Director - Global Systems and Product Development
Executive with global software and product development experience; known for influential leadership, generating successful results, innovative solutions and controlling costs.
Executive Summary
• Software Product Development
• Technology Management & In-house Software Development
• Global Portfolio, Program and Project Management
• Six-Sigma and Business Process Re-engineering
• $300M+ Budget Management
• International Management and Business Development
• Global Contract Negotiations and Vendor Management
• Strategic Planning
• Mentoring & Staff Development
• Industry Knowledge: Insurance, Financial, Healthcare
Generating Successful Results
• Turned around a failing, mission critical $25M FileNet claims/policy imaging and workflow program within 4 months. Received Nationwide Insurance’s IT 2008 Outstanding Contribution Award.
• Enabled a 50% increase in the number of projects implemented, $10M in additional revenue and decreased system incidents by 38%.
Controlling Costs
• Directed a $320M program and 7 development organizations, enabling American Express to achieve technology cost savings of 26%.
• Eliminated $700K of vendor expenses through rigorous contract management/ re-negotiation and restoring a trusting relationship.
Influential Leadership
• Created proposal and sold the value proposition of the Application Management Infrastructure to the former CEO of American Express, Harvey Golub, resulting in enterprise funding of over $10M.
• Produced an American Express technology long-range plan which identified $400M+ in benefits through re-engineering the enterprise-wide revenue and expense systems (600+ work streams).
• Implemented Virtual Test Servers/VM Ware Lab Manager enabling IT to decrease testing cycle time by 50%.
PROFESSIONAL HISTORY
Scottsdale Insurance Company, Scottsdale AZ 2/07-8/09
Associate Vice President of Information Technology
Hired to transform the IT organization by leading the strategy/execution of Application Development, Testing, System Engineering, Project Management and Computer Education Services for a $2B Company owned by Nationwide Ins.
• Directed an organization of 65+ employees. Accountable for software development (new build/enhancements), maintenance, network/infrastructure engineering and customer relationships. Budget management: $10-$20M.
• Created a revised implementation strategy for replacing the company’s legacy claims and policy workflow imaging system (Migrated from Exigen/Windows Server 2000 to 2003, FileNet, .NET, J2EE, Websphere, and Oracle).
• Influenced the CEO, CFO and other key executive sponsors to align-on and embrace rigorous Project/System Development Lifecycle Management discipline and innovative technology solutions.
• Decreased application defect rate from 99% to 10% by implementing Mercury Quality Center.
• Optimized operational efficiencies through restructuring team, role centralization/clarification and establishing appropriate project management and systems development lifecycle management processes. Business Feedback: “She has turned a slow moving IT Organization into a more nimble and flexible business partner.”
• Established an IT Portfolio Management Governance Board, which improved the team’s delivery velocity by 50% and increased the effectiveness of business case/investment analysis of the IT/company project portfolios.
American Express (AmEx) – Utah, New York and Arizona 10/89-01/07
IT Development/Program Sr. Director – Global Network & Establishment Services Phoenix, AZ (2003-2007) Accountable for managing a $100M business portfolio and a $320M program to re-engineer and replace strategic financial and revenue based systems (the heart of company – authorizations, point of sale, receivables/payables, global clearing and settlement, balancing and control systems).
• Directed seven (7) global IT organizations to successfully deliver core systems allowing AmEx to realize $100M in revenue and achieve technology cost savings of 26%. (e.g., Implemented a global clearing & settlement system enabling the decommissioning of 10+ legacy financial capture platforms (assembler to C++, J2EE, Red Hat Linux, JBOSS, Oracle, TPF, Tumbleweed communications.)
• Produced and delivered monthly executive presentations, which included key program performance metrics for the IT projects/portfolio (60-100 per year). Delivered quarterly analysis/forecasts for the 12 year, $320M program, including total cost of ownership/benefits. Managed $30-65M yearly budgets within 1% of target.
• Leveraging six-sigma principles, reduced FTEs by 50% and increased data quality and modeling capabilities by creating an automated program/portfolio budget reporting and forecasting tool.
• Created and implemented portfolio/program governance standards, processes and executive level metrics, which enabled IT to effectively communicate and build confidence with the business.
• Decreased cost for program reporting by $200K by migrating all teams to a consistent program and project tracking software/tool. Tool enabled business and IT to quickly create, view and action issues, risks, change controls, etc.
IT Director Latin America & Europe – Advanced Payments Technology – Salt Lake City, UT (2000-2002)
Responsible for all AmEx Latin America and Global Banking/Network Services end-to-end application development, maintenance, testing, & relationship management for e-commerce and other EMV/Loyalty products and software.
• Prepared/delivered written and oral proposals to potential European and Latin America bank partners. Established AmEx as a viable North America competitor to Visa and MasterCard by delivering the e-commerce/EMV technology solutions for the first-ever North American co-branded EMV bankcard.
IT Director of Infrastructure, Alliances & Partnerships–Advanced Payments Tech –Salt Lake City, UT (1999-2000)
Accountable for partnering with the business to identify entrepreneurial payment products/services and establishing key global alliances and partnerships to develop e-commerce/smart card (EMV) and other fraud reduction products.
Development Director/PM – New Business Development – Salt Lake City, UT (1996-1999)
Responsible for piloting and implementing innovative e-commerce, smart card, loyalty and fraud/identity protection products and card acceptance devices with strategic clients. Led team accountable for capturing business requirements for the Blue from American Express product – the most successful new card ever launched by the company.
Benefits/Salary Operations Manager/PM – New York City, NY & Salt Lake City, UT (1992-1996)
Managed 59+ operations/telephone service team, which supported benefits enrollment and salary transaction processing for all North America employees. Delivered $400K in cost savings, standardized processes and policies by using Six-Sigma principles to manage the division-wide re-engineering and centralization of all benefits & salary administration. Awarded the Chairman’s Award for Quality-Platinum & Grand Prize.
Industrial Engineer – Quality Assurance & Engineering – Salt Lake City, UT (1989-1992)
Responsible for utilizing Six-Sigma principles/techniques to improve operational costs, quality of servicing.
Intermountain Healthcare (Insurance & Provider) – Ogden, UT 04/86-10/89
Industrial/Management Engineer - Established processes and procedures to enable the implementation of a Tesseract based on-line medical records and physician order entry system. Increased insurance re-imbursements by optimizing billing practices. Consulted with small regional physician offices and hospitals to identify cost containment strategies.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science – Industrial Engineering*, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 1986
*Intermountain Healthcare Internship (1984/1985)
COMMUNITY SERVICE
• Society for Information Management Systems (SIMS) AZ Chapter– Board Member/VP Programs (2010)
• YMCA Board of Governors Chair /Board Member, Scottsdale/Paradise Valley (2004-2008)
MISCELLANEOUS
• AmEx- approved 9-month sabbatical (2002/2003):
Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and traveled through nine Sub-Saharan African countries by truck; Became a certified Teacher of English as a Foreign Language while living in Santiago Chile
• Professional Ice-Skater in Seoul, South Korea (1985)
• Interim CIO/Operations Consultant for MAX, a division of The Gulliver Project, Inc. a start-up company providing a SaaS, on-line, e-learning curriculum for the Education Industry (2008 to the Present) |
