Business Development Office Manager

Ashaki N. Nichols

McDonough, Georgia *****

770-***-**** ******.*******@***.***

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Accomplished results-oriented executive with a proven track record in legal, compliance, and contract management, complemented by advanced skills in technical writing and AI-driven language generation. Certified in Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT from Vanderbilt University, showcasing the ability to leverage cutting-edge technology for strategic advantage. Adept at leading high-performing teams, streamlining processes, and mitigating risks. Seeking an executive management role to drive innovation and growth while maintaining a strong focus on compliance and efficiency.

EXPERIENCE

JLL, Atlanta, Georgia (Remote Contract through Noni Consulting Management Services, LLC; Owner, Ashaki Nichols)

Paralegal, 1/2021 – 5/2023

Paralegal overseeing contracts administration of sales contracts. Working with Attorney and Sales leadership to draft, revise and get agreements executed.

Development of filing process on SharePoint to streamline contracts administration process.

Making decisions on contractual matters on behalf of the company as needed. Exercising sound judgement in drafting contractual documents to ensure mitigation of risk (financial and regulatory) to the company.

Implementation of migration of contracts within SalesForce from Corrigo to JLL to ensure contracts are updated and available to the sales team to close opportunities.

Review and analyzing incoming agreement requests for accuracy and compliance.

Generation of legal contracts based on predefined templates, playbooks, and agreement clause libraries.

Drafting various agreements, including but not limited to software licensing contracts, NDAs, SOWs, and SaaS agreements.

Full-time as of April 2022

Porsche Cars North America, Atlanta, Georgia

Paralegal, 1/2021 – 4/2022

Paralegal overseeing the Insurance program for North America within the legal department. Technical implementation of projects, intuitive presentation, budget management, corporate governance and IT compliance security in relation to privacy Porsche policy. Training and team development of current legal staff in Insurance, Zycus and Business Partner Check responsibilities.

Development of annual insurance renewal process to improve and streamline renewals with broker and meeting budgetary deadlines within finance.

Zycus SME, executing vendor engagement, vendor onboarding, records management and legal systems management. Increasing work productivity by 70% within the legal department. Successfully onboarding 60+ vendors within a 5-month period.

Reporting and tracking of insurance claims, losses and policies. Liaison between business stakeholders internally and externally in relation to compliance, legal and financial services.

Truist Bank, Atlanta, Georgia

Contract Management Consultant, 3/2020 - 12/2020

Determine appropriate contracting vehicle for purchasing (e.g., Purchase Order versus more robust contract), selecting appropriate company templates for transactions. Determining whether vendor paper is appropriate for certain types of transactions. Responsible for preparing complex amendments/change orders and project-level contracts (e.g., statements of work) for mid-range transactions, including change orders on project-level contracts. Forecasting and proper load balancing of projects to ensure deadlines are met.

●Negotiating, interpreting and summarizing contracts accurately and appropriately to mitigate substantial risk related to vendor contracts, escalating appropriately to an attorney when appropriate with business needs, company’s

Key Business Terms”, and standard legal provisions.

●Making decisions on contractual matters on behalf of the company as needed. Exercising sound judgement in drafting contractual documents to ensure mitigation of risk (financial and regulatory) to the company.

●Maintaining strong relationships with internal clients, Category Directors/Managers, and vendors.

●Successfully negotiated terms within 90 days to save the company up to $160,000 and process over 40 contracts.

Porsche Cars North America, Atlanta, Georgia

Legal Contracts Administrator, 8/2017 – 2/2020

Launching and management of projects within compliance and legal departments from process conception to completion. Development of current position from part-time to full-time position to include legal corporate governance and contract management. Technical implementation of projects, intuitive presentation, budget management, and IT compliance security in relation to privacy Porsche policy. Training and team development of current legal staff in Insurance, Zycus and Business Partner Check responsibilities.

●Development of annual insurance renewal process to improve and streamline renewals with broker and meeting budgetary deadlines within finance.

