Mike Howard Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Il, Us

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Setting up and leading the Office of the CTO. Responsibilities include creating and setting up the organization, budget management, vendor management, contract management, and organizational projects, standards, and governance.

Greater Chicago Area

Responsibilities include Consultant (JLL/T), Deal Scoping, Business Development, and Account Management. Areas of focus include Project Management, Infrastructure, Cloud, Software, and IT Organizational Structure. Report directly to the CEO.

Chicago/Global

Responsible for managing the Global Infrastructure and Cloud budget (planning/actuals), liaison to Finance, liaison to the Business for critical issues/projects, process ownership, participated in contract negotiations/renewals, headcount tracking, addressed critical End-User satisfaction issues, and managed transformational projects. Led IT Finance, Procurement, Circuit Management, and Wireless/Mobile Support Organizations. Primary Cloud providers included Microsoft Azure and AWS.Achievements included participating in the globalization of the Infrastructure organization, successfully managing a $100M IT budget within target for four years, identifying and driving 2023 cost savings, participating in the reorganization of the Infrastructure and Cloud organization, completing several critical transformational projects, and participating in the implementation of the Cloud cost management centralization and re-structure.

Greater Chicago Area

Leadership responsibility for the management, revenue growth, and strategy of a Managed IT Services business in the Chicago and Midwest Market. Ensuring Operational and Financial objectives were achieved for Sales Management, Service Delivery, Account Management, Engineering, Customer Technical Strategy, and Operations. P&L ownership for SMB and mid-sized commercial, Education, Finance, Legal, and Healthcare verticals. Products included Cloud, Infrastructure, Security, Procurement, Project Management, App Dev, Back-up, Consulting, Desk Side, and Helpdesk Services.Achievements include leading market turnaround in 18 months establishing a new customer and performance-based culture by implementing a new market strategy, establishing and meeting key metrics, standardized process, accountability, and mentoring- number one market revenue. Increase contract revenue by 22%, 95% of plan in first three quarters including turnaround investment. Customer satisfaction rating increased by 22.1% year-over-year.

Greater Chicago Area

Leadership responsibility for the North and South America Field Service Organization (111-person organization), Enterprise Account Management teams, and service partners. Responsible for the customer experience, proactive and scheduled maintenance, onsite/remote break-fix, onsite/remote hardware, PS, and software installation and integration activities for automation and disk products for Midrange and Enterprise customers. Represent Service during sales cycle for large-complex new business and contract renewals. Member of the Global Services Leadership Team reporting to the SVP of Global Services.Achievements include successfully redesigning and implementing a variable Field Support Model saving over $1M annually by leveraging partners and third-party support, and focusing Quantum engineers on complex integrations, critical issues, and proactive activities. Implemented a Skills Transformation Initiative shifting the Field from a product to a solution skill set and methodology. Implemented a Service-Quality Continuous Feedback Process decreasing Product and Service issues by 15% in the first year.

Responsible for the management of the daily support activities of the NC Field Engineering team, maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction, ensuring existing operational procedures and processes are followed, managing and monitoring preventive and reactive maintenance activity, escalating and managing system and customer issues through the proper technical and managerial channels, headcount planning, providing feedback and drive operational and strategic issues, working closely with Sales to ensure a high level of success, and working with strategic service partners in the territory.Achievements include increasing productivity by 18% improving operational standards, consistently underran budget targets by decreasing rework and leveraging tools, consistently exceeding regional Sales achievements providing superior Pre-Sales support and solutions, and first organization to complete the "Blended Engineering" initiative.

Responsible for implementation project management of AT&T Enhanced Virtual Private Network (EVPN-multi-protocol) Services for new customers and lifecycle management. Manage 13-Project Managers located in the US. Primarily implement domestic customers and provide lead Project Management support on specific global solutions. Participate in customer LAN and application migration.

Responsible for strategic support to the Managed Services Network Operations Vice President-- voice, data, customer access, and network infrastructure (SNA/Frame Relay) for 1,500 person organization. Provided cross-functional support to Service Assurance and Delivery teams (Managed Services & Outsourcing Organization). Functional support included: HR, Finance, Development (system, application, tools) Offer, Network Operations, Enablement, and Disaster Recovery. Managed Critical customer and organizational projects. Developed and maintained executive presentation material.

Responsible for end-to-end service delivery associated with eight (four of AT&T’s largest) outsourcing deals. Managed 12-person service management team virtually located in the US. Managed weekly, monthly, and quarterly customer stewardship reviews, interfaced with AT&T and Customer Executives on service delivery and escalation issues, managed and developed a variety of custom Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and owned and tracked customer service issues to resolution.

Responsible for the management of three-Network Operations Centers supporting the Retail, Insurance, and Financial Services customers. Managed 30 multi-protocol technicians supporting WAN, LAN, TCP/IP, SNA, frame relay, physical, logical, hardware (router, CSU/DSU, LAN Switches, modem) and ISDN technologies. Managed a multi-vendor (Telco and hardware) environment. Involved in customer network, LAN, and application problems.

Masters, Telecommunication System Management

Bachelor Of Arts - Ba, Computer Systems Networking And Telecommunications, Business Minor

Activities and Societies: Sailing