Michael Bates Email & Phone Number

Fort Myers, Fl, Us

Asheville, North Carolina, Us

Head of IT and Executive Team member leading the development of the technology ecosystem from its evolving startup phase for one of the nation's largest EPC utility-scale solar contractors. The organization, operating datacenter-free, runs on highly scalable and resilient SaaS solutions and cloud-based infrastructure to support its extraordinary rate of growth.• Delivered company's inaugural ERP system 18 months after halting, re-envisioning, and properly scoping into smaller deployments the entire floundering initiative.• Achieved $1M in annual savings by renegotiating with vendors and implementing an effective end-user license management process.• Developed a comprehensive Cybersecurity program in alignment with CIS Critical Security Controls and NIST CSF frameworks supporting Critical Infrastructure Protection requirements and expanded two-way trusted business partnerships. • Introduced and cultivated a healthy Cybersecurity culture resulting in 91% decrease in phish-prone rate and achieving a 99% completion rate for annual awareness training.• Launched Data Governance framework and executed multi-year Digital Content Modernization and Governance program across digital assets, including creating integrations between Salesforce and SharePoint for dynamic site creation and synchronization of data between platforms.• Rolled-out the company’s first cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse resulting in higher data confidence, increased visibility, and quicker business decision making.• Established a PMO governance, funding, prioritization, and gating process to manage all technology project requests from inception to post-execution hyper care.• Separated 15 business applications, 12 technology platforms, and deployed 24 new system integrations as the company separated from the parent company.

Camberley, Surrey, Gb

Global CIO responsible for executing the strategic technology vision and ensuring optimal operational performance and service delivery for the Global IT Organization. Led technology teams spanning the U.S., Europe, Hong Kong, and Australia for this premier manufacturer of child safety transportation equipment.• Partnered with international legal teams to ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other personal data privacy regulations. This collaboration led to the relocation of mail and data to European Union data centers and necessary modifications to commercial websites.• Collaborated with sales, marketing, digital, and e-commerce teams to enhance the commercial digital presence, optimize product syndication, support Salesforce instance, and streamline and automate online order fulfillment across sales platforms including Amazon and Shopify.• Partnered with the due diligence leadership team of an acquiring PE company to provide pre-acquisition financial and technology information. Post-acquisition, worked closely with the new Global CEO and CFO to facilitate a smooth transition and consolidation.• Significantly enhanced the overall cybersecurity posture through the development of a comprehensive cyber awareness program, implementation of user education initiatives, revision of the disaster recovery program, execution of third-party penetration testing, and the strategic co-location of the U.S. datacenter.

Charlotte, Nc, Us

Senior leader and Corporate Transformation Team member serving in several roles within Snyder’s-Lance, a leading provider of CPG snack foods. Following the acquisition by Campbell Soup, took on significantly increased responsibilities across the integrated organization as Campbell Soup merged Snyder’s-Lance and Pepperidge Farm into a unified snacking division.• Served on the Synder’s-Lance Corporate Transformation Team which identified $300M in savings prior to the acquisition. Additionally, collaborated with the CFO in zero-based budgeting exercises to identify, review, and justify comprehensive technology spend.• Drove the post-acquisition digital integration and transformation of the combined Direct Store Delivery technology ecosystems of both Snyder’s-Lance and Pepperidge Farm, highlighted by the $10M rollout of a new tablet-based mobile sales and delivery solution.• Oversaw the process and collaborated closely with the snacking division's combined sales, marketing, and legal leadership teams to assess and choose a new mobile sales and delivery platform, replacing multiple aging custom in-house solutions.• Established a mobile equipment procurement and support program in partnership with an external company to service over 8,000 independent snack route business owners. This initiative resulted in significant support cost reductions across the combined enterprise.• Actively managed the project to upgrade the entire Snyder’s-Lance production and backup architecture onto the Oracle Supercluster M7 Engineered System platform. Hardware cost alone exceeded $1M and resulted in greatly improved transactional performance across all applications.

Us

Head of IT and Executive Committee member reporting to the CEO. Responsible for all Information Technology assets, digital security, service delivery, and technology partnerships for this leading manufacturer of advanced protective fabrics that served the U.S. Military, federal agencies, friendly foreign governments, and hazardous work environments. • Delivered capabilities to support the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency and defense contractor purchases, including ISO 9001 certification for two manufacturing and laboratory facilities.• Deployed B2B capabilities with strategic business partners to coordinate orders, raw materials consumption, inventory movement, product quality, and manufacturing status. This enabled several multi-million-dollar partnerships with business partners, such as DuPont and other military defense contractors.• Coordinated the selection, procurement, and preparation of Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system enabling the redesign of major manufacturing process and real time production reporting.• Implemented digital manufacturing advancements, including wireless automated production reporting, automated conveyor systems, PLC monitoring and controls, laboratory testing, dye formula management, fabric inspection systems, and warehouse management capabilities.• Optimized the organization's infrastructure to enhance security, scalability, reliability, and resiliency to better serve the needs of multi-plant manufacturing operations, federal government agencies, and business partners.• Implemented comprehensive security policies, procedures, and controls across various domains, including network security, data storage, document management, email, and Internet access.• Collaborated with the due diligence leadership team of the acquiring company to furnish detailed information about the technology landscape and portfolio. Following this, expedited the transfer of all corporate data to facilitate a seamless transition of services and operations.

Senior Management Team member reporting to the company President. Responsible for the development and delivery of software applications for this nationally recognized provider of Direct Store Delivery route accounting and mobile solutions for the CPG beverage industry.• Partnered with the company President to successfully transition the company's revenue and business model from remarketing 3rd-party hardware and software to developing proprietary and highly profitable solutions on evolving mobile technologies.• Led the development of the company's primary route accounting, business intelligence, and mobile solutions. Executed complex system and database integrations, including successful integration with competitors' transactional databases that had shared customers.• Collaborated with the sales and marketing teams to support the external sales cycle by providing technical sales support, preparing and delivering product demonstrations, and negotiating contracts with customers’ ownership and executive teams.• Introduced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to automate and replace manual entry of daily transactions across diverse software solutions following the acquisition and consolidation with multiple competitors.• Worked in collaboration with customer executives and Advisory Committee leaders to formulate product roadmaps and determine deployment timelines for software releases.• Delivered presentations at annual user conferences, showcasing product roadmaps and the features included in the current releases.

Mba, Master Of Business Administration

Business And Computer Science

Associate Of Arts (A.A.), Computer Programming