●Implementation of internal non-procurement contract management process (including retention/technical issues best practices) to meet Legal/Procurement KPIs, reducing procurement workload by 35%.

●Zycus SME, executing vendor engagement, vendor onboarding, records management and legal systems management. Increasing work productivity by 70% within the legal department. Successfully onboarding 60+ vendors within a 5 month period.

●Liaison between business stakeholders internally and externally in relation to compliance, legal and financial services.

Mondi Bags USA LLC, Atlanta, Georgia

Compliance Specialist, 03/2017 – 07/2017

Managed contracts, legal compliance documents, copyright/trademark matters, and general corporate matters. Independently audited and monitored data, systems, and processes for compliance to policies and laws. Managed/maintained corporate books for all entities. Performed legal research, drafting, and review for upcoming and current litigations. Maintained workers compensation and insurance matters.

●Established workers compensation initiatives through workflow and process improvement, increasing work productivity by 40%.

●Technical writer for standard operating procedures, life cycles, and workflows.

●Developed product roadmap and participated in product management and business development activities.

Viant US LLC, Irvine, California

Paralegal, Compliance/Contracts Manager, 03/2016 – 03/2017

Oversaw contracts, legal compliance documents, copyright/trademark matters, mergers/acquisitions, capital formation transactions, and preparation of closing documents. Managed contracts, IP documents and other legal documents and respective filing systems. Reviewed and processed confidential consumer complaints, safeguarding electronic/non-electronic formats according to company procedures. Conducted legal research, drafting, and review for upcoming/existing litigations, subpoena and search warrant responses (from Homeland Security and the FBI).

●Participated in the design of the contract management system using agile, outcome-based approaches. Contributed to the modification, reuse, research and implementation of the Salesforce system, increased work productivity for Sales and Legal by 40%.

●Implemented writing guides and manuals (written/visual) for technical users (information technology team) and non-technical users to enhance and guide the backend and frontend user experience, along with documenting business requirements and process flows.

●Managed Myspace compliance/copyright and trademark as well as Xumo copyright and trademark requests.

Heaviside Reed Zaic, Laguna Beach, California

Executive Legal Assistant, Office Manager, 07/2014 – 02/2016

Led daily administrative operations for the firm, including opening and closing office. Annual budget management; managed accounts payable/receivable, QuickBooks online, vendor payments, invoicing, price dispute resolutions with vendors, IT communication and help desk support. Oversaw vendor contract review, administration and consultation as well as invoicing and office equipment management. Directed legal research, drafting, e-filing, e-Discovery, and review for upcoming and existing litigations.

●Renegotiated copier agreement, saving company 60% in costs with new agreement.

●Reviewed all marketing materials for firm, web-authoring, editorial calendar and website maintenance; development/management of online direct marketing communications campaigns (Google analytics), web-authoring content management tools, web analytics; effectively driving consumer awareness, engagement, and traffic to social media platforms.

●Served as an SME consultant regarding policies and procedures, website testing, quality improvement strategies, content strategy, website management, performance measuring and ensuring quality of the customer experience.

Garage Team Mazda, Costa Mesa, California

Compliance Specialist, 08/2011 – 06/2014

Shared management supervisor for production team, 2+ direct reports. Relationship management between agency, client and legal counsel with respect to international niche car brand advertising compliance. Oversaw vendor contract administration, review and consultation with the clients and with general counsel. Reviewed all marketing materials for the agency, including broadcast, print and digital marketing campaigns which incorporated FTC guidelines and regulations. Conducted compliance training for all agency personnel, including all aspects of attaining legal approvals. Directed and coordinated with Traffic, Digital and Business Affairs departments in respect to compliance workflow to ensure alignment with messaging and creative strategy.

●Provided strategic direction and alignment with business development strategy. Implemented and managed a database MediaVu (agile software development approach) as a technology solution to obtain legal clearance, created electronic waivers and archive documents between agency and clients. Reduced printed documents 70%, need of off-site storage 40% and work-flow communication increase of 60%. System evolved with continual improvement to support internal and external advertising approvals.

