SUMMARY
20+ years of in-depth experience in Program, Project and Vendor Management, insuring on time and on budget delivery of a wide range of technology products. A thought leader in the Vendor Selection and Management arena, creating new vendor selection processes that reduce selection time from months to weeks and insure optimal vendor selection based on the customer-specific requirements. These tools and processes have been effective in saving companies millions of dollars through better vendor selection, negotiation, and implementation.
Areas of expertise include:
| Requirements gathering | System design |
| Process engineering | Vendor evaluation & selection |
| Managing internal/external development | System testing |
| Training and documentation | System maintenance/troubleshooting |
PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Program/Project Management and Leadership
- Led development and deployment of over 50 software and telecommunications systems, with budgets up to $70 Million. Skilled in a variety of Project Management techniques, including Agile.
- Managed a $70M development and global deployment of a Salesforce-based system to replace a leading staffing company’s most significant home-grown legacy system. The team included 10 Project Managers, and nearly 200 employees and consultants. On time and on budget, the first global deployment netted recognition and congratulations from the corporation’s President, and a standing ovation from delighted users.
- Managed a $26M PeopleSoft ERP upgrade with a team of over 150 people, impacting hundreds of employees and tens of thousands of temporary and permanent staff. Developed the project’s first consolidated effort-based project schedule and budget representing the activities of all Program areas, which drove the deployment of a project that had taken over six years to deliver.
- Managed a $30M upgrade of nationwide Cisco Call Manager clusters for a top healthcare company, including replacement of thousands of end-of-life servers, routers, and voice gateways. The internal team included 8 Project Managers, plus a large external vendor for the design, on-site replacements, and software upgrades.
- Led the replacement of an Epicor financial system with Microsoft Dynamics AX, including an internal team and an external Systems Integrator.
- Managed the definition, development, and deployment of a Project Management system that revolutionized the build out of the client’s telecommunications networks. Led a team that interacted with over 25% of the company staff to define current business practices and pain points, then translated them into product requirements and vendor selection criteria. Based in SharePoint and Microsoft Project Server, this system provides a centralized solution for managing project progress, company assets, and document libraries. Delivered the system on time and 40% under budget.
- Implemented three upgrades to a company-wide Time and Labor Reporting System within 3½ months, providing faster performance and streamlined Web interfaces. These projects were recognized by the company’s Leadership Council as being among the best-managed in Corporate Information Technology.
- Renewed and rehabilitated relations between corporate and market teams during product development; empowered the market team to influence the product direction, resulting in a sense of ownership and an on-time, quality deployment.
- Managed internal development of Web tool for receiving orders from national corporate accounts; delivered product on time and 40% under budget.
Vendor Selection and Negotiation
- Established Vendor Management Office for Fortune 50 company and created
templates focused on vendor selection, contract creation, and ongoing vendor
scorecarding and performance management.
- Vendor scorecarding resulted in significant performance and relationship improvement in 20 major vendors within 1 month of each scorecarding exercise.
- Negotiated 30+ contracts, resulting in savings of over $3M within 6 months.
- Reduced average contract processing time from over 2 months to 2 weeks.
- Created and implemented process for vendor evaluation and standardized RFI/RFP formats, reducing decision time from months to weeks.
- Analyzed over 400 vendors in a single year, evaluating their value and applicability to corporate needs.
- Translated and consolidated concept input from Marketing, Technical, and Billing personnel into RFP-ready Alerting requirements in less than two weeks. Resultant vendor selection produced one of the smoothest vendor integrations in the history of the division, finishing three weeks ahead of schedule.
- Led a large cross-functional team in an RFP effort to identify a long-term replacement for the Time and Labor Reporting System, including focus groups with all major areas of the company. Completed Voice of Customer requirements gathering to vendor recommendation in two months.
Process Engineering
- Managed the Procurement-to-Payment team of 22 people for an SAP ERP system deployment, reducing 24 ordering processes to 4 and consolidating 10 systems into a single package.
- Conducted Finance and AP process redesign meetings to identify issues causing millions in invoices to remain unpaid. Improvements are targeted to reduce open invoices by 80%.
- Rehabilitated performance of Prepaid vendor utilizing techniques such as a vendor report card, consolidating national forecasts, improving system integration, and enabling personnel on both sides to better understand mutual needs.
Communication, Documentation, and Training
- Bridged the technology gap between groups with varying levels of understanding, helping programmers to understand customer requirements, and Marketing to understand the technical impact of their needs.
- Created documentation and training for a software tool to enable corporations to analyze their cellular phone usage. This tool and documentation were recognized as being very clear and user-friendly, resulting in almost no calls to Tier 1 support.
- Led training for various software tools, and was recognized by students for keeping people enthusiastic and focused on learning.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
| (Top
Healthcare company) Principal Program Manager (Consultant) | 2015 to 2018 |
| (World’s top staffing company) Senior Program Manager (Consultant) | 2013 to 2015 |
| (Dynamics AX HCM Software company) Senior Project Manager (Consultant) | 2012 to 2013 |
| (Microsoft Gold Certified Partner) Senior Project Manager (Consultant) | 2012 to 2013 |
| (Wireless telecommunications company) Project Manager, ERP Systems (Consultant) | 2010 to 2011 |
| (IT consulting company) Director, Professional Services and Senior Program & Project Management Consultant (World’s top staffing company) Senior Program and Project Manager (Consultant) | 2007 to 2010 |
| (Fortune 50 retail company) Director, Vendor Management Office | 2006 to 2007 |
| (Electronics/General technology company) Senior Project Manager, Developing Technologies (Consultant) | 2005 |
|
(Biotechnology company) Senior Project Manager, Procurement and Corporate Information Technology (Consultant) | 2003 to 2005 |
|
(Wireless and satellite telecommunications company) Senior Project Manager, Investigative Engineering (Wireless Internet) | 2001 to 2003 |
| Manager, Network Planning and Development Engineering (Satellite) | 2000 to 2001 |
| Manager, Network Planning and Development Engineering (Wireless) | 1998 to 2000 |
| Project Engineer (Wireless) | 1996 to 1998 |
| Technology
Analyst (Wireless) | 1993 to 1996 |
| (Biotechnology research company) Clinical Systems Analyst | 1991 to 1993 |
EDUCATION/CERTIFICATION
M.B.A., Finance/Economics, Indiana University
B.S., Mathematics, Minors in Business and Radio/TV/Film, Purdue University
P.M.P. (Project Management Professional), Project Management Institute
ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) Accreditation, APM Group Limited
ADDITIONAL LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
Founded and grew a non-profit organization devoted to the research and preservation of classic media; membership is currently over 3,500 people in 30 countries. Authored several books on vintage media. Organized a conference in cooperation with the National Comedy Hall of Fame and the Museum of Television and Radio (now the Paley Center for Media), featuring discussion panels, show recreations, screenings, and professional entertainment.