1
Resume of Applicant #230052
Accomplished IT Executive with demonstrated success in leading domestic and international technology initiatives. Experience at creating highly optimized technology teams, enabling quick solutions, driving departmental transformations and spearheading sustainable cultural change. Expertise in Quality Assurance, Release / configuration management, Product Development, Networking, Internet Technology, and Project Management. Proven managerial experience with ability to implement and champion cost saving initiatives. Exceptional problem solving, conflict resolution and leadership skills.LEADERSHIP SKILLS
IT Operations • Strategic Planning • Business Process Automation • Process, Performance and Quality Improvement • Solution Development • P & L • Cost Control • Budget Administration • IT SOX Compliance • IT Security • Project Management • Quality Assurance • Release Management • Vendor Management • System Development • Leadership • Transformation and Culture Change
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
3G Softech /EducationOnline 4/2011 to Present Coral Gables, FL
Chief Information Officer
Develop and implement corporate ITstrategy. Manage all aspects of the IT departments, development of initiatives to implement technologies aligned with the company business strategies. Establish QA team and test practices to ensure quality of products developed. Introduced scrum agile development methodology. Administer entire IT budget. Oversee offshore application development. Negotiate vendor contracts and license/maintenance agreements.
Implemented Quality Assurance & test practices, Change Management and Scrum Agile development methodology.
Managed portfolio of projects delivering on time, on budget and with quality.
Conducted scrum agile training to PM and development staff.
Spearhead IT corporate policies to increase productivity / quality.
Increased IT teams’ morale and throughput.
Spearheading IT savings for solutions delivered through combined onsite/offshore resources.
Reduced IT costs by 17%.
Introduced cloud based methodologies for production and preproduction environments.
Increased revenue by engaging clients to provide goods and services
Increased infrastructure reliability by improving architecture of both hardware and software designs
Partnered with Director of Sales and CEO to manage the technology investments.
Kaplan Higher Education 7/2010 to 4/2011 Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Executive Director, Application Services
Steer and manage technology Application Services teams responsible for managing one or more key technology vendor/partner relationships, as well as the technologies and systems provided by these companies. Responsible for identifying new technologies, evaluating their applicability to Kaplan Higher Education's student base and business platforms. Work closely with product and project managers on the implementation of new projects and infrastructures including operational readiness, change preparation, change execution, and post-change QA validation. Negotiate contracts with technology partners in order to implement new technologies as cost effectively as possible.
Responsible for QA team that develops, applies and maintains quality standards for company SIS systems adherence to both internal and external standards.
Work with IT and business constituents to understand gaps and opportunities in current technology platforms and systems.
Evaluate external technology products for fit with internal processes, value to KHE, and potential to grow the business.
Measure and manage the performance output to improve both the students' experience, KHE's business efficiency and growth through the innovative use of technology
Spearheaded process improvements changes with Developers, DBA, SA, BA and development teams resulting in greater quality product and higher service levels.
Saved $400,000.00 in renegotiations of new vendor contracts and evaluations of best technologies for our SIS application.
Performed a re-organization to obtain optimal throughput, capacity and quality of team deliverables.
InnovaCollege Virtual Campus 10/2009 to 7/2010 Miami, FL
Director, Information Technology
Develop and implement corporate ITstrategy. Manage all aspects of the IT, develop initiatives to implement technologies aligned with the company business strategies to sustain and service business functions with timely deliverables of products and services. Report Quality metrics, status and KPIs to executive owners and stake holders. Administer multi-million dollar budget. Oversee offshore application development. Negotiate vendor contracts and license/maintenance agreements.
Responsible for the development of client-driven QA metrics and targets for each product and as part of a cross-product initiative to assure all Eclipsys products work independently and together in a high quality manner.
Spearheaded corporate savings of almost 30% from solutions delivered through combined onsite/offshore resources and 65% for labor with no compromises in quality speed to market or accountability.
