VP of Technology and Operations
Resume:
John Rossi
Darien, CT 06820
**********@*****.***
VP of Technology and Operations
Accomplished Executive Information Technology leader offering 19+ years of demonstrated success developing and executing strategic plans to promote business growth. Results-oriented professional recognized for taking on major initiatives, adapting to rapidly changing environments and resolving critical issues to ensure bottom line success. Experienced in building and leading highly skilled technology teams in a 24 x 7 dynamic and global environment. Management career evidenced by strong leadership, effective team structuring and relationship building at all business levels both internally and externally.
Core Areas of Expertise
• IT Strategy, Execution, Controllership • Budget & Cost Management • Project Management • Data Security
• Regulatory & Compliance Solutions • Data Center Design & Support • Global IT Delivery • Team Building
• Business Process Automation • Business Continuity Planning • Vendor Management • Outsourcing
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Senior IT Advisor LAN Systems and Engineering
March 2009 – Present Harrison, NY
Provide recommendations to senior management regarding the formulation of a technology strategy in support of business goals and objectives.
• Partnered with business leaders on identifying a 3-year technology roadmap which will serve as the foundation for executing their business growth strategy.
• Recommending an IT organization structure which maximizes use of existing resources in support of current business needs and provides a growth strategy to address future needs.
VP, Global Information Technology Grantham, Mayo and Van Otterloo
April 2008 – Feb 2009 Boston MA
As technology leader was responsible for introducing new technologies, process improvements and organizational change as part of an IT restructuring initiative.
Provided leadership to a team of 60+ professionals in the execution of technology strategies, IT support and operations for a $165 Billion asset manager with offices in five countries. Oversaw an operating budget of $18 million and capital budget of $22 million.
• Partnered with business leaders in defining strategic technology initiatives in support of business growth plans. Managed the project portfolio and provided timely communications on status, risks and budget status.
• Overall leadership for: data security, oversight of 7 data centers, enterprise architecture, technical designs, business continuity-disaster recovery, 24 x 7 IT operations, web development, voice & data networks, storage, database systems, help desk / desktop support, system and release engineering.
• Led in the planning and execution to consolidate 3 US data centers into a single facility within a 4-month timeframe. As a result, 3 sub-standard data centers were moved to a single Tier IV hosting facility with backup generation power, cooling and connectivity to guarantee continued operations for critical business functions.
• Sponsored an ITIL based change management program and problem management program to address system reliability incidents caused by operating system and application changes. Created policies, procedures and training for to the IT organization. The success of these programs was recognized within the first six months with a 40% reduction in incidents.
• Led a cross-functional team in formulating a multi year Data Protection program to address SAS 70 inefficiencies and to meet new Massachusetts’s regulatory requirements. Led a project team in the creation of data classification guidelines, location of critical data, application analysis / redesign and provided the strategy for protecting electronic and physical data.
• Redesigned the disaster recovery model / strategy to improve recovery times for critical business systems. Through the introduction of virtualization, SAN and SQL replication technologies recovery times were reduced from 5 days to 2 hours.
• Managed team responsible for design improvements, audits and day-to-day support for 7 global data centers supporting 900 MS Windows, Linux and Unix servers.
• Provided guidance on instituting a metrics based 24 x 7 global IT help desk program to provide support to 600 users across 5 countries. This team handled all IT issues relating to infrastructure, remote access, client technologies, business applications and telephony services. Led a project team in creating standard operating procedures, Service Level Agreements and in the selection of issue tracking software.
• Spearheaded outsourcing of the messaging infrastructure to provide a cost effective solution to upgrade and stabilize an over subscribed environment. The effort resulted in increased availability and a more robust recovery strategy, which will capture $500k in savings over 3 years
VP, Global Technology and Operations GE Asset Management Inc.
September 1996 – April 2008 Stamford, CT
Promoted into roles of increasing complexity to build a global information technology organization to support business growth.
As VP, partnered with senior leadership in defining a technology strategy in alignment with the business strategy. Responsible for monitoring, assessing and selecting emerging technologies and tools for use across business applications and enterprise architecture for a $200 billion asset management firm with 7 global locations. Oversaw a $15 million operating budget and $15 million capital budget.
• Provided leadership to a team comprised of 50 employees and 70 globally dispersed contractors responsible for: application development, business operations, voice and data infrastructure, Internet connectivity, data security, desktop support, database systems, application development, data warehouse, systems engineering, disaster recovery, storage, and 24 x 7 support.
• Consolidated IT support functions into a “Center Of Excellence” operation which was measured to stringent Service Level Agreements. Team was responsible for 24 x 7 IT operations support of a $6 Billion daily global transaction volume. Eliminated redundant roles, processes and simplified support capabilities resulting in 40% cost reduction.
