Cory Stevens Email & Phone Number

Responsible for the business and program management activities of Microsoft Research at Redmond helping the Lab Director, Leadership Team, Chief of Staff, and Business Operations Team to streamline processes to execute daily work against their funded research project plans.• Manage budget, capacity, staffing, recruiting, and headcount activities to ensure alignment with investment priorities, funding, forecast, and desired workplace improvements• Help orchestrate the management of various activities within the rhythm of business activities, by scheduling events, collection of content, recording meetings and hosting the sessions• Evaluate end to end business processes and identify improvements to help gain clarity and efficiencies when executed, reducing rework, and saving time• Own the development and improvement of an existing work request tool using PowerApps and Power Automate to capture important required data, route requests for approval, and communicate changes in the request status to relevant parties• Contributed to the management of the organization’s office and lab space allocation, including a recent building reshuffle moving over 150+ individuals in a single day.• Collaborate on executive communications allowing the important points of the message to be articulated and land with the intended audiences

Responsible for business management and rhythm of the business (ROB) activities to help the Microsoft Maps and Local CVP, Chief of Staff, Leadership Team and members of the organization achieve their core priorities and commitments.• Effective planning, forecasting and management of employee headcount (466) and budget ($120M)• Drive the recruiting process and staffing strategy to enable managers to hire quickly and find the best talent• Created clarity and visibility through delivery of content sharing mechanisms, for example newsletters, announcements, and channel posts• Track action items, communicating status to stakeholders, and holding assigned owners accountable for meeting due dates, process guidelines, and delivery of their work tasks• Manage and facilitate the rhythm of business (RoB) for the Leadership Team, including product meetings, employee All Hands, green-light reviews, execution checkpoints (OKRs), learning series, budget tracking, and workplace/culture discussions • Assist the Chief of Staff with driving alignment and execution of the core business priorities and OKRs

California, United States

Responsible for assessing and streamlining all aspects of daily business operations. Driving process and tooling improvements to ensure company longevity for a company at risk of closing. • Grew company profit within 18 months, from $200,000 to $700,000 for 2020 and on track to exceed $1,000,000 in 2021• Set company goals, standards and managed projects• Supervise office staff, hired and onboarded new employees• Manage company software and IT infrastructure• Manage compliance and security clearances like DOD and CWA• Own relationships with Unions, Public Works, School Districts, Northrup Grumman and the Department of Defense• Establishing a new line of business for remediation and abatement • Review and sign all contracts and bonding agreements• Improved contracts to protect against subcontractor nonfeasance• Improved and corrected bidding processes such as markup calculations and adding direct costs previously being omitted• Oversee company accounting including accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll• Perform financial projections and reporting• Implemented and managed job costing for financial tracking• Improved accounting reports by setting a monthly invoice deadline for subcontractors

South Jordan, Ut

Responsible for managing the implementation and communication of business client’s health insurance plans for their pensioned employees within the Client Services Department.• Led the Educational Outreach program and Seasonal Readiness initiative • Evangelized customer-centric thinking across departments and initiatives• Managed cross-team dependencies, priorities, and department OKRs• Collected and assessed program requirements from all internal stakeholders• Reviewed user journey maps to identify gaps and areas to drive improvements• Produced regular status reporting for leadership and department stakeholders

Draper, Utah, United States

Responsible for all aspects of daily business operations and averting an impending company bankruptcy.• Led the company to financial solvency within 4 months • Directed and negotiated the sale of a company division for $1,600,000 in cash• Revisited past tax returns resulting in a $400,000 refund• Prioritized and negotiated debts and overdue payables• Streamlined accounting processes and divergent software• Managed a subcontractor lawsuit obtaining a dismissal• Increased profitability of new accounts by raising rates and improving estimates• Reviewed and negotiated contracts

Microsoft Bing/Cortana EcosystemResponsible for the publication of all Cortana skills and administration of the directory website.• Managed development and administration of new cortanaskills.com website• Co-developed the requirements and end-to-end processes for the certification and publication of 3rd party Cortana skills• Co-produced publishing specs and requirements for the certification administration tool• Created publishing requirements and specifications for the developer portal • Collaborated with 3rd party partners, legal and marketing departments• On-boarded and supported internal and external Alexa-Cortana skill beta testers• Supplied data for executive status reports

Lake Stevens, Washington, United States

Founded and managed a community newspaper that served the residents and businesses in Lake Stevens.

Samsung S8 (Bixby)• Managed Application Development Team• Set scope, priorities balanced workloads and generated daily team reports• Triaged incoming issues, managed backlog and tracked progress• Improved efficiencies and processes within the Engineering, Localization and NLU teams• Generated weekly reports for Samsung Executive Team• Communicated daily with client regarding priorities, risks, mitigations and project status• Advocated improvements on Samsung’s side – resulting in increased efficiency and improved communications across all globally distributed teamsPioneered Voicebox’s training initiative by developing and implementing a program that reduced on-boarding of new hires from 3 months to 3 weeks and successfully delivered 8 high quality projects from initiation through to completion.Renault (LGe) Car Years 2015, 2016, and 2017• Performed both QA Lead and Program Manager roles on CY16 and CY17• Project consisted of 10 speech domains and 23 languagesFiat Chrysler (FCA) CY18 benchmark evaluation• Created a custom end-to-end framework in C# which reduced QA iterations from 3 days to 2 hours Toyota (Panasonic, Pioneer, Fujitsu-Ten, Denso) CY13• QA Lead over 20-million-dollar project consisting of 10 speech domains, 5 languages, 5 vehicle configurations across 4 platformsTelisma Automatic Speech Recognition• Managed project as both QA Lead and Program Manager• Project consisted of integrating embedded ASR into Voicebox SDKsKaleo (Voicebox SDK testing and evaluation tool)• Evangelized the need for changes to a critical, company-wide tool and successfully managed the development and release of its replacement• Authored requirements which increased intuitiveness, expanded capabilities, added audience-based views and simplified custom configurationsTomTom Navigation Devices• Managed project as QA Lead• Project was first to market with one-step address entry

Responsible for leading the Quality Assurance, Technical Writing and Localization Teams and ensuring the quality of barcode printer drivers and barcode and label creation software in 23 languages.