Leslee Russell Email & Phone Number

St Paul, Minnesota, United States

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Act as the “voice of technology” and be accountable for ensuring the successful implementation of the right technology solutions for new and existing B2B clients. Assist Sales VPs in differentiating our technology offerings and being a trusted technology partner for our employer clients and their enrollment partners. Involved in the entire client lifecycle and play a critical role directly supporting the business through partnering with internal associates in IT, Account Management, Sales, and Business Services. SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS: • Led client-facing technology implementations for new and existing employer clients; prioritized 20+ client projects each year in a fast paced, dynamic work environment.• Represented Securian’s technology solutions to potential employer clients and channel partners as part of the sales process; attended 35+ finalist meetings.• Developed and maintained relationships with external partners including key Third Party Administrators to implement new technology solutions and address customer concerns.• Conducted peer interviews with potential new hires and provided insights to leadership.• Trained and onboarded new team members while also cross-training existing team-members; created training documents and team structure to support the team’s growth.• Provided 80+ system demonstrations across 5+ different systems. • Completed system setups in an internal business rules engine to create various customer portals. • Recommended technology solutions for our clients through analyzing plan needs and platform capabilities.

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Managed the requirements effort on large, complex assignments crossing departmental and divisional lines. Project Manager on corporate technology projects; led the RFP process for third party applications including vendor identification, evaluation, and implementation. Coached and cross-trained less experienced team members to facilitate knowledge transfer, further team development, and help ensure the continuity of system support. Exercised strong interpersonal and negotiation skills to maintain positive relationships with all levels of managements, business associates, external vendors, and IT.SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS: • Created a Requirement Management Strategy that aligned key project stakeholders and improved efficiency.• Mentored a new Business Analyst Associate and Intern on project work and corporate culture.• Planned and facilitated extensive multi-day workshops with vendors, IT, and corporate compliance.• Led data-mapping exercises to implement DTCC’s licensing and appointment process, allowing new distributor relationships to be onboarded faster, eliminate paperwork, and simplify two-way data exchange.• Managed a 6-month project to select and implement a confidential ethics hotline to support board initiatives and enhance employee resources. • Created scope statements, developed and evaluated RFPs, participated in POCs, and redlined SOWs to support vendor fit/gap analysis for Law, Compliance, and Occupational Health technology projects.• Estimated project effort to inform project plans and leadership; initiated a project time tracking system.• Created a comprehensive requirements document, swimlane diagrams, and a data matrix to be sourced for agile user stories and acceptance criteria; analyze file integration needs along with user access needs.

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Provided business analysis and quality assurance related services to ensure the successful completion of compliance technology projects, enhancements to existing programs, and purchase/installation of new third party applications. Gained a breadth of knowledge to consider technical and business impacts based on vendor SaaS solutions.SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS: • Collaborated with business areas and IT associates across the organization to gather and analyze requirements as the lead BA and QA resource on a complex multi-year compliance system implementation.• Established a co-located team space and processes to reduce requirements gathering and analysis elapsed time by ~50% for a highly regulated compliance routine.• Documented hundreds of system reports, recommended processes to handle current state automated feeds, defined security roles, and communicated how changes would affect business processes. • Tracked and coordinated the migration of applications to a desktop virtualization solution (Citrix) in support of the enterprise direction.• Participated in prototype sessions and researched/followed up on outstanding issues and questions. • Created a test strategy and a large inventory of test cases to guide the business area through User Acceptance Testing.

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Dedicated quality assurance resource expected to manage testing related items on complex new technology projects and system upgrades.SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS: • Created test strategies, test schedules, and test cases on multiple projects that allowed for effective defect management and status reporting.• Demonstrated repeatable processes around organizing, coordinating, and performing testing.• Test coordinator on a large PeopleSoft financials upgrade; taught myself PeopleSoft Test Framework in order to automate certain test cases. • Researched, planned, and communicated technology changes and initiatives. • Established myself as the main test coordinator for corporate business areas to support enterprise upgrades.

St. Peter, Minnesota

Update the Gender, Women, and Sexuality program website, create informational course posters, and aid the program director with event planning and other educational tasks.

St. Peter, Mn

Researched and evaluated the potential of a specific innovation for Mayo Clinic. Specifically looked into feasibility, the market, and cost. The final outcome was a 30 page paper and a 45 minute presentation to our client, with the US Ambassador of Norway also in attendance.

Kihei, Hawaii

Completed two summer internships in 2011 and 2012. Demonstrated effective use of Agile Project Management and Scrum techniques/teamwork. Designed and created ArdentMC's inaugural newsletter and template for future quarterly newsletters. Tested for quality assurance/control of federal situational awareness applications and created user guides for government clients. Supported Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) projects through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and additional software applications. Created animated presentations using Prezi and researched promotional items. Constructed internal and external portals and designed contract covers. Obtained Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) credentials.

Researched Hawaii natural hazard histories, developed sample webpages, and taught myself CSS. Prepared an abstract/poster board and presented at the 2010 SACNAS National Conference in Anaheim, California.

Redesigned and updated an entire program website and created the Digital Bus trifold brochure.

Lead group activities for K-8th graders.

Bachelor Of Arts - Ba, Management, 3.7

In addition to taking business courses, focused electives on more technical classes such as web design, computer science (python).

International Business Program

Studied International Business in Copenhagen, Denmark and lived with a host family. Worked at the school's front desk and joined a buddy.

4.1

Took AP and advanced classes and was one of the valedictorians. Accepted into the National Honor Society and was elected as Treasurer..