Director of IT, Vice President of IT, Vice President of Infrastructure

RICK PARDO

Austin, TX – ****.******@*****.*** – 202-***-**** – https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickpardo/

Accomplished IT leader with a proven track record of aligning technology strategy with business objectives, driving significant cost savings, and leading successful digital transformations. Expertise in cloud migration, cybersecurity, and infrastructure optimization. Adept at building strong cross-functional relationships and securing executive buy-in for strategic initiatives.

Work Experience

CDK Global – Austin, TX

IT Business Partner (Group IT Director) March 2021 – Present

I lead operations, infrastructure, and cybersecurity for a $650M revenue business unit, aligning technology with business goals. In close collaboration with business partners and other executives, we implement technology solutions that reduce operational costs, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive business value by optimizing resource allocation.

- I champion innovation and change by fostering a collaborative environment that encourages open dialogue, creativity, and experimentation.

- Primary stakeholder for the Drive Dealer Management System project portfolio.

- Reduced annual AWS spend by $3M by implementing a right-sizing program that had no impact on engineering operations or customer experience.

- Modernized CDK's product data retention policy, reducing combined annual CapEx/OpEx by $2M, which created the product’s cloud migration and modernization budget.

- Led the team that achieved the company's first SOC2 certification for the Drive Dealer Management System platform, enabling sales opportunities with publicly traded dealer groups, and guided the product team through a successful SoX audit.

- Steering committee member and project sponsor for the transformation of the product to a cloud-first, microservices-based architecture in AWS.

- I lead development of impactful business cases, clearly presenting the vision and workflows of proposed solutions to secure executive buy-in and facilitate successful implementation.

Cray Inc – Austin, TX

Director of Information Security & Strategic Initiatives March 2015 – March 2021

As second-in-command IT Leader, oversaw IT operations for business units across five continents, managing an $18M annual budget. Successfully project managed the integration of Seagate ClusterStor into Cray, and then Cray into HPE, ensuring a seamless transition of IT services to HPE shared services.

- Drove IT innovation by migrating corporate services to a cloud-based infrastructure (Azure, O365) and implementing a remote-first mobile computing strategy, resulting in a 40% reduction in CapEx.

- Oversaw all IT operations, including financial planning, security, risk management, and vendor relationships.

- Reduced security vulnerability scores by 80% by implementing the "Top 5" program, which focused on addressing the five most critical vulnerabilities each sprint. This, combined with three staff changes to streamline the vulnerability remediation, significantly improved our security posture.

- Improved endpoint security by 75% and collaborated with Help Desk and HR to develop a just-in-time provisioning process for new hire onboarding, modernizing our previous employee onboarding process and streamlining PC lifecycle management.

- Appointed to the due diligence team for the Seagate ClusterStor acquisition, leading the integration of their 120-person team and product assets. Proactively resolved critical integration challenges, preventing an estimated quarter in potential delays and ensuring the seamless transfer of IP, including high-performance Lustre file system code repositories and 10ish petabytes of data.

- Developed standardized infrastructure-as-code frameworks, reducing infrastructure setup time by 40%. Created a solution architect position to proactively address integration challenges, leading to the successful in-house development of a new CPQ process within budget and on schedule, avoiding an estimated $250k in potential vendor partner cost overruns, based on vendor quotes.

AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP – Washington, DC

Program Manager June 2011 – March 2015

Through subordinate project managers, I defined strategy, allocated resources, managed risks, and tracked progress of a $10 million project portfolio, impacting 50,000 global users. My assigned responsibility areas were Acquisition Integration, Capital Investment Planning, Business Continuity, and Life-Cycle Management.

- Restored IT functions back in-house from and managed service provider by mapping out repeatable system migrations from IBM data centers into the company’s platform while maintaining FDA CFR Part 11 and HIPAA compliance.

- Re-launched a languishing $6 million business continuity project by intervening to resolve philosophical differences between sponsors (IT Ops/Cyber) by finding common ground and delivering the first business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) program for AstraZeneca’s US Business.

- Appointed to conduct technical (IT) due diligence for AstraZeneca’s $225M Amplimmune acquisition that resulted in the seamless integration of the incoming staff and the product line into AstraZeneca’s drug development pipeline. Safely and securely transferred 450 Terabytes of clinical data.

- Through data analysis, I secured $2.8M in combined CapEx/OpEx reductions by implementing a right-sizing program that leveraged cloud technologies and reduced the server count by 10% and boosted application performance by up to 200%.

- Project manager responsible for transferring IT engineering and Operations out of the US and UK to a consolidated support center in Chennai, India. I hired the team, facilitated knowledge transfer, helped design the service acceptance process, and coordinated the cutover to fully support AZ out of India.

Booz Allen Hamilton – Washington, DC

Management Consultant June 2009 – June 2011

- Generated $2 million in follow-on sales by cultivating strong relationships with client partners, proactively identifying opportunities to expand existing strategy engagements into implementation projects.

- Project manager for a client’s first ever digital transformation from traditional on-premises managed systems to use of cloud-based technologies (BAH proprietary).

Education and Certifications

MS in Management of Information Technology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

BA in Information Technology, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)

Project Management Professional (PMP)

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