Project Manager, Process Improvement
Resume:
ELIZABETH BEDNARZ
IT PROJECT MANAGER
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RESULTS-DRIVEN IT PROJECT MANAGER with extensive experience delivering large-scale technology initiatives within Property & Casualty insurance environments. Proven success managing policy administration, claims, billing, and enterprise platform initiatives while ensuring regulatory compliance, governance, and SDLC best practices. Strong cross-functional leader skilled in vendor coordination, risk management, and predictable delivery using Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid methodologies. Emphasis on process improvement while continuously leading by example through constant transparency and consistent follow-up and communication.
CORE COMPETENCIES
-P&C Insurance Domain expertise
-Cross Functional and Vendor Leadership
-Change Control and Release Management
-Program-level planning, dependency, business analysis and risk management
-Regulatory compliance, audit readiness, IT Governance
-Agile, Waterfall and hybrid delivery methodologies
-Executive Reporting and Stakeholder communication
-SDLC and PMBOK-aligned project management practices
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Systems Support IT Project Manager
Universal Insurance Managers July 2022 to February 2026
- Led enterprise delivery of policy administration system implementations, upgrades, and enhancements within a Property & Casualty insurance environment, partnering closely with underwriting, claims, actuarial, finance, and product teams to align technology initiatives with business goals and operational needs.
-Directed cross-functional teams across Sales, Finance, Marketing, Product, Revenue Operations, and IT, ensuring seamless alignment between business objectives, system capabilities, and delivery outcomes.
-Supported modernization initiatives impacting claims adjudication processes by coordinating business and technical teams, improving workflow efficiency, strengthening data validation and integrations, and ensuring audit-ready delivery across claims and financial systems.
-Leveraged Azure DevOps to manage delivery roadmaps, epics, features, sprint planning, and release tracking, improving visibility across Agile teams and supporting end-to-end SDLC execution.
-Configured and maintained Azure DevOps work item hierarchies, dependency tracking, Delivery Plans, and dashboards to support executive reporting and cross-functional coordination.
-Supported release governance by coordinating Azure DevOps pipelines and deployment activities across Dev, QA, UAT, and Production environments while ensuring audit-ready traceability.
-Led execution tracking and coordination for a large-scale data center relocation, managing infrastructure, application, network, and vendor dependencies to ensure a seamless cutover with no unplanned business disruption.
-Directed migration readiness activities including milestone tracking, CAB approvals, rollback planning, smoke testing, validation efforts, and hypercare support, achieving 100% data integrity and on-time delivery.
-Facilitated cross-functional standups and risk reviews while maintaining RAID logs and proactively escalating issues to minimize operational and business impact during migration activities.
-Acted as a strategic liaison between business policy, revenue operations, and technical teams, translating regulatory, pricing, and operational requirements into structured delivery plans and executable roadmaps.
-Developed and executed structured project plans, scope definitions, resource allocations, and release schedules across Agile and hybrid SDLC environments, ensuring predictable and audit-ready delivery.
-Oversaw sprint coordination, defect triage, upgrade planning, and production release readiness while enforcing PMO governance standards, change control processes, and SDLC best practices.
-Ensured full SDLC traceability from business requirements through UAT, production deployment, rollback planning, and hypercare support in alignment with ITGC and audit compliance controls.
-Maintained disciplined RAID logs, tracked cross-team dependencies, and delivered executive reporting via Jira and Confluence, enabling proactive risk mitigation, audit readiness, and structured PMO governance.
-Partnered with IT leadership, Finance, and Revenue Operations to manage budgets, forecast spend, and align delivery with revenue and cost optimization strategies.
-Led enterprise implementation of Jira and Confluence in partnership with an Atlassian Platinum Partner, enabling standardized PMO intake, prioritization, governance workflows, and enterprise-wide reporting.
- Led execution tracking and coordination for a large-scale data center relocation, managing cross-team dependencies, enforcing milestone accountability, and proactively escalating infrastructure, application, and network risks to ensure seamless cutover with no unplanned business disruption.
