Ashley Blake Email & Phone Number

San Antonio, Tx, Us

Fractional Leadership in the Digital Product Development space and Executive Coaching based on the StrengthsFinder methodology. Key Engagements Included: • New digital app development as a Fractional VP of Product in the Healthtech space - focused on product-market validation, user experience testing, feature iteration, data-driven development, and pilot testing, resulting in a 22% lift in desired app actions. Made improvements to the sales and customer success process while being involved in sales pitches and customer support interactions. • Fractional Leadership and Executive Coaching for the Head of Digital Marketing/MarTech in the Financial Services space. Focused on team development, operational change, technology and vendor assessments, strategy and roadmap creation. With over 15 years of experience in the digital and technology space, I offer leadership experience across the entire product and software development lifecycle while owning multi-million dollar portfolios for companies like Rackspace and USAA. I have technical leadership experience in sales, project/program management, innovation, product management, engineering, and client success which uniquely positions me to partner with a variety of Executive Leadership on major initiatives, including the transformative journeys of product creation, user experience feedback, product development, and iteration. Community Involvement: • Alamo Heights High School Business Incubator Program - Board of Advisors & Coach• Geekdom - Mentor• Ceresa - Mentor

San Antonio, Texas Area

Reported to the VP of Enterprise Digital Technology. IT and Application Development leader responsible for Engineering leaders across a $16MM+ portfolio which includes 90+ employees and contractors who execute the discovery, research, and software development of innovation efforts. Additionally responsible for the modernization, maintenance, and support of critical platforms that enable innovation across USAA to our employees and customers. Selected accomplishments include:• Delivered innovative solutions from research to development of over $140MM in value back to USAA across Banking, Insurance, and Investments. • Key partner in the creation of Enterprise Innovation’s new operating model to gain maximum productivity in innovating and development of the 3-year strategy.• Created a prototyping program with the Corporate Development team focused on licensing IP to external companies to bring revenue back into USAA.• Championed vision, created strategy, and obtained funding for a 5,000 sqft Makerspace in San Antonio.• Established a wide range of ongoing innovation activities to engage and motivate employees and create a culture of innovation during a heavy compliance time. Resulted in over 1,700 innovation activities in 2021.• Consistent top Employee Engagement Scores across 6 other sub-organizations and a 96%+ retention rate.

Reported to the AVP of Mobile and Conversational digital products. Product technology leader responsible for strategy, development, and maintenance of USAA’s award-winning virtual agent and conversational platform which included a $13MM+ portfolio of 40+ employees and contractors. Selected accomplishments include:• Delivered exceptional experiences to internal stakeholders and customers resulting in an 80% growth of contacts mitigated by 2019 (2.6M in 2017) and $40MM in savings.• Executed a conversational platform vision and strategy where the foundation was set to weave together the USAA virtual agent, IVR, chat, SMS, personalization, and future tech/vendors together to maximize customer experience.• Re-structured operating model to embrace 2 separate focus areas, an Experience focus and Platform methodology. Digital has now broadly adopted this concept. • Encouraged IT partners to restructure scrum teams and embrace a priority driven development mindset with each team having the ability to execute full stack development across the SAFe Agile framework. • Evangelized to get articles published in both the Wall Street Journal, “Digital Assistants Start to Get More Human” and Forrester promoting USAA’s virtual agent to increase customer market awareness. • Asked to speak at over 7 Conversational AI focused conferences; Received 2 Conversational AI awards, including a Stevie Silver Award for Sales and Customer Service for USAA’s virtual agent.

Reported to the CEO. Hired to turn his one sentence vision and recent acquisition into a new authentication product.• Provided overall program leadership for high-priority innovative strategic initiatives. • Interviewed and partnered with the company’s Fortune 500 clients such as Dunkin’ Donuts, Kohl’s, and Macy’s to gain market insight and develop the product vision.

San Antonio, Texas Area

Reported to the GM/VP. Responsible for leading 2 of the 8 largest accounts at Rackspace which comprised of a $33MM run rate business, one being a high-profile, global SaaS financial services company. Delivered differentiating Managed Cloud service through a dedicated resource model leveraging Rackspace’s market leading Hybrid Cloud service and solution portfolio. Team included technical engineers, architects, and service delivery experts.• Partnered with global clients to maximize available technical products from our solution portfolio and implemented initiatives that enabled cost optimization, operational excellence, and business innovation. • Enabled sustainable innovative service delivery enhancements such as guiding a new product to offer support on top of AWS.

San Antonio, Texas Area

Reported to the GM. Led team of technical project and program managers in the VMware Private Cloud practice, the largest and most profitable business unit representing account revenue of $700MM+ and 65,000+ virtual machines. • Delivered CEO’s top priority project which allowed the delivery of virtual machines to be an automated process complete in an hour vs. several days. Involved leadership to 250+ employees and third party, covering 30 different agile teams and business units with weekly project updates to C-Suite on progress of project.• Microsoft Azure practice area re-utilized many parts of the automation in order to enable speed and accuracy of Azure virtual machine deployments as well.• Executed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with our VMware counterparts. Lead alliance level relationships and imperatives across technical, sales, and marketing functions outside of Rackspace.

• Executed multiple projects and developed project schedules with detailed milestones and deliverables. • Managed several key business initiatives within both our Managed Cloud portfolio and SaaS Cloud Monitoring offering.• Managed the project team with assigned products and lead the team through product development milestones and phase exits.• Developed project plans with detailed schedule and assigned deliverables and owners.• Lead cross functional project teams toward committed schedule.• Communicated status of projects to multiple audiences.• Identified project key risks and mitigation plans.• Captured key lessons learned after project launches.

Generated sales opportunities, and new leads from existing Enterprise customer base. Helped organize and participate in Rackspace's first Business Development Consultant Mentor Program.

Responsible for managing an SMB team that encompassed both Acquisition and Installed Base sales reps where I developed business objectives and strategies to achieve sales targets through monthly sales plans.

Generated sales opportunities, and new leads from existing Enterprise customer base.

Generated sales opportunities, and new leads from existing SMB customer base.

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