Nicole Pena Email & Phone Number

Houston, Texas Area

Responsible for PMO and financial oversight of a $5-7 million project portfolio annually. Oversaw the delivery of approximately ten software development projects annually, as well as the maintenance and minor enhancements of ~ eight applications used by ~2000 financial advisors and their field management. Career Highlights:• Monitored the status of all projects; worked with PMs and teams to identify and address issues with timelines, resources, or requirement changes. Ensured the on-time delivery of projects within budget and in compliance with company standards, processes, and procedures.• Provided oversight, forecasting, and trending analysis of project budgets. Ensured projects followed defined software development methodology with required artifacts and deliverables produced.• Collaborated with offshore vendors on contractual agreements and staffing of 40-50 offshore developer and QA resources. Tracked actual and forecasted spending to ensure spending remained within budget — provided cost savings analysis regarding transition between multiple offshore vendors.

Led the software development and production support of sales and marketing tools and systems used by ~2,000 Financial Advisers and Field Managers across the United States. Managed a multi-million dollar software budget and a staff of up to 20 onshore/offshore employees and contractors. Career Highlights:• Directed the efforts of teams responsible for the development and implementation of new online software tools and systems using VB.NET and Oracle technologies. The portfolio of tools included features such as wealth forecasting, asset allocation, and fund recommendations to plan participants and tools to maximize the efficiency of Financial Advisors and Field Management by reducing time on administrative tasks.• Managed production support of 50+ financial tools and applications, Developed the project plan, assigned resources, and tracked progress to completion and implementation of small software enhancements. Maximized technical resources by prioritizing the resolution of critical issues based on error logs ensuring the timely resolution of defects. Delivered a highly-reliable (99% availability) suite of advisor tools.

Managed a team of 28 resources, including an offshore team of 20 resources in India, in the definition, design, and implementation of ADP’s Next Generation web-based parts inventory system using Visual Basic, ASP, HTML, XML, and SQL Server. Career Highlights:• Established team structure and facilitated business and systems knowledge transfer with resources in India. • Created project schedules and allocated work. Gathered and analyzed metrics to identify trends and streamline the offshore engagement process. • Directed the writing of use-case and use-case realization specifications of legacy and next-generation systems — monitored documentation for quality, accuracy, and timeliness of delivery.• Oversaw implementation of the system from coding through systems qualification testing — successfully led the team to provide QA with quality builds that met the established QA entrance criteria on schedule.