Chief Operating Officer/VP Professional Services

GAYLE E. HESKIEL

**** ****** *

Brooklyn, New York 11229

Cell 917-***-****/Home 718-***-**** - ********@*****.***

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OPERATIONS/PROCESS IMPROVEMENT * FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT * PROGRAM MANAGEMENT

Offering proven ability to shape organizational performance and responsiveness to business needs, with prominent contributions to profitability, cost control, process optimization, customer satisfaction and service delivery.

Indentified for key operations leadership role after consistently increasing revenue, cutting costs, formulating key strategic plans and shrewdly negotiating advantageous deals with customers, vendors and partners.

Built a scalable professional services organization by establishing a project management office, streamlining daily workflow processes, developing a high performance team of top candidates and designing an optimized call center.

Consistently increased services revenue by crafting new service offerings, adjusting the pricing model and providing stellar customer service to guarantee recurring revenue.

Slashed expenditures by outsourcing several internal functions while maintaining service levels and quality.

Other Technical Leadership Competencies:

• Strategic Planning • Program/Engagement Management • Budget and Cost Management

• Customer Satisfaction • Process Improvement/Optimization • Cloud Computing Services

• Leading/Coaching Staff • Outsourcing/Contract Negotiation • Maximizing Profitability

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATIONS

University of Pennsylvania

THE WHARTON SCHOOL

Bachelor of Science in Economics with Double concentration in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management

Project Management Professional (PMP) certification ITIL v3 Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist in SharePoint IBM Certified Application Developer - Lotus Notes and Domino 6.5

Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in progress – Expected Jan 2012

CAREER HISTORY AND PERFORMANCE

AGREI CONSULTING, BROOKLYN, NY 8/2010 –PRESENT

Consulting firm offering technical and business services to the financial services and healthcare industries.

Owner/Independent Contractor

• Managed application development and implementation project that redesigned a solution to handle 4010 and 5010 EDI real time transactions through the development of web services for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont. The solution used BizTalk

• and C# and the project was run using Agile methodology

• Led global effort to consolidate and cleanse Active Directory for a major financial firm. Created detailed exception reporting process

• Designed and managed the development of HR Self Service portal using MS SharePoint and Silverlight

• Assist new tech startup with the development of a strategic plan

BINARY TREE INC, Newark, NJ 2005 – 2010

Binary Tree, a messaging migration software and consulting organization that is aligned with Microsoft, Google and IBM.

Chief Operating Officer (1/2008 – 7/2010)

Operations

• Directly managed and had P&L responsibility for consulting services, infrastructure, customer support, human resources and administration functions

• Actively participated in corporate planning sessions and developed strategies to ensure long term profitability, growth and competitiveness. Developed internal scorecard to help prioritize projects based on alignment with corporate goals, ROI and TCO

• Evaluated workflow and operations results, took corrective actions, established process controls, set key performance indicators and prioritized opportunities and internal projects. Created dashboards and management reports to enable close monitoring of daily operations and programs

• Encouraged and fostered effective collaboration between departments and amongst the leadership team to ensure an integrated approach to fulfilling the company’s goals and objectives

• Managed internal projects to create internal systems including company website and employee portal in MS SharePoint

• Negotiated offshore outsourcing of software QA process, resulting in annual savings of $180,000

• Moved internal data center to offsite location, resulting in annual savings of $100,000

• Designed efficient virtual call center and increased availability of help desk support from 9-5 daily to 24/7 with only minimal investment and increased support revenue and profitability

• Directed and managed IT strategy implementation focusing on IT budgets, timelines and critical systems

P&L and Professional Services Practice Management

• Met professional services revenue and profit/margin quotas and work closely with the software sales team to provide support in achieving software sales quota

• Developed a variety of service offerings and pre-sales tools to assist in the sales process

• Managed resource schedules to achieve utilization targets and strategic non-billable activities

• Ensured consistent professional services business practices throughout the team by establishing standards, policies and procedures and implementing and monitoring process and productivity improvements

• Negotiated exclusive contract with Microsoft form Binary Tree to be the provider of choice for all migrations from IBM Lotus Notes to the Microsoft cloud

• Responsible for success of numerous migration projects from Lotus Notes to MS Exchange and application analysis of all Domino applications to determine fit for MS SharePoint, .NET , third party applications or sun-setting.

• Created Microsoft BPOS cloud computing services offerings to help customers migrate email and applications to the cloud. Managed cloud migration solution delivery and optimize program structure

• Developed new software as a service (SaaS) offering to migrate customers to the Google Apps cloud environment

Team Management

• Supervised, led, evaluated and coached consulting managers and staff

• Led effort to recruit top notch candidates to fill professional services positions with unique skill sets

• Developed business partner and consultant certification program that includes classroom study, self-study and job shadowing

Customer Delivery

• Partnered with sales to assist with project scoping and SOW creation. Developed tools and resources for sales team to assist in qualifying and scoping service opportunities (i.e. pre-sales questionnaires, SOW templates, service estimation calculators)

• Negotiated service contracts, discounts and scheduling with customers and their legal teams to minimize company risk

• Served as a senior-level contact for customers and resolve escalated customer relationship issues

• Provided ongoing oversight on customer engagements to ensure they are delivered to meet/exceed customer expectations

• Performed project reviews to ensure project managers comply with standards and methodologies

