Wende Pogust

*** **** **** **, *** ***, Stamford, CT 06902 914-***-**** adwbfu@r.postjobfree.com www.linkedin.com/in/wende-pogust

SENIOR BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMIZATION LEADER

Demonstrated expertise in evaluating, designing, and implementing innovative, transformed, and optimized processes

Accomplished, strategic, and forward-thinking operations, transformation, and optimization executive with a history of successfully achieving greater efficiency, cost optimization, risk mitigation, and customer/investor satisfaction

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT 2019 - Present

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center - Housing & Facilities Management

Evaluated, designed, implemented, and documented operational processes to innovatively transform SKI Realty, Inc. processes, inclusive of business processes within MSK and externally.

Hines

Established the Standard Operating Procedures for a 14-property portfolio.

RXR Realty

Optimized the subcontractor invoicing process.

Suffolk Construction Company

Established the framework to develop, review, publish, and control the company’s Standard Operating Procedures

Documented the end-to-end operational processes.

Identified gaps to the existing Standard Operating Procedures.

Designed and implementation of the Suffolk Business Systems Framework.

NUVEEN REAL ESTATE AMERICAS, A TIAA COMPANY 2007 – 2019

Senior Director – Head of Investment Governance and Operations

Directed the operations of Nuveen Real Estate Americas, including managing internal business processes, creating policies and procedures, transforming processes, mentoring, and implementing process management systems and analytics.

Managed the operation and governance of Nuveen Real Estate America’s equity investment processes.

Created and chaired the Nuveen Real Estate Operating Committee, a group of senior leaders from the supporting areas, such as Risk, Compliance, IT, Marketing, Products, Distributions, HR and Finance to work collectively and cross-functionally to manage operational initiatives and issues inherent in a shared services environment.

Co-led the creation of a Property Management Governance program, which provides oversight to the third-party property management firms managing the day-to-day operations of Nuveen Real Estate managed investments resulting in improved operational performance and value creation of $250 million over the program’s first 10 years.

Managed the Property Management Governance Program, the Operating Committee, compliance tracking and reporting, business analytics, mentoring, and scorecards.

Owned the asset allocation process for both equity and debt transactions to ensure transaction allocations to funds are fair, transparent and equitable.

Developed risk assessments and mitigation plans for each area of Nuveen Real Estate Americas.

Led a project that transformed the process for creating property level budgeting and asset planning, focusing on the strategic plans of the ownership fund which led to a cycle time reduction of 50%.

Led process discussions during prospective investor Due Diligence.

Member of the integration team of TIAA, Nuveen and Henderson Real Estate forming Nuveen Real Estate.

THE AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY 2006

VP Controller Operations

Strengthened SOX compliance through implementation of process management and comprehensive project management oversight and leadership for strategic controllership initiatives.

Enabled and managed a multi-national cross-functional team to regain $6 millions of tax revenue lost when a significant SOX deficiency was identified.

Wende Pogust adwbfu@r.postjobfree.com 914-***-**** Page Two

GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 2000 – 2006

NBC Universal - Six Sigma Master Black Belt (2005 - 2006)

Managed process improvement teams within the Commercial Advertisement Sales organization.

Realized improvements in the areas of account receivables, marketing, pricing and billing resulting in a reduction in both cycle time and errors.

Corporate champion of the Net Promoter Score initiative, a program to collect customer feedback and act on issues negatively effecting customer relationships.

Commercial Finance, Real Estate - Six Sigma Master Black Belt (2000 - 2005)

Supervised operations, e-Business, Quality, Sourcing, Compliance, Law, and client project teams in the areas of process management and process improvement as related to the Real Estate Financing business.

Created risk assessments and mitigation plans for core real estate applications.

Designed and implemented offerings, processes and application deployment initiatives for real estate customers.

Managed an external project to improve the Resident Qualification process for a multi-family housing firm, leading to a 60% reduction in habitual late payments and defaults.

Provided Six Sigma leadership and expertise throughout the organization by mentoring/managing and certifying senior leadership, Master Black Belts, Black Belts, Green Belts and Subject Matter Experts.

CITIBANK, NA 1990 – 2000

Vice President - Application Development and Implementation Services

Directed team leaders tasked with process improvement and transformation initiatives. Partnered with project sponsors and champions in selecting projects and teams.

Ran system design and development and reviewed government, corporate and business policies.

Managed the re-engineering project of travel and expense practices, processes and applications for a major financial services company, significantly decreasing annual processing costs by over $3 million and reducing expense report processing cycle time by 80%.

Championed, designed, and executed a global Facilities Management System centralizing the real estate inventory.

PRIME COMPUTER, SUMMAGRAPHICS, DROVER TECHNOLOGIES, and McAUTO 1982 – 1990

Application Development and Implementation

Worked with real estate, engineering, architectural, and construction firms to evaluate processes and design applications to meet their business strategies.

URS COMPANY and HNTB 1979 – 1982

Structural Engineer

Conducted structural analysis and design for large bridge and tunnel projects.

EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICTIONS

BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY - Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Civil Engineering

CERTIFIED SIX SIGMA MASTER BLACK BELT - Citibank, GE, American Express, and TIAA

LICENSED PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER (PE) - New York State

SOLE INVENTOR OF PATENT #7,904,366 - Method and System to Determine Resident Qualifications

OTHER EXPERIENCES

Member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) - nonprofit research and education organization for responsible land use

Volunteer - ULI’s UrbanPlan - a education program to promote involvement in land use decisions

Women’s Employee Resource Group

GE Commercial Finance - Secretary (2004-2005)

Nuveen - Co-Chair (2017-2018)

Bucknell Engineering Alumni Association - Board of Directors (2002-2011)

Contact this candidate