Andrew Ion Email & Phone Number

Oakville, ON, CA

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Greater Toronto Area, Canada

• Reporting to VPs and SVPs, I managed a portfolio of about 32 applications across a diverse set of business lines. Overall teams size was typically 50-80 people, with 3-4 senior managers and other senior roles such as.
• Rescued and delivered Scene+ loyalty system migration project, preventing loss of future partnerships. Received a Top Talent award and built a new team to continue Scene+ product expansion. Scene utilizes Cloud.
• Designed and delivered the C.MEE (Customer Marketing and Engagement Engine) application and supporting Azure infrastructure. C.MEE leverages Big Data, Machine Learning and a sophisticated AI that analyzes customer.
• Designed and delivered multichannel Protection Navigator application, ensuring regulatory compliance on sales of Insurance products across all bank channels.
• Provided consistent leadership as Canadian Banking was combined with Scotia Digital, helping team navigate significant cultural and structural changes while keeping essential projects and systems operational.
• Architected solution to modernize the Cheque Exception Processing by transitioning from on-prem batch to microservice. Realized cost savings of approx. $500k/yr.

Toronto, Canada Area

• Reporting to VPs and SVPs and working closely with multiple business and technology teams, I led the development and delivery of cloud-based Pega CRM platforms and infrastructure for Canadian branches and international.
• Responsible for the development and delivery of several cloud based Pega CRM platforms for use in Canadian bank branches and customer contact centres internationally.
• Part of Enterprise Pega Platform Governance, worked to define and test cloud infrastructure and deployment patterns, as well as application architecture patterns.
• Key accomplishments include delivering the bank’s first Azure based Pega ecosystem in production, and numerous API modernization initiatives that reduced overall technical debt and operational costs.

Toronto, Canada Area

• Reporting to VPs and SVPs, I led the development and delivery of an international Pega application for use in multiple Latin American countries. Notably, I initiated offshore development in an organization with no.
• Built several international full-stack teams (Developers, BAs, SAs, and Infrastructure Engineers), delivered international Pega applications and infrastructure used by branches in multiple countries.
• Developed strategies for Architectural Governance, Intake and Estimation, Application Roadmaps, Platform Currency, Infrastructure Utilization, CI/CD, Automated Testing, Vendor Management, Talent Development, and.
• Worked closely with stakeholders in Chile and Mexico to build and deploy modernization releases across network of approximately 700 branches with over 30,000 users, supporting about 20,000 customer interactions per.
• Refreshed delivery culture, started use of Agile methods, CI/CD practices, and automating deployment processes to boost delivery speed and reduce errors.
• Transitioned from physical infrastructure to public and private cloud-based solutions supported by automated delivery pipelines, frequently presenting accomplishments to CTO of Scotiabank.

Toronto, Canada Area

• Delivery Director in the Cards Pega and Client Account Management Technology group, oversaw 180 team members across 3 teams. Having proven my ability to drive change, I was brought in to turn around one of CIBC's.
• Delivered one of the largest Pega PRPC initiatives in Canada with a technology spend exceeding $40 million out of a total program budget of $150 million.
• Successfully recovered the troubled project by applying result-focused methods and optimizing team accountabilities. Created effective teams by adjusting management and vendor structure, and established foundational.
• Established a staffing model to build internal CIBC Pega competence and lessen dependency on outsourced workforce, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual contract expense.
• Enhanced efficiency by establishing a 24/7 application support team in India, improving throughput for testing and development. Introduced shift-based development support and operations teams to provide continuous.
• Realigned vendor accountabilities to find synergies. Restructured vendor engagements to prevent conflicts and roadblocks. Greatly improved productivity and output quality by procuring improved equipment for development.

Toronto, Canada Area

• Delivery Director in the Mortgages Lending Insurance and Deposit Products Technology (MLIDT) group, oversaw Cobol Mainframe, Java, and C++ development teams with a total of about 30 team members. My role included.
• Technologically diverse portfolio included approximately 25 enterprise critical applications utilized in bank branches and by retail and corporate business banking clients over the internet. Changed management team.
• Saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual operating costs and reduced risk by eliminating reliance on independent contractors, delivering hardware virtualization projects, and decommissioning legacy mainframe.
• Managed multiple on-shore and off-shore vendors under ASP and staff augmentation models. Held vendors accountable for shortfalls and implemented procedural changes to improve quality of vendor deliverables..
• Delivered business-critical initiatives, including Market Linked GIC, increasing CIBC's deposit holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars. Managed key relationships to address post-implementation issues.
• Initiated a multi-year strategic project to migrate legacy mainframe GIC sales and service to a modern platform. Project spend is estimated to be tens of millions of dollars, requiring alignment between approximately.

• Led the Intake and Portfolio Planning department, responsible for estimating and scheduling all MLIDT (Mortgages, Lending, Insurance and Deposit Products Technology) work requests and leading the annual fiscal planning.
• Re-engineered the MLIDT intake process. Improved estimate response times from 1-2 months to 2-3 weeks, greatly enhancing business planning and delivery efficiency.
• Restructured team to improve quality and speed of service, built team and individual capabilities by providing development opportunities and mentoring.
• Managed multiple challenging business and technology Senior Director and VP relationships in order to ensure a smooth transition to the re-engineered process.
• Created a foundation for continuous improvement by establishing metrics and key performance indicator measurements to improve tracking. This allowed for fact-based analysis of intake performance as opposed to anecdotal.
• Created monthly strategy forum to review strategic initiatives within MLIDT at a Senior Director and VP level.

• Created and managed a multi-disciplinary team of 15 direct reports and 16 indirect reports that specialized in issue management and resolution, application delivery, and maintenance releases.
• Technology portfolio included multiple enterprise critical applications used in bank branches and over the internet by all CIBC customers.
• Allocated resources to initiatives, set performance expectations and context, provided focus and demonstrated CIBC values.
• Worked with team members to develop their strengths and find gaps in their training and development. Provided coaching so that employees could reach their full potential.
• Optimized departmental approach to application delivery. Changed release cycle from from large semi-yearly releases to smaller regularly scheduled quarterly releases. Resulted in improved business partner satisfaction.
• Managed vendor relationships and enforced vendor accountabilities - successfully managed projects that involved multiple vendors with conflicting objectives.

• Created a culture of support within the department - established a process to manage production incidents, the communication around them, and a framework for timely resolution.
• Introduced Technical Writer role. Hired a Technical Writer to create high quality technical reference documentation to enable production support culture.
• Streamlined software development and deployment process for CIBC’s Commercial Business Banking application resulting in significantly increased deployment success rate and decreased vendor error rate.
• Established a Steering Committee with CIBC and a vendor to track and address issues at senior management level. Result was a stronger client-vendor partnership that significantly reduced ongoing project issues and.

• Work package lead for several high-profile migration and regulatory projects.
• Received letter of recognition from CIBC Senior Executive Vice-President for exceptional performance.

Hired initially as a developer, promoted to manage the Connectivity Applications Development Team. Responsible for ensuring successful completion of concurrent systems integration and legacy platform maintenance initiatives, as well as managing daily operations.

• Worked for various departments within DND (Human Resources, Learning and Career Centre, Central Medical Equipment Depot, Base Comptroller), progressing from entry level IT to management. Designed and developed.
• IT Manager / Technical Liaison
• Project Manager / Software Developer
• Technologist

Bsch, Computing And Information Science

Advanced Undergraduate thesis on Human-Computer Interaction at the Queen’s Human Media Lab.

Executive Strategy Program, Queen’S School Of Business

Executive education course on strategic planning and leading deep organizational change.