Mike Heeter Email & Phone Number

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

Direct the vision, strategy, and execution of Jostens Publishing and Content information systems while partnering closely with the Executive Team, Sales, and Marketing to provide customized technology solutions. Manage a software development group of 35 people, an operational budget of $6M, and a capital budget of $3M.• Transformed Jostens business model by selecting and leading a team in the design and implementation of an innovative platform that enabled customers to build yearbooks on-line for the first time. This SaaS model was revolutionary and resulted in winning significant market share, growing revenue by millions of dollars, and cutting over $50M in expenses by automating manufacturing processes. Our team received the company’s highest award, two industry awards and a patent (US 20120328169 A1).• Introduced innovative technology strategies through evaluating and implementing a cloud computing infrastructure that allowed Jostens to quickly prototype concepts for new digital products with minimal investment in technology, which reduced costs and labor. Implemented multiple Amazon services including EC2, S3 and RDS, which reduced the construction of new sites to a matter of minutes, as opposed to days and weeks. Expanded the cloud infrastructure to handle multiple Facebook applications, a mobile API, and an image sharing site.• Capitalized on the growing mobile application market through leveraging the collaborative strengths of Jostens’ internal enterprise development and QA knowledge in partnership with IOS and Android development from vendors. Outsourced mobile development, while constructing a mobile API in-house, resulting in the successful launch of an App that became one of the top 10 IOS social apps. This increased market share with the next generation and reduced costs by 30% due to smart staffing.

Managed and expanded the web development function by more than 50% to a budget of $4M and a team of 20 employees that successfully grew web traffic during this time by a factor of 100%.• Successfully saved a strategic online product initiative that was in danger of costing the company $10M if launch was missed. Within 8-weeks, built a team, broke down the problem , and created a detailed plan to address each challenge, resulting in a successful launch that met the retail season deadline and a final project that earned one of Jostens’ highest awards.• Licensed an internal custom software as a product to a large theme park enterprise in Florida as part of a billion dollar initiative. Grew product photo book sales by 50% by successfully selling and customizing Jostens’ internal software, providing our client with a more effective technology for showcasing photo books to their guests. • Achieved high customer satisfaction and retention rates of over 95% by promptly responding to complaints about photo quality and overcoming significant internal resistance to gain support for implementing an innovative solution. Formed and led a team to brainstorm ideas, developed standard quality metrics to reduce subjectivity, and facilitated Kaizen events to evaluate options and gather input, resulting in implementing a high quality solution that earned Jostens’ highest annual award.• Implemented creative hiring and sourcing strategies to fill 5 open positions requiring very specific technology experience. Recruited the first virtual team members nationally, engaged profile hiring techniques, and went to local user groups to source and attract specialized talent. Set up demonstrations to entice candidates and presented to recruiters to ensure a deep understanding of the needs. Directly screened and interviewed dozens of candidates, and implemented processes to recognize and reward hires, maintaining a very low turnover rate in a highly competitive market.

Established software architecture and direction across Jostens IT. Led the Jostens Architecture Review Board to ensure technology aligned with overall business strategy.• Reduced amount of required storage by half and reduced network bandwidth by 75% by leading a team in redesigning the photo upload process, which was straining overall storage capability and overloading the network. Researched new technologies and devised numerous tests and metrics to ensure no visible loss of print quality in the final product. • Employed agile project methodology to evaluate, select and implement Java technology to replace outdated MS tools that no longer aligned with the strategic direction of the organization. Overcame resistance to change by doing a proof of concept, demonstrating the benefits, and training the staff. Designed the architecture for next generation technology including Java, Spring, Tomcat and Oracle, and acted as architect for implementation. The result was a faster, more maintainable, and easier-to-access database and the elimination of redundancies.

Managed all technical aspects of Business Intelligence including hardware and software selection and implementation. Mentored other team members, provided work direction, and trained fellow developers. Acted as project lead, technical expert, and business-liaison.• Led a team of 3 developers in partnership with Finance and Marketing groups to analyze key business indicators to look for patterns and trends that would inform strategic business decisions. Received 3 promotions and 7 awards, including Jostens CIO award, for consistently delivering results on schedule and under budget.• Partnered with a cross-section of Managers, Sales Reps, and Executives to design the first standard Business Intelligence Tool to provide a view of customer activity across all of Jostens. Led a team of 10 developers to install, configure and extend the application to 300 Sales Reps and 200 Employees, Further, developed Enterprise Order reporting and an analysis system using Siebel Analytics. Received a Leader Award for this project.

Developed ETL programs and partnered with Sales, Finance and Marketing groups to implement and analyze reporting needs. • Designed architecture of Jostens new Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). Added new schema to existing Oracle Data Warehouse and designed enterprise standards for Metadata, Extract, Transformation and Load (ETL) programs. Documented standards and trained development team to use new architecture. Partnered with Operations to implement job scheduling, version control and backup procedures. • Implemented real-time reporting capabilities, allowing finance personnel to immediately see the impact of journal entries on Jostens Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flows. This project reduced the duration of the month-end close process by 20%. Formally recognized by Jostens for creating a financial budgeting and reporting tool which allowed 100 Managers to easily view and track expenses for their departments.