• Implemented a Centralized Global Development Center; reducing the number of technology centers from 6 to 2 in support of simplification efforts and to enhance 24 hour trading support. Drove more than $3 Million in cost savings while increasing system performance, capacity, availability and improving customer satisfaction.
• Led the implementation of an automated change management system that captured application and operating system changes as a package that was then applied across application environments. Promoting a single package across environments ensured code and system consistency. Within the first year, 1,820 changes (72%) were automated and configuration related defects were reduced by 30%.
• Collaborated with senior IT leaders and business partners in creating a multi-year Data Protection Program to address concerns around business proprietary information, client data and business systems. Managed a cross-functional team in the creation of a data security policy, data classification guidelines and user awareness training.
• Led a 3-year virtualization program to increase resource capacity and system availability while reducing operating and capital expenditures. This effort captured savings of $4.5 Million through the use of server, backup and storage virtualization technologies in conjunction with an Information Lifecycle Management solution.
• Provided leadership in creating an SLA driven outsourced help desk responsible for 24 x 7 support to 500 global clients. Participated in a monthly review of the team’s service level performance metrics. The team sustained performance and customer satisfaction levels above 97%.
• Partnered with Enterprise Architect in co-leading a development council in determining development standards and technical direction.
• Worked closely with Chief Compliance Officer and Senior Legal council in the interpretation of regulations and in selecting technical solutions to satisfy requirements for; Sarbanes Oxley, eDiscovery, state audits, voice, email and document retention.
• Member of GE’s Global Technology Council that was responsible for assessing and piloting emerging technologies to be used across GE Company. Presented VMware, data backup and desktop virtualization products as enterprise technology solutions.
Director, Enterprise Infrastructure and Operations
December 1998 – January 2001
Promoted and tasked with implementing a global IT structure to support the business’s goal of building a global presence.
• Implemented a centralized help desk 1st level support function which involved staffing a team, working with business partners on Service Level Agreements and creating procedural and operational policies.
• Hired a staff of 20, documented procedures and defined lines of responsibilities to build out the following teams: enterprise infrastructure, network, desktop and disaster recovery.
• Partnered with business leaders on defining disaster recovery expectations and translated those into strategic and tactical plans. Implemented a disaster recovery program which involved the build out of a secondary hot data center / user site, creating recovery procedures and designing a system replication strategy that best met recovery objectives. Bi-annual testing occurred in partnership with business users on mission critical systems, data and 3rd party communications to validate performance and data consistency.
• Responsible for negotiations, procurement and contract review for desktops/laptops, mobile, network hardware, software, outsourced services and consultants.
Manager, Network and Telecommunications
September 1996 – December 1998
Responsible for hands-on support and leadership for a 5 person technical team.
• Designed and implemented the first virtual network infrastructure utilizing Xylan switches
• Designed and built out the first disaster recovery site for core systems
• Implemented a new turret phone system for the trading desk
• Provided hands-on help desk support for desktop, telephony and remote access to the user community
Manager – Infrastructure The Prodigy Service Inc.
January 1989 to September 1996 White Plains, NY
Began as a 3rd shift network operator, promoted to Infrastructure Manager within 3 years.
December 1992 – September 1996
• Hands-on leadership of a 24 x 7, 12-person team responsible for system engineering and operations support of the production content build environment for the online service.
Network Analyst
September 1989 - December 1992
• Responsible for server builds, administration and support
• Responsible for IBM Token Ring Infrastructure build out and support
• As a network operator was responsible for monitoring servers, data providers and network infrastructure
Technical Expertise
Hardware NetApps SAN, EMC, Dell client and Servers, HP Blades and Rack Mount Servers, Cisco
Routers / Switches, Checkpoint & Cisco PIX Firewalls, Remote Access, VoIP, Wireless
Access Points, Tape Backup, Juniper, Avaya PBX, Cisco Unified Messaging
Software NetApps Data ONTAP Suite, VMware Suite, Microsoft Windows Desktop, RSA, Business Objects, Informatica, Microsoft Windows 2003 & 2008 Server Suite
Tools BMC Patrol, Appworks Scheduler, Tidal Scheduler, Fluke, Symantec Security Management and End Point Security, HP Sitescope
Platforms MFN, XIP, SSB’s ATAM & Orbit, Bloomberg, Latent Zero, Reuters, VMware, Citrix, Windows clustering, SQL 2005 clustering, Solaris, JBoss, Apache, Red Hat Linux, Oracle 9i/10g, Sharepoint, SQL 2005, Microsoft Exchange, Polycom, Cisco WaaS, Riverbed
Education
Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems, Iona College, December1988
Certifications
Six Sigma Certification (Green Belt)
Certified Novel Engineer (CNE)
Honors
GE Above and Beyond Award – Recipient in 2005 for successfully implementing technology solutions to satisfy regulatory requirements for email retention and data protection and recovery.
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