Scaled Agile Release Train Engineer (RTE) - Servant leader and coach for the Acquisition Suite Solution Train (structured and unstructured data) managing a budget of ~$12MM. • Facilitate Agile Release Train (ART) events and ceremonies and drive flow to deliver value with a focus on relentless improvement. Implemented process improvement changes which increased Program Increment (PI) deliverable success rates from ~70% to 90%. • Communicate with stakeholders, escalate impediments, report and track budgets, manage risks, and resource hiring and alignment. • Coach and mentor ART leveraging AI (Chat PwC and Copilot) and prompt engineering to assist in activities such as creation of work items in ADO, meeting summarization and action item identification, retrospective analysis and improvement opportunities, risk management, process improvement evaluation and recommendations on best practices.

Hired to grow, train, and coach high performing team with a lean program management focus. Grew team from 30 resources to over 100 while maintaining a culture focused on learn (fail) fast and start-up mentality. • Designed and formed a lean agile structure around standing program which adapted as we grew the team. • Integrated DevOps into process flows and structure resulting in a 20% reduction in infrastructure costs and improved scalability. • Established standardized QA engagement and processes and partnered in establishing the use of Selenium for automated testing which reduced testing times significantly. • Supported team pushing the boundaries of business automation and data intelligence leveraging AI, Machine Learning, Data Analytics, Natural Language Processing and Data Lake solutions.• Functioned as operations manager handling team finance with a budget of ~$10MM, vendor management, Hardware /Software requests, and cross team relationships. • Became touchstone for team!

Participated as co-chair of marketing committee and member of the executive committee.

Hand-picked to assist Vice President of Technology with managing the IT budgets for Ashley Homestores with a budget of ~$5mm and Ashley Global retail Services with a budget of ~$15mm. Also responsible for partnering with the finance team on the monthly IT labor capitalization. In addition, responsible for leading the IT team that supports the Content Services division including the Senior Vice President and all his direct reports. • Provide leadership and vision for IT and Business Team supporting the Content Services Division including strategic planning of tools and workflows.• Assess and manage new innovative technologies for business continuity and growth such as the Product Information Management (PIM) system, the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, and 3D assets for Augmented and Virtual Reality applications.• Recruit, hire and train IT staff, to support the Creative Services Division.• Partnered with Agile Thought to create a statement of work (SOW) and get funding for an Agile assessment which established Agile best practices and improved visibility and throughput for all the teams in the Tampa Florida and Arcadia Wisconsin offices. • Trained Creative Services IT team in Agile project management and coach and mentor as the team progresses on our Agile journey. • Originally hired to hire and train Microsoft Dynamics AX team to support Ashely’s eCommerce and Brick and Mortar programs.

Assigned as Program Manager for the Customer Contact product with an annual budget of ~$2mm, managing ten onshore (three Project Managers) and ten offshore resources (two Project Managers) leveraging a blended Agile (Scrum)/Waterfall approach. Directing all aspects of project management including partnering with clients for business case formulation, strategy alignment of the program with the business, project initiation through deployment and project closeout. Responsibilities include monitoring of project deliverables, resource time versus estimates, project budget tracking, performance reviews, and salary planning. Majority of projects delivered on time and on budget.

Co-led an agile steering committee that sponsored a third party organizational change assessment and agile training for the organization. Performed as an Agile team coach, leading a majority of the Agile pilots in the organization. Created repeatable processes for just-in-time team training, sprint planning, and retrospectives, serving to equip teams to embrace change quickly

Selected by senior management to create and train Agile team and act as initial scrum master for the Digital/Consumer Evolution program. Managed all new projects and changes in requirements pulling disparate resources and technologies together to focus on execution and delivery. Effectively managed risks and applied mitigation strategies. Obtained clear understanding of key success factors by establishing excellent working relationship with Product Owner. Team delivered new functionality to the organization with minimal disruptions to the core business on time and on budget

Replaced project manager on the redesign of the Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) system (Messenger Customer Service) due to missing deliverables and cost overages. Team resources were trained in Agile Scrum methodologies and were refocused on the project objectives of reducing transfers to the help-desk and streamlining the process thereby shortening call times. Transfers were at a rate of almost 20% with a project target of 12%. The target was surpassed and at the completion of the project, transfer rates were lower than 5%. Additional benefits included faster training to bring on new reps that was reduced from four weeks to two as well as simplifying the processes for current reps to shorten call times by an average of 10 seconds.

Performed as vendor and project manager to implement and integrate the CA Clarity portfolio and project management (PPM) tool to replace the company’s former tool. Designed and delivered all training to project managers on project management standards. Designed and implemented custom workflows to automate project approvals and project communication.

Selected to leverage CMMi for the applications development group. Responsible for forming, directing, and participating in the Project Management Office (PMO) based on the CMMi model to improve software quality, reduce cycle time, and cost. Designed and implemented processes impacting all phases of the system development lifecycle from initiation and executive approval through project closeout and post implementation review. Implemented project metrics and auditing processes to bring visibility to project performance and the complete inventory of work. Sought out by a CMMi contributing author to participate in a CMMi SCAMPI appraisal team for a defense-contracting firm in Bethesda Maryland.

Co-lead team that designed, developed, and tested a new billing system as a web application using ASP.NET, VB.NET, Java Script, HTML, and XML.

Responsible for developing high-level, design, coding, and testing of system requirements on the following contracts:Time Customer Service, Inc. – Tampa, FLSenior Consultant 08/00 – 04/01Designed, developed, tested, and implemented a new system that managed the functionality of the fulfillment and distribution of Time, Inc’s magazine titles. The new system was implemented using DB2, JCL, and COBOL/370. Hired as an employee in May of 2001. Complete Business Solutions Incorporated – Tampa, FLSenior Consultant / Project Lead 11/98 – 07/00Supervised and assisted in the analysis, design, and implementation of the Tampa Branch Intranet site using Microsoft Front Page 98’, HTML, and ASP. Celotex, Inc. – Tampa, FLSenior Consultant / Project Lead 03/99 – 07/00Project lead responsible for analysis, design, source code modification, data conversion, and extensive testing of in-house COBOL, CICS, and DYL280 in the Legal, Transportation, and Sales Incentive systems, as well as 24-hour on-call production support. Converted the Sales Incentive system from COBOL to Micro Focus Cobol on a HP UNIX platform to interface with Oracle 8i. Equifax Payments Services, Inc. – St. Petersburg, FLSenior Consultant 08/98 – 03/99Worked on the Merchant Credit Card and FBS systems responsible for unit/system testing of Y2K coding changes. Used CA7 to run daily/monthly schids for testing. Responsible for coding reports in DYL280 and assisting in solving production problems. GTE Data Systems – Tampa, FLSenior Consultant 01/98 - 08/98Worked on the Carrier Access Billing System (CABS) team in a mainframe/DB2 environment. Responsible for developing high-level design, coding, and testing for system process discrepancies.