Kelly Townsend Email and Phone Number

Promoted from Sourcing manager to Category manager with a a team of 3 people. Led all categories in savings year after year, always meeting targets and already reduced run expenses for this year at over $6M. Led numerous IT Category strategy programs to reduce cost, simplify, and integrate new companies, and meet compliance requirements. This includes renegotiation of our Microsoft EA, running the consolidation of all IT outsource partners both RFP and contract terms to a single provider. Reduction of re sellers to increase discount leverage. Also managed integrations of new suppliers with acquisitions, managed and negotiated software agreements with numerous suppliers (Oracle, Adobe, etc).

IT Procurement, Contracts, and Vendor management. Started at Keysight Technologies when it spun off of Agilent. Initially hired to support IT Infrastructure, and the planned migration to cloud environments, I was soon also managing high complex programs to reduce costs, integrate new companies into Keysight and meet compliance requirements. Continuely led all category managers in savings and met all annual goals and strategies.

Direct a team of nine full-time employees and two contractors in the US and two off-shore vendor support staff members based in India, all of whom are responsible for creating and operating a successful Release Automation Program. Administer departmental budget of $1.2M and technology upgrade budget of $3.1M. Create and implement departmental policies, processes, and standards to ensure stable, supportable IT services. Negotiate ongoing cross-departmental program managing plan, budget, and execution of multiple projects across diverse technology platforms. Collaborate with business leaders to identify critical IT services and ensure ongoing service availability throughout critical business functions. Represent company in communications related to SOWs and contracts with vendors. Simultaneously, manage Operations Intern Program and Currency Program.Planned, designed, and managed ntern training program. - Partnered with HR to execute recruitment activities to attract interns to company. - Identified gaps in program, determined needs, and implemented solution. - Continually improved processes while meeting/executing business needs.Appointed by management to map and manage Currency Program to upgrade technology for desktop, midrange, middleware, and mainframe technologies in an effort to bring software/applications up to supportable levels. - Administered $3.1M budget across multiple platforms, project managers, and vendors. Orchestrated program delivery and management. -Introduced modifications to simplify process to increase speed and agility of program, including working with Central Project Office to make sure project governance requirements were met and proper approvals for projects were in place.Designed and gained approval of annual IT Currency Roadmap across multiple departments.- Completed numerous projects encompassing upgrade of operating system, middleware, ETL, Enterprise Service Bus, database, and other components

Hired as “Windows Server Tower Lead” with responsibility for transitioning outsource IT provider from CGI to IBM strategic offerings; successfully managed transition and was promoted to manager to oversee both people and vendors in the delivery of IT Infrastructure Services. Supervised a three-member team in infrastructure migration to IBM data centers and upgrade of numerous applications. Managed IBM SO operations, including implementation of new servers; remediation of incidents within server platforms; and patching, upgrading, and maintenance of server environment. Tasked with inventory control, capacity, and billing for 700+ servers on a monthly budget of $600K. Led cross-departmental teams in numerous emergency implementations, demonstrating ability to make critical decisions quickly and perform well in a high-energy environment. Key Projects & Achievements:-Drove migration of datacenter from AZ to Boulder, Colorado within three months of start date; upgraded numerous servers, network, and firewall devices.-Won Value Creation Incentive and Retention Plan given to top performers with a percentage of profits.-Instituted numerous processes and procedures with new outsourced infrastructure vendor, including new server build process, server patching process and windows, upgrade methodology, and billing procedures.-Implemented tools for logging and securing production servers, elevated access rights methods, and server naming standards.-Gained respect from outsourced vendor partners; maintained one of the highest productive relationships with vendor in all areas.

Managed IT incidents and changes reported for company, including oversight of vendor partners and escalation procedures. Directed ITSM processes for company in partnership with AZ Life. Steered Incident Management Team and executed all responsibilities associated with change management. Completed daily, weekly, and monthly incident reports, including missed service levels and penalties. Additionally, reported weekly and monthly on all IT changes, failed changes, and incidents that resulted from changes.Key Projects & Achievements:-Played an active role in company’s IT partnership with AZ Life Assurance by working closely with both FFIC business and IT professionals while managing relationships and reporting to another operating entity within the Allianz (owner of FFIC) family.-Brought change management into compliance via enforcement of processes, communication, and education.-Migrated Incident, Problem, and Change Management from IBM tools to Remedy, including creation of all application and people data, normalizing data, and designing/implementing data update programs.-Introduced significant improvements to Change Management process, achieving a 90% reduction in number of incidents caused by changes and gaining support of the process to meet ICOFR (SOX) compliance and executive management in implementing release management.

Orchestrated company’s telecommunications functions, including voice, video, and data networks, as well as Call Center. Subsequently, entrusted to implement numerous ITSM processes and procedures to ensure compliance with specific process improvement frameworks and methodologies. Administered $720K IT Operations budget, ensuring all invoices were paid. Negotiated contracts and tracked service level deliveries. Met monthly with auditors from KPMG, EY, and other entities to review application code changes and promotion model. Tasked with managing a variety of projects, and all major incidents and releases.Key Projects & Achievements:-Renegotiated majority of contracts, secured refund of overcharges totaling $55K, and reduced department expenses by 15% within three months of date of hire into the company; received company’s first Individual Recognition Award. -Led initiative to revamp processes and procedures, identify gaps, and institute value-added processes to support audit remediation and expense reduction.-Employed new incident, problem, and change process; documented all policies, standards, and processes covering incident management for both security and major outages.-Designed and put into place release management processes, improving quality of new business IT implementations.

Guided Telecommunications functions, including management of all telecom and network circuits for corporate office and up to 53 regional offices. Interfaced with business leaders to devise and implement solutions to computer, voice, and video communications. Administered network and telecommunicaton budget of $1.6M that encompassed 54 offices and 100 at-home users. Represented company in negotiating all new IT-related contracts and services. Hired and oversaw performance of outsourced contractors working on special projects. Key Projects & Achievements:-Managed outsourced contract for service desk, network monitoring, and desktop support; led rollout plan, training of off-shore team, and transition of knowledge to new teams.-Implemented VPN technology, reducing telecom costs by $420K per year; additionally, led corporate initiatives that slashed expenses by $330K per year.-Presented GE Everest Award, one of company’s most recognized commendations, for participating on team responsible for the successful implementation of new workflow management system for underwriting.-Drove implementation of first VOIP and Work-From-Home call center system in GE to enhance customer service, minimize employee turnover, and extend recruiting opportunities.-Embraced culture of company using Six Sigma; gained early approval and sponsors to support technology advancements.