John Suminski Email & Phone Number

Backed by Harvest Partners and Bain Capital, Sparq is a Product Strategy, Design & Digital Engineering Firm known for speed, quality, great outcomes & experiences, and a lower total cost of engagement. We specialize in 1. Product Strategy, Development & Launch, 2. Platform Modernization, 3. Cloud Enablement & Modernization, 4. Data, Analytics & AI, and 4. Product Evolution & Optimization.

Greater Boston Area

Member of the Executive Leadership Team growing a $130M annual revenue software as a service (SaaS) financial management system (FMS) business for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), that processes over $2B in payroll per year across 51 distinct Client Programs in 22 States, integrated with 15 Managed Care Organizations. Responsible for strategy through to execution of all IT development and support initiatives inclusive of vendor (software and services) evaluation, selection, contracting, and management. - Product Development: responsible for all new product development, inclusive of medium to large enhancements and Client change requests, as well as transformational initiatives.  - Professional Services: provide pre-sales business development lifecycle (prospecting/demos, RFP, readiness reviews, contracting) IT support. Accountable for all post-sales Client implementations (analysis, design, development/configuration, testing) as well as small to medium Client change requests. - IT Operations: steady state maintenance (defects and small enhancements) of all Client Programs. Provide IT shared services inclusive of incident management, release and environment management, QA automation, systems compliance and audit management, and infrastructure.  - Architecture: accountable for technology strategy, standards, and evaluation. Provide systems architecture standards and governance to Product Development, Professional Services, and IT Operations teams.

Greater Boston Area

Member of the Digital Advice leadership team that is developing the next generation of financial planning and investment management solutions for customers. Provide Delivery & Strategy leadership across various digital initiatives, with contributions that span program management & execution, “fixer” for issues impeding progress, product development, cross initiative operational support strategy, and vendor contract negotiations & management.

Greater Boston Area

Lead the IT Shared Services organization that provides vertical application and horizontal functional IT delivery services to the US Division, and responsible for the IT organization supporting the company’s distribution business unit (Signator Investors). Member of the IT and Operations senior management team, reporting to the CIO/COO. Manage a diverse stakeholder base consisting of every business unit IT organization and the Functional Areas of the US Division. Manage annual budget of up to $70M and over 800 (internal, external) geographically dispersed resources.Provide vertical application services of: SalesForce, AWD, and HP tool suite (project and time tracking modules, quality assurance defect tracking and performance testing).Provide horizontal services of: Quality Assurance, Database Administration, Service Oriented Architecture, Web Development, Release & Environment Management, Cloud Services, Crowdsourcing, and Data Services (Big Data, Master Data Management).Responsible for the development and delivery of IT solutions for the Functional Areas of Finance, Operations, Legal, Compliance, Human Resources, and Brand.Responsible for the development and delivery of IT solutions for the Signator Investors business unit, consisting of geographically dispersed independent sales offices comprised of Producers/Agents and agency support staff.

Greater Boston Area

Develop and oversee the structure and processes to support the US Division program governance for a multi-year Global Enterprise efficiency initiative. Reporting to the President of the US Division and accountable to the US senior management team, the US Division program objectives are to achieve $78M of annualized on-going savings by year-end 2015.Established processes to support weekly governance activities to manage portfolio of initiatives delivering costs savings, inclusive oversight of a matrix team across numerous Functional Areas of the Division.Responsible for all reporting to US Division and Global Enterprise stakeholders, inclusive of in-depth portfolio analysis and proactive risk identification and mitigation.

Greater Boston Area

Responsible for the development and delivery of business and IT solutions for the company’s distribution business unit. Member of the senior management team and contributor to the organization’s tactical and strategic objectives. Manage a diverse customer base consisting of over 30 geographically dispersed independent sales offices with 2,000 financial professionals and staff and a delivery team of 60 internal and contractor staff plus over 35 vendor partnerships.Responsible for Project Management Office (PMO) with focus on developing and executing on plans to achieve business objectives. Accountable for process management and improvement to maximize execution and demonstrate quantifiable (ROI) benefits for the resource investment.Established and oversee the vendor management function with responsibility for process development, adoption, and value maximization within the organization through the execution of contracts and competitive pricing as well as on-going relationship and performance management for the over 35 partnerships representing in excess of $7 million annual spend.Accountable for defining and executing on systems portfolio strategy including modernization of technology stack and systems rationalization to achieve a productive and efficient IT environment. Responsible for routine maintenance of systems environment to ensure availability and capability to end user and overall business operations.

Greater Boston Area

Develop and execute strategies that support the company goal of outsourcing up to 25% of Operations and IT in lower cost environments (captive and vendor). As a catalyst for ideas and delivery, partner with US Divisions to attain committed FTE growth. Initiate off plan ideas/business cases to exceed committed FTE transitions.Responsible for generating ideas and gathering support with/from US Divisions to extend existing near/offshore footprints as well as identify new opportunities across Business and IT Operations. Provide insight and support of business cases, resulting in achievable plans that leverage best practices and maximize opportunities.Provide transition support through the development and/or oversight of business unit outsourcing project plans to ensure completeness of tasks/actions towards seamless implementations. Provide issue mitigation support towards maintaining project targets inclusive of all pre and post implementation activities for initial stabilization.Tasked with leadership roles for ad hoc strategic projects including leading IT audit resolution of top 10 company vendor spanning US division, business case track lead (IT & Operations) for new line of business, and corporate entity restructuring initiative.

Manila, Philippines

Responsible for divisional operations (US Insurance Group) at offshore facility for up to 275 staff across two shifts. Scope of account includes the three core business units (Life, LTC, JHFN) plus two additional units (Image Operations, JH Fixed Structured Settlements) across a variety of business functions: indexing to new business application set-up and issue to underwriting to inforce service to compliance based projects to call center.Delivery of operations results, inclusive of all hiring (associate and management) and staff development.Relationship management with onshore contacts, inclusive of strategic planning and new work development.Account administration inclusive of billing and senior management reporting.

Greater Boston Area

Accountable for directing key business initiatives for all Life Operations functional business areas. Responsible for account ownership with business area leaders, providing support on tactical and strategic projects. Manage staff development and workload allocation within team. Ownership of all aspects of projects including: Business case development Timeline, cost, and benefit tracking Risk and issue management Liaison with IT resources Senior management reporting

Accountable for directing key IT initiatives across licensing, compensation, marketing, web, and channel feed systems. Define overall IT vision and direction for business sponsors at the executive and senior management level that align with business trends, competitive environment and technology trends. Set and communicate resulting operational plan to teams and allocate resources for tactical execution. Annual budget $3 - $5 million.

Ownership and initiative setting for enterprise-wide administrative, retail, and support systems. Managed financial forecasting, monthly fiscal reconciliation, workload benchmarking and re-planning, application road mapping, business partner communications, and staff.As project manager, orchestrated system implementation planning and execution. Facilitated research, design, and development of application and environment architecture. Allocated annual budget based on business, integration, and infrastructure priorities. Managed projects in multi-regional development sites, contingency plans for unscheduled projects, enterprise, and integration initiatives.

Contributed on enterprise-wide project as the company prepared for changes that would be required post-IPO