●Performed advertising reviews with MediaVu, brochure and direct mail review, content development review, agency resource and budget management to meet requirements and enhancement requests/marketing campaigns.

●Developed quality standards within the review process to troubleshoot and oversee performance management processes, training, development and technical needs of functional teams.

NBC Universal, Burbank, California

Executive Legal Assistant (Contractor), 01/2011 – 08/2011

Responsibilities: Coordinated travel arrangements and expense reports. Revise, redline and proofread agreements. Drafted basic form agreements and composed correspondence and memos for review. Processed and administered invoices and payments according to production accounting obligations to ensure timely and accurate processing. Filing, fax, photocopy, messenger correspondence and documents. Maintained and organized files.

●Assisted in updating out of date policies and procedures for department document processing.

●Managed retaining talent contracts with CSA for upcoming productions.

●Responsible resource allocation for script distribution, edits and updates to directors and producers.

Turner Broadcasting, Atlanta, Georgia

Executive Legal Assistant, 08/2007 – 12/2010

Drafted, proofread, negotiated and revised long-/short-form agreements (talent, producer, writer, directors, marketing/advertising) for accuracy, correct form and content. Interacted with talent and representation to ensure contract follow up, execution, distribution and payment for TCM, truTV, Superstation, and various marketing agencies.

●Developed and managed the critical rights database to track expiration dates for TCM, still in use today. Increased workflow by 60% in amount of rights secured by TCM.

●Managed domestic and international travel and meetings as well as expense reports using Concur.

●Responsible for tacking various project budgets in relation production accounting processes for TCM and truTV.

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

Alston & Bird LLP, Atlanta, Georgia, Marketing/Database Assistant, 2006-2007. Maintained data integrity for up to 30,000 contacts, ticket resolution of 1,000 tickets per day. Assisted database administrator direct email campaigns.

Nationwide Health Properties, Inc., Irvine, California, Executive Assistant, 2004-2006. Managed dual roles of office manager and executive assistant, saving the company $100,000 annually in manpower expense.

Northside Pediatrics, Kokomo, Indiana, Front Office Staff, 2002-2004, Patient customer service and intake. Insurance processing and medical coding.

TCG Marketing, Inc., Los Angeles, California, Media/Staff Supervisor, 2000-2001, Direct response media supervisor, office manager responsible for 5+ employees; responsible for in-house agency. *reconciled over $15k in outstating commercial spot time purchased.

Western International Media, Inc., Los Angeles, California, Junior Media Buyer, 1993-2000, Linear media spot purchases for Buena Vista Pictures, negotiations, order creation/tracking, price dispute resolutions, budget management, editorial calendar.

*reconciled over $10k in outstating commercial spot time purchased.

EDUCATION

Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan

M.S.A., Administration (Business Management), 2017

B.A., Integrated Leadership Studies, 2016

Coastline Community College, Fountain Valley, California

Associates in Paralegal Studies, 2014

CERTIFICATIONS

Certification in Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT, Vanderbilt, Aug 2023

Certified Scrum Master, Scrum Institute, June 2019

Certified Product Owner, Scrum Institute, March 2020

Advanced Scrum: Integrating and Customizing Scrum, powerYOU (Manpower Group), June 2019

Project Management Certificate, Alison.com, 2017

Paralegal, Coastline Community College, 2014

COMPUTER SKILLS

MS Office 365, MS Forms, Salesforce, Adobe Suite, SharePoint, Smartsheet, Teams, Visio, QuickBooks, SAP, Ariba, HTML, XML, WAP, Flash, Zycus

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

Strategic Leadership, AI Language Generation, Compliance Management, Contract Negotiation, Technical Writing, Data Analysis, Process Streamlining, Budget Oversight, Legal Expertise, Vendor Relationship Management, CRM Implementation, Strategic Planning, Budget Management

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