Project Manager Change Management

LARA M. HEDEGAARD, M.B.A., AFMC, CSPO

651-***-**** ****.********@*****.***

www.linkedin.com/in/lara-hedegaard-0726579/

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Certified PROSCI Change Management Practitioner and experienced Project Manager (formerly PMP certified) with a strong focus on optimizing people, processes, and technology. Driven by a passion for transformation, with a commitment to educating, inspiring, and empowering individuals to achieve their goals and fulfill their aspirations. Proactively views ambiguity, identifies factors that impact team performance, and strives to engage and impart knowledge to others. Skilled in leading change initiatives that drive growth and improve organizational outcomes. Strengths Finder 2.0: Arranger, Activator, Adaptability, Relator, Maximizer EXPERTISE

Project Management - Agile & Waterfall Change Management Business Analysis and Process Redesign Performance Management Program Management Training Documentation and Communications Incident and Problem Management Leadership and Individual Development Strategic Planning Communications

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Red Wing Shoe Co. Red Wing, MN - Hybrid 9/2017 – 9/2024 Well-being Program Manager/Sr. Project Manager (2021 – 2024) Instilled well-being into the employee culture, allowing it to become a natural part of the employment brand, and enhancing Total Rewards offerings in the areas of Physical, Mental, Social, and Financial. Managed strategic organization restructuring projects as needed.

• Created, managed, and promoted well-being programs with both external vendors and internally to a diverse population of 2,200 employees (Corporate, Retail, Manufacturing, Hotel, and International).

• Educated employees and their families on the foundational aspects of health and well-being.

• Received the GOLD ComPsych Health at Work Award in 2023.

• Increased the overall well-being of employees who reported Thriving and Satisfied/Content by 7% and decreased the number of employees reporting to be struggling or surviving by 6% after 2 years.

• Achieved a 2% increase in employees feeling they were in excellent general health, and 2% decrease in feeling they were in poor general health after 2 years.

• Increased employee perception of managers very/somewhat interested in employee well-being by 6%, and decreased employee perception of managers not overly/not at all interested in employee well-being by 6%, contributing to improved employee engagement.

• Certified 68 employees from all areas of the organization in Mental Health First Aid. Sr. Project Manager, Retail (7/2017 – 9/2021)

Managed retail application projects in a SAFe agile environment, partnering with internal product owners, development and infrastructure resources, business units, and external vendor partners, developing project and resource plans to most effectively deliver technical functionality on-time as defined by business partners and within established budget parameters.

• Managed multiple retail projects and capital budgets totaling over $3 million.

• Managed rollout of all new store systems to almost 650 stores in less than 3 months.

• Served as RTE facilitator for Program Increment Planning sessions. GANDER MOUNTAIN Saint Paul MN 11/2009 – 5/2017

IS Manager of Incident Management, Application Services and Support (8/2016 – 5/2017) Led 11 direct reports, several contractors, and an offshore team to define, implement, and manage support services of store and enterprise applications and batch processes based on ITIL best practices, focusing on transition from project to support, change management, deployments, incident and problem management, root cause analysis, and break/fix solutions to achieve continuous service improvement.

• Redefined code development and deployment processes to meet PCI separation of duties criteria in a Dev/Ops structure.

• Developed and implemented the incident management process, decreasing degraded system minutes over 97% in 3 months and improved SLAs met by over 80%.

• Reduced ticket count by 80% over 3 months.

• Retained over 90% of employees in an IT department with turnover of almost 40%. IS Manager of Retail Applications (5/2015 – 8/2016) Created and led a Dev/Ops team of 7, responsible for the development and support of all Retail Store applications including Oracle Retail Point of Sale, Episys Signs and Labels, Etrack custom gun tracking application, and E4473 Electronic NICS Background checking application in both Agile and Waterfall projects.

• Functioned as both the POS and Etrack product owner interfacing with Store Operations, Treasury, Sales Audit, Merchandising, Marketing, and Compliance, along with our vendor development partner, ISD/ACI, and First Data facilitating break/fix and enhancements for the current store systems and facilitating development for the new systems.

• Worked with our integration vendor to define 700+ business requirements and over 2100 test cases to upgrade to Oracle Retail's Point-Of-Sale version 14 application and ACI's hosted based credit switch to help the company with PCI compliance.

