Michael Willms Email & Phone Number

• Regularly present progress updates and technology/business process recommendations to partners and internal team• Successfully lead projects across critical business applications and multiple departments through managing client expectations, vendor relations, and change and release management• Effectively developed a student-facing, Student Financial Aid calculator that replaced an internal calculation tool, improving efficiency, accuracy, and reducing the overall time spent on packaging students by 30%• Hire, train, manage, coach, and mentor team members

• Entirely automated student packaging and stipend scheduling regarding Higher Education Emergency Relief Funding via SQL, ensuring accuracy and saving over 1,000 hours of manual work across two departments• Strategically partnered with an outside vendor to configure and deploy an automated stipend scheduling process, reducing errors and saving a department over 2,000 hours of manual work per year• Productively collaborated with an outside vendor to deploy a Student Financial Aid back-end processing solution that automated posting of funds, eliminating manual work and decreasing reconciliation errors by 50%

Oak Brook, Illinois

• Acted as a subject matter expert in a critical, Student Financial Aid insourcing project, reducing packaging time by over 50%, improving operational efficiency and control, reducing AR, and saving 1.3million dollars annually by eliminating a third-party service contract• Formally led a redesign project streamlining the student enrollment process via project management, integration design, requirements documentation, development, and implementation utilizing internalresources and 3 outside vendors• Organized project status meetings on a regular basis and guided project teams to meet outlined goals• Analyzed issues, conducted root cause analysis, and helped in the resolution of problems using defined problem management procedures

Oak Brook, Il

• Collaboratively partnered with an outside vendor to lead a Document Management Solution implementation, resulting in a paperless student file• Completely designed and deployed a critical, Gainful Employment solution under a tight timeline, and worked with Compliance to ensure it met regulatory requirements• Fully automated the quarterly posting of book fees and sales tax charges to student ledger cards, improving accuracy and reducing manual effort

Oak Brook, Il

• Accurately documented current and future business processes for multiple departments• Methodically implemented and converted to a new Student Information System (SIS) for 25 campuses containing over 45,000 student records• Carefully supported a critical, third-party integration regarding Student Financial Aid• Provided project management for various Financial Aid, Student Accounts, Finance, and Accounting business initiatives

Oak Brook, Il

Schaumburg, Il

• Thoughtfully elicited and documented business requirements for application changes• Resourcefully drove improvements in operational processes• Judiciously prioritized and escalated business requests and incidents• Precisely developed and executed testing specifications

Lincolnshire, Il

• Converted client requirements into analysis artifacts• Delivered clear analysis and test plans based on requirements• Trained and coached associates in configuration and test execution• Managed and supervised the work of setup configuration analysts

Bachelor Of Science, Business Management, 3.8 Gpa (4.0 Scale)

Activities and Societies: Honors: summa cum laude Achieved Dean’s List each of 4 semesters Member of Phi Chi Theta business fraternity.

Associate In Arts, 3.8 Gpa (4.0 Scale)

Activities and Societies: Achieved Dean’s List each of 4 semesters College Writing Award