-Coordinated delivery of system integrations and data mapping activities supporting reinsurance and financial reporting processes, improving data accuracy, traceability, and audit readiness.
- Directed cross-functional migration from legacy telephony to a cloud-based contact center platform, Genesys, partnering with Product, Marketing, and Customer Experience teams to design IVR, call flows, and omnichannel routing; improved call routing efficiency, reduced wait times, increased first-call resolution, and enabled real-time analytics for operational and customer experience performance.
-Managed implementation of payment processing integrations within Guidewire BillingCenter, aligning with Finance and Revenue Operations to support secure premium collection, reconciliation, and financial reporting.
-Oversaw payment lifecycle processes (authorization, settlement, refunds, chargebacks), improving transaction accuracy, compliance, and revenue visibility.
-Partnered with Finance and external vendors (e.g., FIS) to ensure compliance with PCI DSS and SOX controls while maintaining audit-ready transaction traceability.
-Created and published Business Requirements Documents and took over business analyst responsibilities when capacity was limited.
-Developed and maintained budget vs. actual tracking models in Excel and Jira, improving financial transparency across Infrastructure and Application portfolios.
-Integrated Microsoft Copilot AI into PMO workflows to accelerate executive reporting, update corporate business policies, automate documentation, and standardize governance artifacts across enterprise initiatives.
-Established AI-assisted reporting governance to ensure outputs met regulatory, audit, and structured PMO/SDLC documentation standards.
-Partnered with underwriting, actuarial, product, and business policy teams to define and implement rating algorithms, pricing logic, and rate changes aligned with business and regulatory requirements.
-Drove process improvements in pricing workflows, reducing quote turnaround time and enabling underwriters to make faster, data-driven decisions.
-Established traceability between rating variables and premium outputs, improving audit readiness and supporting SOX/ITGC control requirements.
-Delivered reporting dashboards (via Power BI) to monitor pricing performance, loss ratios, and underwriting profitability trends, supporting executive decision-making.
-Developed and maintained resource-loaded Microsoft Project schedules, managing critical paths, dependencies, milestones, and resource allocations across enterprise technology initiatives.
-Utilized Microsoft Project to track project performance, forecast delivery timelines, and monitor schedule variance to improve execution predictability and stakeholder visibility.
-Integrated MS Project plans with PMO reporting processes to support budget tracking, status reporting, and executive decision-making.
Technical Project Manager
ABC Fitness Solutions November 2021 – July 2022
- Managed client onboarding and delivery for a Power BI–based analytics platform supporting enterprise reporting and revenue insights.
-Managed offshore development teams and ensured clear expectations.
- Coordinated requirements across Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Product teams, ensuring alignment between client objectives, reporting capabilities, and delivery timelines.
- Ensured Salesforce data integrity to support revenue tracking, marketing campaigns, and customer lifecycle management.
- Led training and adoption initiatives to align platform capabilities with business outcomes and operational workflows.
- Implemented project management and PMO best practices to improve delivery consistency, reduce rework, and enhance stakeholder transparency.
IT Project Manager
Starr Insurance Companies February 2021 – November 2021
-Managed scope, schedule, risks, and dependencies across multi-project IT initiatives supporting insurance operations, actuarial, and financial systems.
-Led cross-functional delivery efforts supporting insurance and reinsurance business processes, improving data quality and reducing reconciliation issues through enhanced validation and governance controls.
-Ensured initiatives aligned with enterprise strategy, business policy requirements, and regulatory compliance standards.
-Collaborated with Program Managers and PMO leadership to support lifecycle governance, reporting, and cross-project coordination.
-Facilitated end-to-end project planning including scope definition, milestones, budgets, and resource planning aligned with PMO governance frameworks.
-Oversaw patch management cycles across infrastructure and cloud environments, ensuring alignment with change management governance and minimizing production risk.
IT Governance Analyst
Arch Insurance Group January 2019 – February 2021
-Supported enterprise PMO governance and compliance initiatives during Agile transformation, including intake processes, prioritization, and standardized reporting frameworks.