Outsourced maintenance & enhancement development allowing a cost savings of an average of 10-25%, and up to 60% by leveraging an off shore model.
Reduced infrastructure maintenance and support costs by 25% by negotiating and engaging a vendor outsource strategy.
Increased infrastructure reliability from 80% to 99.9% by improving and implementing redundancy and high availability.
Virtualized all environments with the use of VMware technology; an upgrade of Hyper–V technology, creating negligible system downtime.
Increased website traffic by 50% upon implementation of SEO, landing pages and optimizing existing websites.
Partnered with CFO and PMO to manage the technology investments and amortization.
Member of company’s steering and strategy committees.
Implemented the PMO, Change Management and Agile development methodology.
Implemented student help desk in conjunction academic advisors.
Kaplan University / Kaplan Higher Education 11/2005 to 10/2009 Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Executive Director, Development - Shared Services (2007- 2009)
Steered technology maturity and restructured efforts to align with rapidly changing business strategies caused by market conditions. Responsible for $10 million yearly operating budget with a staff of over 50 personnel and managed an off shore budget of $3 million dollars with a staff of 20. Work closely with business units to influence alignment of business process to technology initiatives, creating solutions to meet business requirements. Delivered technology solutions to thousands of users, and 60,000 online students. Admissions, Academics, Marketing, Academic Advising, Student Services, Financial Aid, Imaging, Human Resources, Purchasing, Collections and Finance & Accounting.
Led technology initiative with Six Sigma process improvements resulting in increased student tuition payment collections by 100% monthly.
Saved $2.5 million based on RFP and ROI evaluation of best technologies for student collections department application
Directed and implemented application maintenance and support help desk as an off shore model thereby reducing maintenance costs by upwards of almost 30%.
Increased Web traffic by 50% by implementing SEO and optimizing existing websites.
Implemented process improvements of software development, cutting costs, increasing productivity and efficiency yielding higher SLAs and quality in conjunction with off shoring initiative.
Developed the Kaplan Application Map (KAM) that identified integration points with all critical apps and refocused the team’s efforts on the areas that reduced the total outages by 50%.
Spearheaded process improvements changes with (SharePoint) MOSS team resulting in greater quality product and higher support service levels, by increasing stability and reliability of the Kaplan internet sites.
Involved SharePoint teams to assist Sapient for the development efforts in revamping Kaplan.com external sites.
Implemented agile product development and Scrum methodology delivering business solutions in a quicker timeframe and with higher quality.
Implemented and championed the use of BizTalk to increase the flow of database information traffic between systems, there by streamlining and creating a solid foundation for integration.
Executive Director of QA, RM, Change Management, Security and Compliance (2006-2007)
Oversee (Performance, Scalability, Reliability, and Security) teams and assure all products meet established targets.
Implemented Configuration, Release Management, IT security and SOX compliance team.
Implemented laptop encryption using CREDANT, minimizing risk and loss of data.
Implemented processes to inject security in network, code and databases.
Spearheaded SOX control audits. Reduced audit expenses by 50% with the creation of a compliance audit officer.
Ensured usage of IT Sox controls and FERPA requirements.
Implemented IT Change Management with ITIL framework.
Director, Quality Assurance (2005-2006)
Improved development process code churn of 5 in house code control tools, into one consolidated Microsoft Visual Studio package (TFS) thereby reducing labor costs by 50%.
Charted and implemented QTP automation of regression testing for all applications through the use of HP/ Mercury Quality center 9.2 and 10.0 leading to an ROI of 80%.
Increased through put and quality of projects while sustaining ratio of 4:1 -development staff to QA staff.
Leveraged QA and RM to increase uptime of application releases to production 99.99%, an increase from a 25% success rate.
Spherion Corp. 5/2003 – 11/2005 Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Senior Manager, Quality Assurance & Test
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver enterprise quality solutions.
