Richard Olsen Email & Phone Number

Plainfield, Il, Us

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Lead and set direction for all IT infrastructure and IT operations for this highly dynamic company, enabling SMS to revolutionize the multisite property management market. Reinforce infrastructure systems to foster an expanding customer service’s team from 100 to 1000+ employees. Designing, maintaining, and monitoring all in-house and outsourced infrastructure systems, supporting multiple call centers and operations twenty-four hours a day. ● Designed and implemented clustered Cisco Unified Computing Systems for Voice Over IP (VOIP) and call center operations● Planned and delivered an improved clustered environment using virtual hosts and backup disaster recovery (BDR) devices to improve the company’s high availability and disaster recovery readiness● Migrated accounting systems providing better control over company’s financial analytics and reporting● Deployed Identity Access Management for all applications using Microsoft Azure AD● Migrated On-Premises applications to the cloud● Designs and implements WorkDay Integrations between training, call center, active directory, and workforce management systems● Develops new policies and procedures reconciling System and Organization Controls (SOC) regulations with improved company performance and compliance requirements● Manages and monitors section owners to comply with all regulations for SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2● Manages prospective customer due diligence audits facilitating onboarding of new high value customer contract accounts● Chair of Risk Committee, recommending and deploying security best practices with best-in-class tools to improve the company’s overall security profile● Reduces vulnerable attack surface by implementing novel security measures in real time or before cybersecurity attacks can occur● Develops IT Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans● Designs and manages data center and office relocations minimizing downtime

Jacksonville, Fl, Us

Responsible for the IT infrastructure and operations of the company. Manage help desk analysts and engineers that were responsible for the hardware/software and support of the company.● Increased Citrix performance by implementing performance analysis tools● Partnered with business stakeholders to identify, lead, and add value through process automation, accessibility of information, and improved IT service deliveryo Migrated Incident and Change Management to Software as a Service solutiono Improved overseas user experience with revised SLAs for new ticketing system● Lowered costs with renegotiated MPLS service provider increasing also bandwidth● Set and managed the IT capital and expense budgets● Saved over $150K /yr. with IT infrastructure overhaul project, all server hardware and software, also improved high availability for customer, agent and policy holder portals

Chicago, Il, Us

Manage a team of infrastructure and support analysts for a fast growing startup company that has expanded from 10 employees to 750 in over 28 offices nationwide and in the United Kingdom. Integrated six companies within the past eighteen months to a centralized infrastructure and support model.• Hired and managed three help desk analysts and two highly experienced network engineers.o Four of these where rehires from a previous employer.• Designed and implemented a high availability and disaster recovery solution by building a backup data center with hardware and software that fails over all primary systems within seconds.• Managed hosted VoIP and Exchange Email solution providers.• Moved the Wide Area Network from AT&T to XO to increase bandwidth at each office and to lower costs.• Developed new IT policies and procedures.• Influential team member to deliver a business continuity and disaster recovery strategy for the company.• Deployed a robust incident and change management system that improved service levels, first call resolution, and reporting.

Supplied leadership and oversight of 24x7 IT operation supporting 6000 users in 130 owned and affiliated offices worldwide. Directed national team of 16, including 2 assistant managers, spanning voice/data networking, desktop support, computer operations and Helpdesk (2500+ tickets monthly). Controlled $15MM IT budget.Collaborated with senior management to align technology plans with corporate goals. Spearheaded and directed hardware/software and process improvement projects through the life cycle. Managed vendor relations, contracts and IT assets.Key Accomplishments:• Proposed and secured buy-in to overhaul IT infrastructure and implement leading-edge technologies, SANs, virtualization and blade servers.• Generated $1MM cost savings by implementing private WAN and negotiating cost-effective contracts for phone systems, equipment maintenance and local/long distance voice, data and Internet services.• Consolidated VMWare virtual servers on IBM and Dell blade servers with EMC SAN, reducing operating costs by $500K.• Structured and established multiple data centers, improving availability and disaster recovery capabilities.• Enabled remote access by deploying VOIP phone system, Blackberry Enterprise Server and MS Exchange Mobile Access at corporate office.• Engineered capacity/disaster recovery plans and data/network security precautions. Led regularly scheduled testing of plans every 18 months.• Formulated policies/procedures to solidify technical services, client support and infrastructure. Unified project development life cycle processes. Enforced SOX and other regulatory compliance standards.• Achieved 95% customer satisfaction rating by automating network account process and slashing cycle time from minutes to seconds.• Drove cost containment solutions and consolidated redundant IT processes, reducing annual IT spend by 20%.

 Steered strategic operational direction of 12 x 5 environment with after hours business support. Managed national team of 6 in-house help desk and 8 LAN analysts.

 Executed recruiting and staffing initiatives to assemble high-performance teams tasked with successful migration of 50 offices from Novell to Microsoft NT in preparation for enterprise Intranet solution.

M.B.A., Business Administrations

B.S., Computer Information Systems