Successful at developing and executing an information technology strategy that supports the goals of an organization and contributes to the bottom line.
Professional Experience
Director, Information Technology
July 1995 – Present
Recruited to lead application development and support, quickly earning the top IT position. I have the ultimate responsibility for the Company's information architecture and systems functions, IT operating and capital budgets, and serve as a business partner and advisor to the CEO and the rest of the senior management team. The Company is a $135MM+ material science manufacturer and distributor in the specialty chemical and personal care industries with customers in over 30 countries. I have led the department and staff since 1997. I have been successful in the continued delivery and operation of integrated information systems utilizing a portfolio management approach to project management. I am also responsible for policy and decision-making regarding resource allocation and the future direction and control of the company’s information technology systems.
During my tenure functioning as the head of the IT organization, I have taken on many special projects. These include marketing manager for a $6 million line with P&L responsibilities (growing revenue 33% with a 41% increase in profit), and participating in the startup of a new consulting venture. This new source of revenue for the company provides IT and other administrative services to private equity, industrial, and law firms involved in the material science and related industries. Consulting has provided me an excellent avenue to hone my leadership and change management skills in many different types of environments and organizations.
Major Initiatives:
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP): Provided leadership during the initial software selection and implementation phases of the Company's mission critical software application. Utilizing the very stable IBM iSeries platform, nearly all modules of the ERP application were implemented at all of the Company’s locations throughout the U.S. These modules included: Customer Order Processing, Purchasing, Manufacturing, Warehouse Activity Control, Financials, EDI and document output management (printing, email, faxing, etc.) We have also deployed a high availability (HA) solution that continually synchronizes this vital application with redundant systems at another one of our facilities for contingency planning and disaster recovery protection. The result of this effort has been operating cost reduction of 30%, consolidation of several roles across the organization, reduction in head-count, increased visibility to all processes, and improved information flow throughout the supply chain and organization.
ACQUISITION AND MERGER: Responsible for integrating a $32M company into the holding company's existing information technology infrastructure. This consolidation allowed for removal of redundant systems, eased the process of aggregate financial reporting, provided seamless communications between entities, and permitted a maximize return on existing IT investments. This effort Reduced the holding company's IT expenditures by 36% with the company realizing a return on investment (ROI) of 304%. Along with this major acquisition, I have been an integral part of many other product line acquisitions and divestitures.
E-COMMERCE: Lead internal staff, employees and a team of outside consultants in the design, development and deployment of the Company's e-commerce website. Maximizing existing in-house Lotus Domino technology, the site includes a full product catalog, order placing and tracking capabilities, as well as library of technical information regarding the company's individual product lines. The site has contributed to an enhanced customer experience while reducing the number of customer service requests 20%.
Most recently, in support of The Company's re-branding effort, my group has provided the web presence necessary at to deliver our Company's new message to the marketplace. This new site delivers on an updated look, navigation and self-service capabilities to our customers and business partners in a clean, succinct manner. The use of more standardized web technologies (Apache, PHP, mySQL, vs. Lotus Domino) has resulted in a tremendous improvement to transaction response time and overall performance on the site.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (BI): Influenced other executives within the organization to commit to and implement our Data Warehouse and web-based business-reporting tool. This tool has simplified how the company's decision makers access, in logical business terms, the mass amounts of transactional data within our enterprise system. Built on the Cognos platform, the centerpiece of the tool is an executive dashboard. This single dashboard reports on the company's key performance indicators (KPI's) including, earnings before interest and tax (EBIT), EBIT as a percent of sales, trailing 12 month (TTM) sales, net operating working capital percent of sales, gross margin and gross profit, The total cost of gathering data has been reduced by 60% resulting in the system paying for itself in 1.3 years. Return on investment (ROI) = 225%.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM): Partnered with outside consultants in the design, development and rollout of the company's CRM system. This system has centralized all customer contacts, correspondences, and other disparate customer information. This application has improved the way the company’s remote sales force services their customers and is the focal point for all communications with the customer. This platform also provides efficient communication and collaboration between the organization and our international distributors, which has increased our success rate for winning new business.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE/DATA CENTER RELOCATION: Lead a multifunctional project team comprised of personnel from IT operations, applications, data networking, facilities management, real estate specialists and human resources to design, build and relocate our corporate headquarters and data center. Critical considerations included a complete electrical power design, fire retardant systems, and mechanical systems (HVAC) for the new computer room. The project also required working very closely with various telecommunication companies to provide the needed services and to insure minimum downtime.
The move of our corporate headquarters and data center provided a unique opportunity to insure that we had the right IT infrastructure in place that could be flexible and support the business for years to come. Major components to this new infrastructure included moving to a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) wide area network (WAN) and the implementation of a voice-over-IP (VOIP) phone system. Other infrastructure technologies include: Cisco routers, CheckPoint Firewalls, and Juniper Virtual Private Network (VPN) appliance. The net result of this new architecture has been a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), minimized administration and maintenance cost, and significantly improving our contingency planning/disaster recovery capabilities. Our MPLS and VOIP project has a payback period of 2.25 years with a 223% ROI. The addition of our Juniper VPN resulted in a 56% reduction in remote access charges while creating a more stable and reliable remote access environment.
STRATEGY AND PLANNING: Utilize a cross-functional IT Steering Committee as well as proactively engaging other members of senior management in the development and execution of IT strategic plans to optimize the use of Information Technology. This has resulted in the development of on-going 3 year strategic IT Plan that governs and aligns the Information Technology initiatives with the corporate strategy and optimizes IT resources.
Senior Consultant
1994 –1995
The Company is a well-recognized consulting firm known for successful implementations of large, complex technology solutions. My portfolio of clients included:
$29B Insurance Company
$4B Medical Products and Equipment provider
Interfaced with the Insurance Company's agents to provide enhancements and troubleshoot problems with their homeowner’s insurance system. Also, was able to ease workloads for their IT staff by developing a more efficient method of rolling out system changes to their over 10,000 agent sites.
Participated in the consolidation of manufacturing and export systems during the years following the Medical Products Company's acquisition of a similar sized Company. I was engaged in all facets of software development life cycle for their new billing and accounts payable system.
Education
MBA – Leadership and Change Management
DePaul University Chicago, IL
(2003 – 2005)
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
Northern Illinois University Dekalb, IL
(1989 – 1993)
Member of the national business honor society Beta Gamma Sigma. |