Enhanced Quality Assurance & Test Department to instill IBM RUP development and quality assurance best practices, methodologies and procedures.
Directed testing automation efforts to include 80-85% automated regression tests.
Implemented and maintained RUP QA methodologies and practices.
Met and received favorable, SOX compliant auditing evaluations from Deloitte & Touche and KPMG.
Integrated PeopleSoft Quest Stat with Rational Clear Quest to enhance Change Management practices.
Managed and planned the primary department deliverable to ensure that systems maintained a satisfactory level of quality for PeopleSoft’s Front Office, HRMS-Payroll, PPR and Finance.
Evangelize QA and be highly visible as the champion of QA to both internal and external clients.
Spirit Airlines 8/2002 -5/2003 Miramar, FL
Manager, Quality Assurance
Formed Quality Assurance Department to instill quality assurance methodologies, practices and procedures.
Evaluated manual/automated, performance, test suites, version/change control and change management tools in order to integrate all facets of development and quality assurance that enabled optimum communication and efficiency across all departments.
Developed, monitored and continuously updated QA activities using Microsoft Project in order to keep pace with the companies changing business directives.
Communicated with company executives on progress of all development and QA activities and directed QA analysts to achieve project goals and directives.
CruisePath Network 4 /2000 - 8/2002 Miami Lakes, FL
Project Manager (2002)
Senior Manager, Software Quality Assurance (2000-2002)
Projected software maintenance releases and multiple internet cruise reservation product customization releases in coordination with business stake holders, managers and other project team leaders.
Organized defects reported from clients and QA, integrated fixes into existing project plans while delivering on time and on budget.
Directed developer leads and other developers on priority fixes, enhancements and customizations; maintained and tracked the project portfolio through inception to completion.
Created QA department to implement quality assurance methodologies and perform automation / load testing with the use of Rational’s Unified Process of company Web and client server applications.
Supervised Quality Assurance team members spread out over multiple projects simultaneously; tested new software versions for functionality, regression, user acceptance, reliability, stability, GUI, load, stress and volume.
Additional Experience
SunGard Insurance Systems 4/1997– 4/2000 Miami, FL
Manager, Software Quality Assurance
TradeStation Securities Group, Inc. 6/1993 – 4/1997 Plantation, FL
Quality Assurance Test Lead / Technical Support Lead
United States Army 4/1985 - 7/1989 Pirmasens, Germany
Sr. Manager (NCO Sergeant)
EDUCATION
Kaplan Leadership Academy (KLA), Kaplan Inc., New York, NY
Graduated 11/2008
Bauder College , Miami, FL
Associate of Science in Electronics Technology, Graduated 1991;
Grade Point Average - 3.75; Member of Perfection Club; Deans List; Honor Roll.
United States Army Non-Commissioned Officer Academy, Pirmasens, Germany
Graduate of Management and Leadership studies.
TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
.NET • C# • Flash • C++ • Java/Java Script • PHP • Visual Basic/VB Script • UI • UX • HTML • CMS • MSF Agile Methodology • Scrum Methodology • Visual Studio/TFS • Telecommunications • VOIP • IVR • Hyper-V • VMware • LAN/WAN • VLAN • Cisco • GMail Exchange Services • Windows Server (2008, 2003) • WordPress • Windows OS • MAC • Linux-Red Hat • BizTalk • SQL • MySQL • Oracle • Access • PeopleSoft • PHP •SharePoint - MOSS • JOOMLA• MOODLE • MS Office • MS Project • HOST Analytics • Daptive • Clarity •HP Mercury • IBM Rational Suite • Load Runner • QTP
CERTIFICATIONS AND AFFILIATIONS
Member of iCoast CIO Council
Six Sigma Certified
Quality Assurance Techniques from QAI
Systems Testing and Quality Assurance Techniques Course at ATI
Rational SQA Automated Testing
Project Management and Personnel Management Course
Member of CIO Board of South Florida
1