Eric Branch Email & Phone Number

Clearwater, Florida, United States

Oversee all company projects, change requests, and production defect resolution, leading a team of 20, including project managers, coordinators, business analysts, and quality analysts. Collaborated closely with directors across New Business, Policy Owner Services, Claims, Finance, and Compliance to understand their needs, facilitate solutions, and prioritize projects. Regularly conducted meetings to align business priorities and key initiatives with company goals.Implemented a new Jira product version along with a suite of applications to enhance test case management, automation, and portfolio-level planning and visibility. Identified and executed solutions for migrating legacy system configuration data to SQL, enabling a modular approach to the development of a new administration system, minimizing disruption to core processes, and boosting business confidence.Calculated short and long-term project value to aid in selection and prioritization. Authored Statements of Work (SOWs) and tracked time against estimates to assess the profitability of billed work and refine estimate accuracy. Developed new data fields for tracking and managing billable work via dashboards, ensuring correct and timely invoicing.Standardized project update formats and content, establishing a regular cadence for delivery, and focused discussions based on project health. Enhanced project management software to enable regular, automated delivery of project information to a broad audience.

Clearwater, Florida, United States

Played a crucial role in daily operations by leading and facilitating a wide range of meetings, including project intake, status updates, client governance, change advisory, deployment planning, defect triage, and backlog refinement. As Product Owner, successfully led key new product development projects within an agile framework, including business rules engines, backend architecture improvements, and portals. Created SharePoint sites, managed project schedules, and set up tasks in Jira and TFS.Provided direction for new product design through mockups, functional requirements, and business documentation. Coordinated annual portfolio planning across 8 to 10 high-value projects, ensuring effective scheduling and resource allocation. Successfully implemented six new clients with various customization needs, receiving positive feedback from all clients. Managed the migration of clients to other TPAs, including data archiving and system decommissioning.Led the launch of new dental, vision, and hearing products with a custom online application, signing method, claims module, and user-focused portal. Re-engineered the requirements gathering process, reducing average testing defects and improving project outcomes. Streamlined the process of adding new states to existing clients, cutting time to market in half. Revamped QA test cases and loading processes, enhancing testing efficiency and reporting.Developed and implemented suite dashboards for improved visibility across key company initiatives, clients, business units, and products. Increased Jira adoption by creating new issue types, automated workflows, and customized ticket interfaces. Designed consolidated, automated workflow models that optimized work processes and allowed for enhanced use of release management functionality.

Clearwater, Florida, United States

Oversaw service delivery and support for a SaaS-based claims and benefits administration platform, leading key product development initiatives and managing high-visibility client issues. Successfully implemented a customized business management tool (Autotask) that improved ticket visibility, reporting, and workflow efficiency, reducing the service ticket backlog by 87% in six months and increasing on-time delivery by 43% in the second year. Enhanced revenue by 8% per ticket through billing accuracy improvements and streamlined processes. Improved business continuity with cloud solutions and data redundancies, stabilized the hosting environment, and exceeded disaster recovery SLAs. Negotiated a managed services contract that provided a full hardware refresh, improved security, and a 10x increase in bandwidth, all while reducing data center costs over five years.

Clearwater, Florida, United States

Provided project management and business analysis for internal and high-profile, customer-facing projects, with engagement extended beyond the contract resulting in a full-time offer. Successfully implemented a Cisco Enterprise phone system, including infrastructure build-out, training, and post-deployment support, and ensured HIPAA compliance with the integration of the Calabrio recording software suite. Created a comprehensive call center report that highlighted the need for staffing and scheduling changes by analyzing key metrics, offering unprecedented visibility into employee performance. Delivered a 55k+ policy conversion ahead of schedule and developed standardized project documentation templates, including BRDs and user stories, to streamline future projects. Regularly updated the company president and executive team on project progress, especially near completion, and documented internal process workflows for future initiatives.

Tampa, Florida, United States

As an IT Project Manager (Consultant) at Tampa General Hospital, provided essential oversight to address a resource gap in the PMO during the integration of University of South Florida and Tampa General Hospital’s healthcare services. This role, funded by the University of South Florida, concluded early due to budget shortage.Managed a segment of an ERP project involving multiple vendors and PeopleSoft integrations, with responsibilities expanded due to demonstrated success in driving project progress. Led an initiative to replace paper signatures with a cost-effective hardware solution, staying well under a $750k budget by analyzing device and storage requirements.Facilitated key decision-making meetings and presented detailed updates to stakeholders. Documented both current and future state workflows for signature handling to streamline processes across business units.

Tampa, Florida, United States

Progressed through several roles of increasing responsibility at HealthPlan Services, transitioning from business to IT while designing and implementing integral software solutions that remain in use today. Consistently delivered high-quality results across all roles, with engagement voluntarily ended to pursue long-term career opportunities.Conceived, planned, and managed the full SDLC of a .NET workflow application that enhanced process visibility, automated work distribution, and exceeded SLA reporting requirements for the largest client. This solution played a key role in client retention and became the standard for all clients.Oversaw the full SDLC of a quote aggregation platform, including data migration, APIs, web services, SSOs, testing, training, and maintenance. Managed the implementation of new client portals and online applications involving web service calls and SSOs, and partnered with a key vendor to integrate mutually beneficial functionality within the implementation timeline.

Tampa, Florida, United States

Documented business requirements to enhance user experience for existing applications, engaging regularly with end users and executives to formulate and document solutions to business issues. Analyzed large data volumes to proactively identify and address discrepancies before they led to inaccurate calculations.Investigated and resolved rate discrepancies by collaborating with client actuaries to correct data tables and files. Partnered with web developers to create a tool that tested all possible rate combinations, significantly reducing rating errors, and developed an Excel template to facilitate data entry and expedite testing.Worked as a test analyst to create and execute test scripts, document errors, and make change or defect determinations. This work contributed to client carriers being among the few prepared for the original go-live date of the Affordable Care Act’s Healthcare Exchange (www.healthcare.gov).

Tampa, Florida, United States

Managed a team of over 20 inside sales, case implementation, and clerical employees for prominent national carriers. Consistently met call center, quote, and case issuance SLAs, avoiding contractual penalties up to $25k. Extracted, reported, and interpreted data for executives, aiding in financial forecasting, staffing, and bonus compensation decisions.Resolved cross-departmental issues by engaging resources from underwriting, claims, actuarial, IT, and client services. Negotiated case rate and benefit concessions, ensuring successful policy administration. Enhanced case implementation quality metrics through thorough audits of new business plan attributes.Collaborated extensively with IT on web portals, online applications, and various system improvements. Coached and motivated employees to boost production and work quality.

Tampa, Florida, United States

Recognized as a high performer, consistently exceeding activity and production goals. Chosen to join the team for launching the company’s largest carrier contract. Specialized in managing high premium, experience-rated groups, working closely with underwriting. Built strong rapport and effective working relationships with key client resources.

Executive Mba

Bachelor Of Arts - Ba, Industrial And Organizational Psychology