5-30 project team members.

Identified appropriate resources and staffing needs to align with project trends and project requirements.

Ensured all projects were delivered within budget, cost, and schedule

Client: A leading Property & Casualty Insurance provider 2/2003-1/2006

Role: Quality Assurance Manager

Convergence is a business integration activity to migrate all the policies from the existing policy systems (Direct, e-Commerce & Agency) into a new GPLUS product.

Designed QA methodology (Integration testing Regression testing, Performance testing, UAT testing)

Developed an automated tool to produce reports on test coverage for CIO, to aid in making quick GO LIVE decisions.

Facilitated the defect review meetings with Development, Operations, QA & UAT team.

Led the gap analysis on Business Specifications Packages (BSP).

Instrumental in deciding on run dates, execution plan & resource plan for accelerated state rollout release testing which resulted in successful implementation of 40 states in 3 years span.

Coordinated and implemented Department of Insurance (DOI) approved rates as per BSP in IT/QA & UAT environments.

Reviewed the test policies that were a result of the Individual testing status report using ADABAS Queries.

The business functionality that I had documented was formalized by client HR to be used for new employee Induction.

Managed Multi-Vendor teams and a team of 25 onsite team members.

Clients: A leading Property & Casualty Insurance provider, and a leading Media company, and Multiple Government clients across areas such as justice and labor 10/1997-2/2003

Project management, requirements analysis, software development, and testing.

Education and Affiliations:

Bachelor’s in engineering – Computer Technology, Nagpur University India

Certificate in Negotiating, Strategic Thinking, tactics, and skills, from e-Cornell University

Languages and Tools

Project Management Tools MS Project 2010, Office 365, Clarity

Monitoring & AI Tools AppDynamics, Solarwinds, Nagios, Extra Hop, BigPanda

CRM Salesforce

ITSM Tools IBM Tivoli, ServiceNow

ETL, BI & Modelling Tools Talend 5.5, Tableau 9.1, Micro-strategy, Erwin

HR tools Workday, Taleo, and Beeline Vendor Management System

Databases DB2, Oracle, ADABAS, Teradata, SQL Server

Reqs, Test & Defect Management Quality Center, Win runner, Load runner, Quick test Professional, JIRA and Confluence

Change Management Visual Source Safe, TFS, Endeavor, Librarian, Change Man, SCLM, Jenkins

Transaction Mechanisms CICS, TSO/ISPF, VSE/CICS, CMS, IBM MQ Series

Languages COBOL, JCL, C#, VB6, SQL, Telon, Easytrieve, VSE/JCL, SAS, CLIST, Natural, DYL,

JAVA, J2EE, Spring & Hibernate, API’s (REST & SOAP)

Web/Application Servers Tomcat, JBOSS

GUI/Utilities Xpeditor, File-Aid, Intertest, Smart test, Platinum, Pro-edit, Toad, Trace Master, Insync, QMF

Operating Systems/Hardware OS/390, MVS/ESA, DOS/VSE, WINDOWS, UNIX/IBM 370/390

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