Operations & Servicing Strategy Leader

April De Lauter

Rising Sun, MD ***** 443-***-**** *****.********@*********.***

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Insightful Manager with experience directing and improving operations through effective employee motivational strategies and strong policy enforcement. Proficient in best practices, market trends and regulatory requirements of industry operations. Talented leader with analytical approach to business planning and day-to-day problem-solving.

SKILLS

Strategic Planning

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Process Improvement

Remote Collaboration

Operations Management

Time Management

Data Accuracy

Self-Motivation

WORK HISTORY

SR MANAGER – UNIVERSAL OPERATIONS 09/2025 TO CURRENT

Sallie Mae Newark, Delaware

Led a diverse team of specialists and associates, providing mentorship, coaching, and career development aligned with organizational goals.

Drove consistency across Servicing, Origination, Collections, and Account Management through targeted improvement initiatives.

Collaborated with Workforce Management to optimize staffing forecasts and hiring strategies, resulting in improved budget efficiency and service levels.

Managed recruitment and promotion processes for general and senior-level specialists, ensuring talent alignment with business needs.

Enhanced compliance and operational consistency by updating policy resources to reflect current best practices and regulatory standards.

Oversaw the peer mentor program and implemented performance strategies that improved CX scores by 3% year over year and delivered a 10% more favorable budget.

MANAGER – SERVICING CONTACT CENTER 03/2022 to 9/2024

Sallie Mae

Provide direction, mentorship, feedback, coaching, and goal setting to a team of new-to-firm, senior level specialists, and associates ensuring alignment with organizational objectives and individual career development.

Improvement initiatives focusing on consistency between servicing, origination, collections, and account management.

Manage recruitment efforts for general and senior-level specialists as well as facilitate associate-level promotions.

Update policy resources to reflect current best practices and regulatory requirements, ensuring compliance and consistency across the organization.

Partner with Workforce Management to analyze daily performance, monitor weekly forecasting, and make recommendations for strategic hiring of general and senior-level new hire classes to maintain necessary staffing while adhering to organizational budgets.

Manage the peer mentor program, facilitating knowledge transfer and professional development opportunities for team members.

Develop and implement strategies to enhance team performance, productivity, and efficiency, resulting in the a 10% more favorable budget than the previous year, as well an increase in service levels year over year, and improvement of the CX goal by 3% year over year.

TEAM LEAD – CUSTOMER CARE CONTACT CENTER 04/2019 to 03/2022

Sallie Mae

Responsible for oversight and management of internal teams during manager PTO

Implemented and managed New Hire Peer Mentor Pilot Program aimed at increasing new hire retention, improving new hire average handle time to reduce costs, and mitigate new hire compliance errors.

Facilitated onboarding for new Team Leads

Managed internal team during Teleperformance vendor task force.

Partnered with Collections, Bank Processing, School Assist, Sales Call Center, to identify procedural gaps, recommend enhancements, and implement process.

LOAN SERVICING SPECIALIST III – CUSTOMER OPERATIONS FULFILLMENT & SUPPORT 08/2018 to 04/2019

Sallie Mae

Collaborated with business partners (e.g., Compliance) to identify areas of risk and provide recommendations to address such risk, including enhancements to policies/procedures, training, or technology.

Identified gaps and mitigated risk in SCRA process.

SPECIALIZED CUSTOMER CARE ADVISOR – CUSTOMER CARE CONTACT CENTER 10/2016 to 08/2018

Sallie Mae

Partnered with external business areas to provide resolution to customer concerns.

Provided recommendations to Business Support on opportunities to mitigate forbearance exceptions.

Assisted with creation of new procedures to address undocumented processes (both new and existing processes) Supported Education by providing input on new hire education material as well as creating several new hire PowerPoint presentations.

CUSTOMER CARE ADVISOR – CUSTOMER CARE CONTACT CENTER 06/2016 to 10/2016

Sallie Mae

Assessed customer’s financial conditions and counseled customer on suggested repayment programs and researched customer inquiries regarding any potential processing error or account inaccuracies.

OTHER EXPERIENCE

Citi Banking Corp. New Castle, Delaware (03/2002-11/2009)

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