• Facilitated the development and implementations into all stores of both our new Signs and Labels system and E4473 Electronic NICS Background checking application.

• Created a collaborative “swarm” approach to solving problems and promoting innovation. Sr. Systems Business Analyst (11/2009 – 5/2015)

Partnered with the Store Operations, Finance, Merchandising, Marketing business units, and IT developers to implement, troubleshoot, prioritize, and define requirements for enhancements and tracking application for both Agile and Waterfall projects.

• Managed all POS version upgrades, custom enhancements, break/fix solutions, and related projects including same day settlement, conversion to the First Data North platform, and ADS private label credit card enhancements.

• Facilitated and rolled out to all store’s functionality and performance improvements for the Signs and Labels application and decommissioned the legacy signs system.

• Led the Etrack custom firearm tracking application implementation to all 164 stores. PAi (Plan Administrators, Inc) De Pere, WI 6/2007 – 11/2008 Performance Manager/HR Generalist

Facilitated strategic planning, change management, and organizational design and development strategies and tactics to enable Agile matrixed teams to perform efficiently and productively.

• Led the IT team of 40, including offshore, increasing performance and alignment with strategic business imperatives and goals in a matrix organization.

• Defined and clarified competencies, roles, behaviors and processes across the organization.

• Facilitated horizontal (functional) and vertical (business line) teams to develop better collaboration.

• Established matrix learning strategies that integrated with and complimented broader organizational learning strategies and goals including employee ownership.

• Coached key stakeholders on the application and consistency of behaviors and communication expectations. Lara M. Hedegaard • 651-***-**** • ****.********@*****.*** TEC, INC. (TECHNICAL EDUCATION CONSULTANTS) Saint Petersburg, FL 5/2000 – 8/2007 Business Manager and Retail Change Management Consultant Change Management, Business Process Mapping, Training and Organizational Development, Communications, Strategic Planning, Business Management and Development, Marketing Support, Technical Writing and Editing. On-boarded and coordinated over 20 remote consultants. ITT TECHNICAL INSTITUTE Green Bay, WI 8/2003 – 12/2006 Adjunct Instructor

Bachelors and Associates degree level courses: Introduction to Project Management, Human Resources Management, Introduction to Business in a Global Society, Written Analysis, Research Methods, Professional Procedures and Portfolio Development.

SHOPKO STORES, INC. Green Bay, WI 5/1997 – 5/2000 Training Manager, ShopKo University (4/1998 – 2/2000) Created, marketed and managed ShopKo University and each of its colleges, programs and courses, curriculum development, participant tracking, technology infrastructure and financial plan budget. Merchandising Systems Business Analyst (5/1997 – 4/1998, 5/2000) Coordinated the efforts of business subject matter experts, technical resources, and application experts in designing application solutions, eliciting requirements, testing, and creating documentation, to support waterfall development and implementation of various merchandising systems and modules. FORT HOWARD CORPORATION - Business Manager Green Bay, WI 12/1996 – 5/1997 SC JOHNSON - Consumer Marketing Data Extraction Racine, WI 2/1996 – 5/1995 OTTENHEIMER & CO., INC. - Product Development Coordinator Bannockburn, IL 11/1992 – 9/1995 TARGET STORES HEADQUARTERS - Merchandise Analyst Minneapolis, MN 1/1991 – 9/1992 VOLUNTEER

OUR NAWAKWA - Community Outreach Coordinator

SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT HOME OWNERS ASSOCIATION - Treasurer NATIONAL EMS MUSEUM - Marketing and fundraising, Contributing author to the “Historian” EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-OSHKOSH Oshkosh, WI

Masters Degree in Business Administration – Concentration in Leadership UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-STOUT Stout, WI

Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration (Marketing and International Business), Cum Laude CERTIFICATIONS

Applied Functional Medicine Coaching (AFMC), School of Applied Functional Medicine (SAFM) 2023 Mental Health First Aid Instructor, National Council for Mental Wellbeing 2022 Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Institute for Integrative Nutrition 2018 PMP - Project Management Practitioner (inactive) 2017 CSPO - Certified Scrum Product Owner 2017

PROSCI Change Management Practitioner 2016

ITIL Foundations Certified 2016

Lara M. Hedegaard • 651-***-**** • ****.********@*****.***

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