• Led efforts to innovate and provide creative solutions; maintain customer satisfaction, and implemented methodologies to increase quality and productivity

• Collaborated with cross-functional teams on project delivery, solution development and deployment, and revenue generation techniques as needed

• Developed a scalable implementation model to support a rapidly growing client base

• Captured lessons learned and process improvements and incorporated them into ongoing continuous process development

Clients include:

• JP Morgan Chase, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Sun Microsystems, Carestream/Kodak, Microsoft, IBM, Metlife, Ameriprise, International Paper, Pitney Bowes, Blockbuster, Corning, The Hartford, AON, Glaxosmithkline, Wachovia Bank, Sunlife Financial, Watson Pharmaceutical, Unimin, SuperValu, Collins & Aikman and Expeditors

CFO/Director of Operations (10/2006 – 12/2007)

Selected Achievements:

• As CFO, managed accounting staff, coordinated daily finance, budget and accounting activities

• Managed cash position and credit line, created financial reports and provided analysis and recommendations to CEO

• Maintained relationships with tax auditors and bankers and completed QuickBooks upgrade project

• Managed on-going cost-cutting initiative, documented expense guidelines and streamlined purchasing approval process

• Ran day-to-day operations in the accounting and consulting services groups and identified areas of process improvement, workflow enhancements and implementation of internal controls across the organization

• Increased company profitability by successfully implementing price increases and creating new service offerings

• Re-negotiated vendor and customer contracts to protect company’s interests and ensure favorable financial terms

• Outsourced HR and benefits function to a PEO reduced annual recurring costs by $200,000

• Introduced, defined, created and managed a new PMO structure as an integral part of the consulting services organization. This provided organization and scalability to the consulting group

• Lead a virtual global team to deliver high value services and successful execution of all PMO related tasks, programs and projects across the entire product portfolio

• Authorize service work estimates, customer SOWs, RFP responses and resource allocations

• Implemented various methodologies, procedures, dashboards, reports and tools to monitor project quality

Consulting Services Manager (3/2005 – 10/2006)

Selected Achievements:

• Increased services revenue by 40% by enforcing consistent pricing structure and selling new services

• Crafted project plans, managed work breakdown structures against milestones and tracked project progress

• Communicated status, risks and mitigation plans to all project stakeholders

• Developed and recommend tools and processes to increase efficiency

• Lead virtual global team of Domino, Java and messaging consultants and managed consultant utilization targets

• Oversaw multiple concurrent customers IT projects and served as escalation point for resolving customer issues

• Created and implemented consulting methodology and project procedures

RELAVIS CORPORATION, New York, NY 7/1996 – 3/2005

Relavis offers customer relationship management (CRM) solutions built on the IBM Lotus Notes and Domino platform. Their CRM software helps streamline the sales, marketing and customer service functions in any organization.

Director of Consulting

Promoted throughout tenure to manage global Consulting Services organization taking primary oversight of CRM implementation services.

Selected Achievements:

• Lead consulting team by supervising progress and quality on all phases of implementation project, prioritizing projects, providing technical direction, recommending communication strategy to customers, scheduling resources, creating training programs for customers and business partners and generating proposals for new business

• Promoted efficiencies by establishing the strategy and direction for new project methodologies, best practices, procedures, and standards that provide for consistency, globalization and ease of integration

• Spearheaded development effort of two new software products throughout the project life cycle

• Built new consulting division to service and implement company’s new product offerings

• Supervised consulting staff and managers including internal and offshore resources

• Reviewed and assessed consultant utilization targets

• Managed customer relationships, consulting projects and customer expectations

• Ensured project timelines, budgets, and quality standards were met

• Facilitated analysis and requirements gathering sessions with customers and functioned as Domino development SME

• Assisted customers to optimize their sales processes and monitor KPIs for their sales, service and marketing groups

Clients included:

Credit Suisse, Nalco Chemical, Schering, Tanimura & Antle, Western Union, Acceleron, Ansell Perry, Hamamatsu, Dentsply Int’l, Texas Monthly Magazine, Novartis, SPL WorldGroup, DuPont, Western Union, Engelhard, Citibank, Union Camp, Arizona Chemical, Aspen Technology, Vistakon, Duke Energy, Rockwell Collins and The Vanguard Group.

ARTHUR ANDERSEN, LLP, New York, NY 9/1993 – 7/1996

Arthur Andersen LLP, was once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms among PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG, providing auditing, tax, and consulting services to large corporations.

Senior Consultant in Business Systems Consulting Group (BSC)

Worked for Arthur Anderson and provided consulting services for large corporate clients in the financial industry as well as companies in the non-profit sector.

Selected Achievements:

• Worked with all user levels from C-level down to analyze business processes and provided cost justifications and estimates for technology projects

• Gathered user requirements, and researched design alternatives and products for financial and accounting systems

• Developed and implemented numerous Lotus Notes/Domino, Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel VBA applications to automate customer business processes and improve productivity

• Recommended packaged solutions to address customer requirements in the areas of accounting, human resources, information technology and finance

• Organized vendor demonstrations and assisted customers in evaluating and selecting appropriate solutions

• Documented all client and vendor issues

• Coordinated and conducted end-user training

Clients included:

JP Morgan Chase, Société Générale, Administration of Children’s Services, Central Park Conservancy, AVSC

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