Kenneth Bird Email & Phone Number

Phoenix, Az, Us

Phoenix, Az

• Received the top company award for identifying a critical SaaS security vulnerability and coordinating swift stakeholder action to ensure timely review, reporting, and remediation, which prevented significant risks to business operations.• Enhancing stakeholder value by creating new applications and systems, conducting comprehensive analyses of departmental enterprise systems, and implemented the first new request management system in over three years.• Driving cost optimization and reporting at the departmental level, enabling senior leaders to make informed decisions on cost-cutting and resource allocation.• Collaborated with EHS senior leaders to establish a new framework for effectively managing EHS Global programs, enhancing program structure and accountability.• Developed and implemented a comprehensive communications strategy, including a new dashboard, global policy distribution, and rebranding. Established multiple outreach channels and managing global communications to thousands, enhancing organizational engagement and alignment with EHS initiatives.

Chandler, Az

Leading an agile software development program of over 80 team members across 4 different teams within the GM IT Manufacturing Device Level Analytics (DLA) Space utilizing Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).• Recognized for swiftly onboarding and having an immediate impact on the team by leading Program Increment (PI) Planning events, scrum of scrums, and guiding the team through issues, dependencies, and roadblocks.• Realizing cost savings of over $75M a year by reducing downtime and nonstandard overtime in GM facilities.• Developed custom dashboards for each scrum master and the overall agile release train to track the health and status of their teams as well as the train overall. Due to the success and usability of these dashboards, they are now being replicated across the PMO.• Implemented multiple new processes and templates, including a formalized PI Planning review dashboard, a PI retrospective template, a cross-functional architecture team, incident management, feature, defect, and user story templates, team dependency tracking, and a customized weekly product status update.• Mentored several team members and saw immediate improvements leading scrum teams, scrum ceremonies, managing backlogs, release planning, PI Planning, managing projects, and communicating effectively.

Chandler, Az

As an IT Project Manager and Scrum Master in the GM IT Manufacturing Device Level Analytics space, led several scrum teams through the development lifecycle using SAFe methodology, including iteration planning/retrospectives, daily stand-ups, and program increment planning.• Recognized for quickly coming up to speed and having an immediate impact on the team by streamlining daily standups, ensuring SAFe and agile ceremonies are followed, and bringing the subteams together for a weekly sync.• Streamlined monthly deployments by ensuring all pre-requisites were completed well ahead of the deployment and all necessary stakeholders were engaged. This resulted in an immediate improvement in deployment success rate and a reduction in deployment time by over half.

Phoenix, Arizona, United States

As part of the Schwab Technology Services (STS) Culture, Talent, and Change (CTC) team, created, and deployed unique video, audio, and written content, led organizational communication initiatives, and instructed new hires on Schwab technologies and procedures. Became proficient in the following platforms: Webex Training, Camtasia, Audacity, Social Chorus, and Kollective Video.• Created and deployed a highly praised monthly video news series in an informative talk show style. Features included happenings across (STS), updates on latest stories from the world of STS CTC, an interview with a member of the STS CTC team, and a development tip. Received exemplary praise, for example, from an SVP: “This was an absolutely fantastic production - entertaining, informative and just long enough. Well done, keep it going!”• Built and arranged a highly praised twice-monthly podcast in an informative interview style. Features included exclusive interviews with STS leadership, career development guidance, and featured segments on STS initiatives. Received the following accolades: o “Meaningful information generated by thoughtful questions. Very well done Ken!” o “Thank you Sala and Ken for your candid and really interesting discussion. What a gift! I love the format and contribution. Wonderful advice.”• Lead multiple weekly and monthly STS new hire trainings, which had an average monthly rating of 4.7/5 and a 99% recommendation rate.

Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Volunteered for a newly created role to be the liaison between infrastructure and digital services. Role morphed into Kaizen Leader, Kaizen Program Manager, Organization Communications Lead, and Strategy Analyst. Utilized Kaizen/Continuous Improvement, Confluence, Webex Teams, Jira, and Apptio.• Crafted a phased program to bring Kaizen leadership into the future for Schwab: Built Kaizen Leaders Corner 2.0, which included a playbook for all Kaizens, benefit and effort rankings guide, and internal training.• Volunteered to assist with various efforts across the new organization including assisting the Communications team with their communication efforts, creation of Webex Teams for the organization, and confluence design for the organization.• As the organization communications lead, developed innovative ways to increase engagement across the organization, including more Webex Teams participation and use of video and confluence.• Volunteered for the Leadership Development team as part of a larger Transformation effort. Worked with the team to deploy a leadership development plan for managers and individual contributors across the organization.• Created 2020 Annual Operating Plan (AOP) for SBM by working closely with leadership across SBM to update their organization headcount, gather financial data, project information, and workforce information. Received the following recognition from my leader: “Thank you SO much for helping us get the AOP deck across the finish line! Thank you for just digging in, figuring it out, and making sure we are prepared to have the conversation with the CIO. Your help has ensured SBM is putting its best foot forward for 2020!”

Phoenix, Arizona, United States

As a Senior Information Technology Infrastructure Project Manager, successfully managed and led numerous highly visible projects including: Trading Platform Reliability Program, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, Thomas Partners Integration, Cisco Webex, IBM ESSO Contract Renewal, IBM Optimization Program, Virtual Seed Infrastructure, Software Asset Management, Webex Teams POC, and Vbrick Webcasting Solution POC. Delivered projects across a wide variety of platforms: UNIX, Windows, VM, network, security, licensing, database, mainframe, storage, workplace, cloud, application, exchange, and M&A.• Spearheaded a software license compliance project with the firm’s largest software vendor, which saved $14M+ in a potential settlement due to being diligent, detail-oriented, and driven.• Skillfully managed the infrastructure portion of the firm’s top commitment project, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. Increased the CPU capacity 14-fold and the RAM 21-fold. Completed 8 server deployments in a 3 month span, including a large-scale server deployment in 4 days, which was unprecedented.• Successfully led a multi-phased, multi-faceted, highly complex program to deploy new video conferencing, Cisco Webex, and CallManager 10.5. Migrated over 10,000 employees from legacy audio conferencing to Webex and replaced over 100 Polycom video conferencing systems with Cisco video conferencing systems. • Led efforts to realize cost avoidance of over $1M as part of a major software optimization program by using influencing, problem solving, and analytical skills.• Received a Business Excellence Award for exemplary work on integrating a newly acquired company, Thomas Partners, to the Schwab technology environment. Environments integrated included: laptops, mobile, network, email, server, access management, software management, request/fulfillment management, DR, failover, video, instant messaging, procurement, print, security, monitoring, and active directory.

As a Staff Information Technology Infrastructure Project Manager, successfully managed and led several highly visible projects including: Virtual Seed Infrastructure, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Venafi Implementation, DB2 Connect Upgrade, Software Asset Management, and several more.Promoted to Senior Staff February 2013.

As an Associate Information Technology Infrastructure Project Manager, successfully managed and led several highly visible projects including: NAS migration project, DB2 upgrade, Mainframe testing server upgrade, and several more.Promoted to Staff March 2010.

Phoenix, Arizona, United States

Project manager for a team of seven interns across four states in planning, modeling, design, and implementation.

First level of support for the state of Arizona infrastructure including telecom, distributed, mainframe, desktop, and various applications.

Mba, Organizational Leadership

Activities and Societies: Area of Emphasis in Leadership and Entrepreneurial Management

Bachelor, Computer Information Systems

Activities and Societies: Officer of Department of Information Systems Club (DISC)