Project Management/Program Management

CHELSEA KETCHUM, PMP, PMI-ACP 573-***-****

***** ****** ***** **, ********, MO 65237 *******.**********@*****.***

Professional Profile

Results-driven technical project management professional with 17 years of experience possessing exceptional communication acumen, analytical capabilities, and strong determination for success. Energetically tackles challenges to anticipate and efficiently identify complex issues and solutions with strong attention to future defect prevention. Dedicated to continually increasing knowledge of procedural strategies and specific technologies while ensuring positive collaboration of team members and clients in fast-paced agile environments through inspirational, reliable leadership and integrity.

Areas of expertise include:

Conflict Resolution

Strategic Process Improvement

Escalation Mitigation

Mentorship & Team Building

Innovative IT & Business Solutions

RFPs/RPIs/SOWs & Contracts

Research & Data Analysis

State Government & Private Corporations

Client & Vendor Relationships

Clear and Concise Presentations & Documentation

Issue & Risk Mitigation

Change Management Optimization

DevOps/Agile/Waterfall/Matrix Program & Project Management

Sense of Humor

Professional Experience

Rose International- State of Missouri- DESE, Jefferson City, MO

Sept 2023-April 2024

Senior Technical Program Manager

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Directed large-scale strategic project within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to develop a streamlined Grant Management System within ServiceNow. This system enables hundreds of schools across the state to apply for and track specific grants where paper applications and multiple systems were previously used and optimizes internal staff processing and tracking.

Served as the bridge between the business and IT by utilizing superior interpersonal and conflict resolution experience; promoting improved communication and cooperation across project teams. Ability to optimize broad-based, often complex, correspondence for internal and external audiences. Outstanding record of diffusing emotionally charged situations to constructively restore a greater shared commitment to end goals.

Applied innovative program strategy expertise and familiarity with legislative processes of vendor/procurement management to author and evaluate SOW and RFP development to guide and coach contract negotiations.

Prioritized and assessed risks and impacts to project delivery. Facilitated evaluation of alternatives/contingency plans and found solutions using a systematic, multi-step approach. Partnered cross-functionally to resolve problems and implement changes. Analyzed decisions and actions to ensure alignment with the department’s strategic direction. Collaborated with senior management to quickly escalate and resolve complex issues and risks.

Employed best practice IT solution delivery processes, procedures, and toolsets (DevOps, configuration management, change management) to deliver design of stable, hardened, and scalable solutions.

Generated program and project financials - project budgets and forecasts for IT resources, hardware, software, labor, etc. Managed project cost tracking throughout the project lifecycle.

Ensured the solution and team followed ITIL/ITSM, Enterprise Architecture, Cyber Security standards/policies, and other technical standards.

Orchestrated project meetings documenting decisions and mitigation. Identified and coordinated areas for further research and development critical to project completion and delivery. Performed requirements gathering, created and maintained requirements traceability matrix to ensure clear project goals and deliverables met with desired outcomes.

Improved correspondence, presentations, and reports to effectively illustrate progress and decision options for senior leadership discussion and resolution.

Health Sabbatical

October 2021-September 2023

Rose International- State of Missouri- DHSS/OA-ITSD, Jefferson City, MO

May 2021-October 2021

Senior Technical Program Manager

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Directed multiple cross-functional projects for the State Public Health Laboratory utilizing expertise in program strategy and alignment, contract and vendor management, procurement, application and systems development, and networking to maximize both speed and successful delivery of essential DHSS Lab requirements.

Strengthened communications within multiple agencies’ senior leadership teams to ensure Federal, State, Administrative, and IT mandates were achieved to plan and execute project efforts, clearly present project statuses, and risks to facilitate issue resolution.

Promoted collaboration with vendors, sub-vendors, other States, and Missouri State agency teams to evaluate proposals/contracts through RFI, RFP, SOW, MSA process frameworks, identifying areas of necessary improvements.

Conceptualized and crafted documentation including but not limited to business charters, business cases, funding authorizations, Smartsheet/Jira/Planview project tracking, and Exception/Change requests for submission to ITSD-PMO; maintaining compliance with federal COVID grant workplan structures and timelines to identify public health needs across the state.

Coordinated efforts regarding IoT networking needs for lab instrumentation, upgrading information management systems, database modernization/normalization/ingestion schema/formatting standardization changes, and configurations/rules mapping.

Health Management Services: State of Missouri-Medicaid; Remote, Jefferson City, MO

September 2020-May 2021

Senior Technical Program Manager

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Implemented in-depth analysis on performance metrics and problem identification/issue resolution options within State of Missouri’s Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS).

Maximized State of Missouri- DSS programs in recovery of Third-Party Liability funds from commercial insurance providers through direct billing, disallowance, cost avoidance, long term care, and credit billing audit projects.

Solutioned data aggregation, normalization, correlation, anomaly detection, and response to data issues between multiple internal and external data sources, systems, and formats through work with numerous resources and teams; ultimately gaining a more cohesive insight to make necessary modifications.

Restored the communicative relationship with the sub-contractor through implementing improved data and file sharing protocols by increasing the frequency and clarity of statuses; gaining a deeper understanding of needs and roadblocks.

Re-negotiated support contracts per State of Missouri and Federal legal requirements.

Streamlined multiple process improvements yielding increased revenue recoveries for MO and decreased time allocation needed/frustrations from already overloaded and overwhelmed State employees.

Presented C-Suite and Director level monthly reporting presentations in a fast-paced environment with strong attention to successful delivery of improvement for all project, program, and portfolio initiatives.

