Marc Herren Email & Phone Number

Bloomington, Il, Us

United States

Trusted advisor helping companies transform their network, unified communications, and contact center solutions through thoughtful evaluation of current state, identification, and evaluation of solutions.

Bloomington, Illinois, United States

Leading a highly skilled team of technical architects and technology engineers with accountability for development of strategic direction for infrastructure capabilities for the enterprise. Develop relationships across Enterprise Technology, Business areas, strategic providers, and vendors to understand business direction and requirements and develop strategic plans and roadmaps for the technical capabilities in scope to meet business requirements. Capabilities within scope include:- Enterprise network: LAN, WAN, WLAN, Data Center, Load Balancer, IPAM, etc… - Enterprise Telephony: SIP, PBX, Contact Centers, Agency Environment, etc… - End User Technologies: workstation, print, mobile, application packaging - Platforms: Database, web services, containers, etc…- Data Center Infrastructure: Server hardware/software, Storage, SAN, etc…- Mainframe: hardware, software, database, storage, etc..

Partnered with senior and executive leadership as a key contributor and section lead for enterprise strategic effort to evaluate feasibility, recommend, design, and implement sourcing solution for infrastructure operatations, support, and engineering. - Led effort to determine scope of solution and technologies - Evaluated service providers and solutions - Developed new organizational structure and staffing model to manage service provider- Developed key metrics and service levels focused on measuring to business outcomes for the engagement - Developed description of service and division of responsibilities - Developed and delivered training for new service delivery organization covering roles, responsibilities, and operating model- Led technical implementation to enable managed service provider

Led team of technical architects and engineers to set strategic direction across the enterprise network capabilities. Partnered and collaborated with various teams and leaders throughout Enterprise Technology and Information Security to assess business and technology strategies to develop multi-year plans to transform and mature network capabilities to meet future business needs.

Bloomington, Illinois

Technology manager responsible for the strategic management of Enterprise Technology and Information Security vendors.- Responsible for the relationship management of key enterprise and technical vendor- Provided oversight for governance and policy requirements of vendors - Led team in the development and implementation of new organizational structure- Led team in the development, socialization, and implementation of technology vendor management best practices and guidance - Partnered with peers across Technology Vendor Management space to implement agile best practices and ceremonies

Bloomington, Illinois

- Designed and implemented the first connectivity between on premise environment and public cloud environment including VPC configurations, DNS integration, access control, and load balancing solutions- Develop foundational technology design, principles, and best practices for integration and adoption of public cloud- Develop future state (3-5 year) technology strategy for Enterprise network including data center, LAN, WAN, WLAN, and remote office connectivity - Partnered across Enterprise Technology and Information Security to develop strategies and high to low level designs to meet future business needs

Bloomington/Normal, Illinois Area

- Responsible for the risk analysis of IT system design and capabilities for business solutions- Provided guidance to business partners on preventative controls to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of company data and systems - Evaluated proposed designs and system changes for adherence to Information Security best practices and policies - Provided input and direction on development of Information Security best practices and policies - Member of enterprise review board responsible for evaluating risk assessments and providing opinion on adequacy of assessments

Normal, Illinois

At 1st Farm Credit Services (1st FCS) my scope of control was over the Information Technology Infrastructure, including product ownership of network infrastructure/connectivity, telecommunications, server, storage, end user computing, printing, and the Information Security program.Key responsibilities included:- Matured Information Security Program through implementation of annual training, periodic phishing exercises, and contracted penetration testing - Key contributor in annual security audit by regulatory agencies and required NIST-based Cybersecurity Maturity Assessment- Provided quarterly reports to C-Suite Executives and Board on state of Information Security program and health- Staff development/growth and performance management- Project portfolio development and project management/sponsorship- Responsible for managing budget of approximately $3M- Vendor management- Matured change management program through introduction of change management database, defined changed management procedures and policies- Utilizing previous experience and relationships, initiated project to replace existing Wide Area Network connectivity, reducing overall spend and increasing bandwidth/performance to remote offices - Negotiated renewal of Microsoft Enterprise license agreement

Bloomington, Illinois

I had the responsibility for the performance, stability, budgeting, and strategy of the enterprise LANs, WAN, and agent connectivity in addition to the telephone infrastructure and services. Developed and maintained a multi‐year strategy for the network infrastructure with a focus on reducing overall connectivity cost while increasing performance and residency of the network. Responsible for managing non-labor budget of approximately $12M.

Bloomington, Illinois

I was tasked with standing up a new department at COUNTRY to provide IT services to business partners throughout the organization. The goal of the department was to reduce the cost and lead time needed to deploy IT services and technology utilizing defined and repeatable process. The department was responsible for provisioning and decommission of technology services such as servers, workstation/laptop deployment, access management administration, exchange mailbox and resource administration as well as many other IT services. As part of standing up the new department I was responsible for:- Working with Human Resources to define, write, and benchmark new job descriptions, core responsibilities, and knowledge/skills requirements as well as define promotional paths- Identify staffing requirements- Identify technologies and processes to transition from 3rd level teams, developing transition and training plans, and service level agreements- Work with new hire employees, transferred employees, as well as external resources to transition from newly formed teams into high performing teams- Lead the development of vision and mission statements for the department and individual teams within department- Facilities management to acquisition floor space, design layout, and approve construction plans and expenses

In this role I was responsible for the governance, processes, and technology for access management to COUNTRY systems and resources. Work directly with internal and external auditors to address findings and develop controls for access management.

During my first 10 years at COUNTRY I gain experience across multiple technology disciplines as well as project and team lead experiences. Early in my career I performed technical support and design for many compute and end user environments including, workstation, server, and print. I worked on the Active Directory team, software distribution, and was the technical and team lead for Antivirus.The second phase of my individual contributor career at COUNTRY was spent in Network Services. I gained in‐depth knowledge of network design, architecture, and troubleshooting. I eventually became both the technical and team lead for the Local Area Network (LAN) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) team. In this role I worked with vendors and internal customers to design, test, implement, and support the enterprise LAN and WLAN infrastructures. I then transitioned to the Wide Area Network team, as the team lead. In this role I continued to guide the team in technology strategy, deployment, and support of the enterprise WAN.