Officer Client Services

CATHERINE G. WOODS

Seattle, WA 206-***-**** *********@*****.*** www.linkedin.com/in/catherinewoods

Senior Client Services & Operations

Core Competencies

Dynamic Leadership

Strategy Development/execution

Cross-functional team leadership

Change Management

Talent Development

Cost, Quality of Service

Customer value balance

Core Commitments

Alignment of service and operational practices to customer expectations

Continuous improvement

Data-Driven decision making

An Advocate for the customer voice

Achievements at Apex Learning

Awarded the Cheryl Vedoe Impact Award, the highest accolade in the company, based on recommendation by the sales team for demonstrating an unwavering commitment to client success and sales effectiveness.

Successfully scaled support, client operations and fulfillment teams with limited increase in staffing

Partnered with the development team to deliver a new back-end system to meet the changing business and client expectations.

Established an employee development model placing over 20 employees in growth positions within the company

Partnered with the Chief Academic Officer to support the ALVS rebranding, services and operational program development resulting in exponential growth of the private school/consumer offerings.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

HOLLAND AMERICA Manager Operations Support Feb 2018 – June 2020

Responsible for leading a team of operations specialists tasked with building the assets required to ensure that our guests and travel advisors can market and sell Holland America and Seabourn cruises.

•Partnering with Global Marketing, Revenue Management, Guest Services and Groups departments to ensure the promotions we develop align with the expectation of the business and are available for our partner travel advisors through various API systems as well as on the Holland America and Seabourn websites allowing our consumers to book directly. Responsible for leading a dynamic team focusing on ensuring a staffing model focused on promoting individual skill development, career ownership, and accountability for individual/team performance across the organization.

APEX LEARNING Director, Virtual School Business Unit 2014 – Jan 2017

Assigned to take over leadership of one of the company’s most innovative and high-profile programs, their “Virtual School” entity, which provides educational services to over 10,000 students across the US and globally.

•Partnered with the Chief Academic Officer to drive a complete overhaul of the institution—including launch of a new consumer business line, completion of a total rebranding effort, and the rollout of a new service model that led to exponential growth of the private school’s consumer and institutional business lines achieving 6% growth of company revenue contribution while increasing margins by 10%

•Managed the School’s $3M annual budget, ensured alignment with overall strategic objectives, and held ownership of all consumer channel development and growth activities

•Sourced the internal funding/resources needed to develop a series of breakthrough new tools and reporting options that led to over $30K in annual cost savings, decreased risk, and reduced employee frustration

•Enhanced team morale and engagement through positive leadership, clear communications, employee advocacy, and the creation of new professional and leadership development opportunities

•Achieved 90% annual client satisfaction ratings through development of a service-focused culture

APEX LEARNING Director, Operations & Technical Support 2006 – 2014

Recruited to this Paul Allen-backed company to help develop a service-focused culture and build out the operational processes/procedures/systems needed to help the company provide high levels of service at scale.

•Initially hired solely to manage the customer support team; rapidly promoted to full Director of Operations role and tasked with helping manage Apex Learning’s rapid expansion

•Established a series of new metrics/KPIs to monitor and evaluate service metrics, case origins and types; used data to champion creative solution development, improved workflows, and team structure

•Scaled all critical support, client operations, and fulfillment functions to handle growing client needs—despite limited increases in resources/staffing

•Instituted an innovative employee development and staffing model focused on promoting individual skill development, career ownership, and accountability for individual/team performance across the organization. Encouraged and established an ongoing mentorship for entry level team members interested in moving into other departments to provide growth opportunities including IT, Product Development, HR, Finance, Marketing and Data Analytics.

•In partnership with Development team, defined the requirements for a new back-end system to support improved client delivery and substantially reduce fulfillment costs; this innovative approach reduced complexity, provided improved ability to customize solutions to client needs, and resulted in higher client satisfaction rates

•Demonstrated a keen awareness of the “customer experience” and successfully advocated for numerous new product features and service improvements aimed at improving overall product usability

EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

BA Degree, Politics & Government University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA)

Completion of additional training and professional development courses in Effective Employee Performance.

Managing Stress & Change in the Workplace; Executive Coaching & Management; Work Group Education; Team

Building Skills for Managers & Supervisors; and Statistical Process Control (SPC)

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