Audie Franks Mba, Pmp Email & Phone Number

Clinton, Massachusetts, Us

As a Tech Advisor, I work with Business and IT leaders to effectively address critical challenges that require specialized resources. Whether it's assisting on complex problems or projects, navigating mergers and acquisitions, ensuring regulatory compliance, supporting expansion and growth, or providing special skilled staff not available in-house, a Tech Advisor is a valuable ally to help solve critical problems and achieve business objectives.

My 86 year old mother needed to relocate from Wisconsin to Massachusetts when her sister died unexpectedly of cancer. Because of my mother's frail health condition, I decided to take a break and dedicate time to get her transitioned to living with me and my wife. Now after over a year has passed, my mother is fully settled and in a better place. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. But now I'm ready to rejoin the workforce!

Leominster, Ma, Us

AS VP of IT, my priorities were to rebuild the IT team, modernize the IT infrastructure, stabilize the network, update and manage the business continuity plan, and create a strategic technology road map for the organization.Accomplishments:★ The IT team transitioned approximately 80 percent of our home office users to a remote workforce within 2 weeks after the COVID shutdown in March 2020. During and after the transition, the IT team was able to maintain the same high level of customer service and support for the remote users that pre-existed COVID.★ Led the IT team in a strategic rebuild of the IT infrastructure with Hyper Convergence Infrastructure and cloud technology (Azure, Microsoft 365), reducing the footprint in our HQ data center and branch sites by over 65 percent. In the process we saved over $150k in hardware and license renewal fees.★ Architected a high availability network solution using SD-WAN technology from Cato Networks for our headquarters and branch locations. This new architecture would remove our MPLS network, saving us 50 percent in annual costs with Windstream.★ Revised our Business Continuity Plan to ensure information was updated and all critical business functions were accounted for. As part of this process we redesigned our Disaster Recovery site with our partner TierPoint to ensure improved RPO and RTO capabilities for mission critical applications.★ Implemented Microsoft 365 for improved communication and collaboration for remote users and onsite workers leveraging Teams, Planner, and SharePoint. ★ Led the IT team in migrating an outdated, on premise ShoreTel system to a cloud VOIP solution. This created higher availability and stability for our phone system.

Worcester, Massachusetts, Us

As the CIO, I defined IT policies and procedures and set the strategic technology direction for the organization. I led the IT team in operational support, administration, and project management. My P&L responsibilities included procurement of hardware and software, consulting services, projects, and staffing. Accomplishments:★ Led a strategic rebuild of the IT infrastructure using cloud technology (Azure, Office 365) and virtualization (VMware 6.5).★ Reduced annual operating costs by 55% through the removal or upgrade of legacy systems and applications, leasing capital equipment , and outsourcing services such as managed printing.★ Architected a network solution using Bigleaf SD-WAN technology for dual connectivity, achieving high availability for our cloud solutions.★ Introduced a new collaboration platform standard utilizing Office 365 (SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams) for more efficient communication and collaboration between the main office and 7 remote locations.★ Developed a cybersecurity strategy with new standards, policies, and equipment to effectively secure and monitor the environment.★ Led the migration to a cloud VOIP solution (Ring Central) to consolidate communication for all company employees on one platform, reducing annual costs by 10 percent.

Framingham, Ma, Us

I supervised a team of desktop engineers responsible for software distribution and updates to the global enterprise (North America, Europe, Asia), approximately 14,000 machines. My responsibilities included departmental oversight (team management, budgeting, procurement, vendor management), projects, and development of policies and procedures.Accomplishments:★ Developed the Windows 10 Upgrade Program which consisted of a multi-year, multi-project initiative to upgrade all computers in the organization to Windows 10 by 2020.★ Led a global project team in the successful update of web browsers for 14,000 desktops to meet security and compliance requirements.★ Led a global project team to successfully upgrade 14,000 desktops to Office 2013 to ensure compatibility with Office 365 and standardization on one version of Office.

Framingham, Ma, Us

I was in charge of the Messaging and Collaboration department with a team of 9 engineers. My team was responsible for support and administration of the global (North America, Europe, Asia) email environment. approximately 20,000 mailboxes. I was also responsible for providing project management oversight for several mid–large size, complex, global projects.. I was involved from inception of the project - proposal, justification (ROI, TCO) to successful implementation using best practices in project management methodologies (waterfall, agile, PRINCE2).Accomplishments:★ Led a project team assisting consultants with migrating 20,000 mailboxes from Lotus Notes to Office 365.★ Built a global operations support team to manage the new Office 365 environment.★ Brought a $1.1 million iPad project back on track that had fallen 2 months behind schedule, successfully completing the project within budget.★ Assumed responsibility of a security project that had remained incomplete for 6 years. Led the project team to successfully complete the project in 8 months.★ Developed and implemented a project to migrate the European office from Blackberry to Windows Phone.★ Ensured that the email environment passed annual regulatory compliance audits (FTC, PCI, HIPAA, SOX).

Framingham, Ma, Us

I facilitated ongoing development and management of application servers, SAN, networks, and information security. I had oversight of department budget and planning, maintaining policies and procedures, regulatory compliance, and team development and mentoring. I also led several IT projects aligned with strategic business objectives and completed them on time and on budget.Accomplishments:★ During the TJX security breach in 2006, I was an active member of a team assisting in the investigation and remediation. This involved providing data to investigators, as well as ensuring the messaging environment for the US division was properly secured. Once the investigation was completed, I was also involved in defining the new security standards for Messaging to meet PCI and FTC regulatory compliance.★ Led a project team (Business, IT, and External Vendors) in pioneering the first deployment of iPhone and iPad mobile devices to the company.★ Led a project team in migrating from physical to virtual servers. We were one of the earliest adopters of VMware. Being innovative reduced our annual operating costs by $400,000.★ We were one of the first departments to adopt cloud computing. We introduced a new cloud email security solution (Proofpoint) to meet regulatory compliance and security requirements. As an early adopter of cloud solutions, we decreased operating costs by $150,000 by removing hardware in the data center.★ Using ITIL best practices, reduced the number of support calls to the Help Desk and increased efficiency with reduction in time for resolution.

Masters Of Business Administration, Marketing And Innovation/Entrepreneurship

Education record

Bachelor Of Science & Bachelor Of Arts, Computer Information Systems & Business Administration (Dual Major)

High School Diploma