Thomas Harper Email & Phone Number

Santa Clara, California, Us

Effectively manage the close system roadmap and long term strategic capabilities for close. Maintain all financial systems related to close, and provide strategic direction for systems into the future. Meet internal customer expectations for uptime, data quality and accuracy. Determine upgrade and replacement strategies most beneficial to the organization. Successfully manage a team of 20 staff across multiple geographies, and engaged in overseeing and maintaining close system health and stability using Agile methodologies to increase throughput.Placed a great deal of effort over the past five years into hardening and stabilizing systems with zero significant failures over the past two years, and nearly flawless performance from an efficiency perspective leading to the ability to meet timelines and close books on time with no major thrash, and the finance team no longer required to work overtime to resolve issues as a direct result of system performance.Recognized as leading the first service to bring on a third-party systems service (SaaS) provider rather than trying to build all tools internally, identifying appropriate vendors, and moving through the entire financial approval process to increase capabilities without increasing costs.Provide strategic forecasting and review various applications, performing proof of concept for SAP S4 capabilities from a financial systems perspective, and currently working through the process of funding for deployment while convincing IT partners that the time is right to begin the upgrade process.

Santa Clara, California, Us

Ensured systems were up and running on a daily basis, monitoring of system stability maintained and the completion of all SOX controls completed on-time. Played a key role in various projects regarding impact to the general ledger and general financial operations from an IT perspective. Supervised the performance and tasks of 11 employees in the US, and multiple teams in Costa Rica and Malaysia in support of healthy system operations and close processes. Played a critical role within various mergers and acquisitions, and subsequent integration, from an operational standpoint.Achieved the successful integration of one of the largest corporate acquisitions, working to integrate into the financial system in a manner not affecting the rest of the financial customer base, achieving a successful completion with no major issues during the first full close, and zero failures requiring staff to take extraordinary measures to resolve.Worked in concert with business partners to introduce business process management concepts to the IT portfolio, including documentation and change management to design specific methodology and roadmaps, and allowing the integration of new staff onto the team without an extensive amount of training.Actively contributed to the development of desktop manuals and instruction in how various procedures interacted with other groups moving into the training model, and delivering cross-training in addition to documentation.Promoted the ability to quickly recognize change and determine what the impact might be on various organizational areas.

Santa Clara, California, Us

Delivered expertise in risk management, specifically within financial systems. Maintained and improved risk and control processes. Provided change management with regard to risk mitigation through the maintenance of regression testing processes and capabilities for financial systems to mitigate system failure.Provided roadmap management of financial system changes and reporting out to the close council for risk analysis and the overall close of pending changes.Served as a team lead to oversee five to eight team members by assigning tasks and reviewing work products. Designed a forward looking process within the close during 2009, and a look at how prepared the organization was to go into close whether monthly, quarterly or annually, reporting back to senior managers in finance to present risks from a systems perspective and where they could impact the closing of books.Prepared financial management for the possibility that something could impact closings and the processes for mitigating such risk in methods that did not impact clients.

Cleveland, Ohio, Us

Monthly and yearly forecasting and modeling for Key Bank of Oregon