Signature Consultants- Reinsurance Group of America, Remote, St Louis, MO; London

June 2018-January 2020

Senior Technical Project Manager

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Generated and optimized both waterfall and agile project plans/sprints. Facilitated daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives, and lessons learned sessions with DevOps and Security teams. Managed backlogs, user story task breakdown, resource assignments, and statuses. Delivered on time, under budget, and within security compliance in multiple phases for the first time in the project's 4-year history.

Directed Executive Steering Committee meetings and weekly touchpoints with business stakeholders. Created status decks, dashboard reports, RAID logs, action trackers, and RACIs fostering increased transparency of security remediation, application development, and infrastructure stabilization for better informed business decisions.

Maximized enterprise cost savings initiative on a $20 million project by implementing more efficient infrastructure design though automation, simplified coding, auto-scaling, and increased monitoring thus, cutting the hosting and vendor run costs of the application in half and decreasing the internal resource time needed for running deployments and builds by 10-fold.

Achieved implementation of instant and efficient communication, collaboration, and problem-solving between teams with historically strained relationships; maximizing speed of issue resolution, coordination and prioritization of efforts, and boosting overall job satisfaction for all resources and stakeholders on the project.

Facilitated RFP process with multiple vendors worldwide liaising on purchase and development of data, rules, and software business requirements. Chaired on scoring and selection committee while developing cost and scheduling options for the product owner and stakeholders.

Developed business case and charter ensuring security and IT compliance standards were designed into application architecture, working with legal to determine varying global data privacy laws, conducting emerging market analysis and appetite, YOY costs and scheduling options for integration/rollout per country and client.

Incorporated, upgraded, and enhanced legacy systems into our environment from an acquisition of another company while maintaining continuity of excellent service to policyholders.

Randstad Technologies- Wells Fargo, Remote, Jefferson City, MO

May 2016-Nov 2017

Senior Technical Project Manager and LOB Tech Health Refresh Program Lead

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Wholesale Line of Business Senior Technical Project Manager Lead for multi-year Middleware End of Life Tech Health Refresh and Java Alignment Projects for Enterprise Technology Infrastructure Business Services Solutions Management team using both Agile and Waterfall project management methodologies.

Served as principal point of contact to the Wholesale LOB Application Competency Center Program actively working with 175+ applications simultaneously in upgrades and removals of multiple middleware products entering end of life and associated security vulnerabilities; including but not limited to Weblogic, Apache HTTPD/Tomcat, JBoss AS/Wildfly/EAP, IBM Websphere/MQ/HTTP Server and Oracle Java.

Collaborated with multiple Operating Systems, Middleware, Networking, Database, Application, and Vendor engineering teams to develop Manual and Mass Deployment implementation plans.

Directed and mentored the team in training, engagement, workload, communications, escalations, overall LOB status reporting to chief leadership and data analytics for 25 Technical Project Managers working with the Wholesale LOB while being committed to delivering successful and swift remediation for all of our clients.

Promoted to the team’s most challenging and complex LOB Senior Lead within a month of hire and have received six recognition awards within the Solutions Management portfolio during tenure.

IBM, Columbia, MO

Dec 2013-Nov 2015

Technical Project Manager and Middleware Program Lead

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Project Manager for 3 multi-year agile and phased approach projects concurrently in 17 shared lifecycle development environments for server migration and consolidation, major and minor upgrades, and fixpack installations; taking them from Red to Green status during my tenure for the team’s largest account in the financial sector.

Coordinated Middleware Program of 50+ projects concurrently with an average of $250M annual cost for primary account in coordination with 30+ application teams and service lines.

Highly involved on Account’s Leadership team presenting options and making determinations for resource shifts globally amid cost savings initiatives, ensured global control processes were being followed with engagement across numerous internal divisions, frequent communication with global functional team managers.

Prioritized and directed workload for 40+ resources in 4 international IBM middleware teams for said account amid aggressive project deadlines and resource scarcity. Coached global team-building and individual resource development.

First point of escalation for all account program projects including three yearly major releases averaging 20 projects each, going live in production environments simultaneously in an 8 hour change window.

Highly involved in Functional Management Leadership for team members’ on/offboarding and workload on 27 accounts, completing resources’ performance reviews, eligibility and discussions for promotion, and layoff determinations.

RD Property Management & Construction, St. Louis. MO

Dec 2006-Dec 2013

Senior Project Manager

Achievements & Responsibilities:

Oversaw all activities involving tenants and property management and supervised property construction/improvement projects in preparation for sale. Coordinated with multiple vendors and contractors for full residence renovations.

Boosted net operating income 20% by capitalizing on and creating cost control and revenue improvement programs.

Spearheaded procurement of real estate, legal, title, and mortgage firms to launch properties to narrowly defined target markets for quick sales.

Overhauled and developed all project management plans for maximum profit return and monitored progress against scope, schedule, and cost performance baselines. Analyzed customers’ needs to promote highest satisfaction within their budget.

Evaluated requirements from stakeholders and estimated activity durations and costs to create work breakdown structures.

Monitored build schedules to ensure timely completion and negotiated material and labor costs with vendors.

Defined project deliverables, forecasted potential risks, created contingency plans as necessary, and directed quality management/assurance.

Awarded Top Performer in 2011 and 2012.

Education & Certifications

Project Management Institute PMP® Active Certification #1851344

Project Management Institute PMI-ACP® AGILE Active Scrum Certification #2751707

University of Missouri, Columbia, MO: Nursing

Boonslick Technical Education Center, Boonville, MO: Licensed Practical Nursing

University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg: Pre-Med

“Anything worth doing is worth doing WELL.”

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