-Partnered with Finance and business stakeholders to manage annual IT budgets and improve financial transparency across project portfolios.
-Produced executive-level reporting using Jira, ServiceNow, Excel, and Power BI to support decision-making across IT, Finance, and leadership teams.
-Analyzed delivery metrics and trends to improve governance effectiveness, reporting accuracy, and operational performance.
-Facilitated Agile compliance and governance committee sessions, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards and audit requirements.
-Built dynamic Excel models utilizing complex formulas to convert raw project data into actionable insights, enabling proactive risk identification, real-time performance tracking, and executive-level reporting across a multi-project portfolio.
IT Project / Business Analyst
Arch Insurance Group January 2012– January 2019
- Maintained MS Project plans supporting policy administration, Actuarial, claims, and billing systems
- Coordinated and facilitated stakeholder meetings and ensured SDLC-compliant project documentation
- Provided SharePoint administration and project documentation support; Created test specifications documents.
-Partnered with underwriting, actuarial, finance, and business stakeholders to support reinsurance-related workflows, ensuring alignment between risk management strategies, policy administration systems and operational processes.
- Created, reviewed, and maintained project plans, schedules, and delivery metrics; published Release Notes.
-Supported governance and compliance efforts by maintaining audit-ready documentation, SDLC traceability, and SOX/ITGC controls across insurance and reinsurance-related initiatives.
- Developed executive dashboards, reports, and process documentation
- Supported enterprise process improvement initiatives and assisted with system testing and validation
-Assisted help desk production support by investigating issues to determine root cause.
-Backed up Business Analyst team and assisted with Business Requirement Documents.
Project Coordinator for IT QBlue Development & Process Automation Solutions Delivery Group
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield NJ January 2011 to January 2012
-Triaging and ensuring bugs are being worked on and closed in efficient manner
-Maintaining project status spreadsheet (ensuring release dates are met, tracking project states and ClearQuest states, ensuring SIT/UAT/Postproduction signoffs are received and updated in ClearQuest.)
-Tracking Clear Quest Work Requests to ensure all deliverables are met for Release
-Working with Business Analysts to ensure all team's ClearQuest Work Requests are accurate and related documents.
-Coordinating Monthly Releases and contacting necessary team members to ensure all workload is completed efficiently.
Sr. Project Analyst for Account Management Operations
Medco Health Solutions January 2008 to January 2010
-Acted as Interim Project Manager and provided direction to all other analysts to ensure all projects were on track and supervised all project activities to ensure successful on-time completion of projects.
-Managed all executive-level reporting and oversaw all Siebel CRM database enhancements to improve productivity of all departmental users
-Produced executive summary reports for United and executive management on daily, weekly, and monthly basis
-Performed routine cleanup of all UHG data for compliance issues and updated any necessary Siebel requests in adherence to SOP
-Reached out to stakeholders-internal/external as necessary to perform highest quality and most accurate reporting
-Provided support to Client Services Team, Benefit Fulfillment Group, Operations, and Account Management with all reporting and database needs
-Wrote all SOPs for Siebel CRM database activity and produced all reporting documentation for step-by-step instructions on publishing all reports
-Created/Published all ad hoc necessary reports to meet all executive and client needs
-Utilized Microsoft Project to track project details and to ensure all project items were on track or ahead of schedule
Project Analyst for Account Management Operations
Medco Health Solutions January 2006 to January 2008
-Immediately took over responsibilities as former analyst left company; Learned all Siebel queries, reports, shortcuts.
-Worked with Benefit Manager to update all reports to be more user friendly; became Microsoft Excel expert running macros, pivot tables/charts, and leveraged advanced Excel formulas (e.g., IF, XLOOKUP, SUMIFS) to automate budget tracking, resource forecasting, and KPI reporting, transforming manual data into real-time insights for executive decision-making.
-Continuously worked on United Healthcare requests to ensure all reporting needs were met
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Business Management
William Paterson University
CERTIFICATIONS
Six Sigma Green Belt
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
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