Responsible for implementing, strengthening and expanding all of the company’s current and future customer relationships and for serving as the voice of the customers across the entire organization. Managed multiple teams and continually worked to create an internal culture of Customer Success. Solely responsible for reducing churn, enhancing product utilization and improving the quality of all data residing on the company’s platforms.

Innovated and implemented a comprehensive strategy for elevating Morris to modern digital standards for content publication and delivery. Designed technology processes and goals conducive to Morris business objectives, including managing internal collaboration, mobile operations, desktop computing, business systems, public websites, customer support, telecommunications, and networking. Introduced business process standardization spanning all business units and systems. Established technology standards focused on optimizing processes and cost control through automation of manual procedures. Identified and realized opportunities to consolidate and centralize functions and technologies. Tracked performance and progress after implementation of performance improvements. Provided key leadership and direction for management of outsourced functions in alignment with goals.Selected Achievements:• Achieved $300,000 in annual savings on operating expenses via a business plan that centralized advertising sales order entry, consolidating from 28 people at 13 locations to 10 people at 1 location.• Drove an anticipated $600,000 in annual savings through elimination of legacy high-premium systems via an initiative to transition newspapers from disparate advertising sales ordering systems to a web-based central system.• Circumvented $400,000 in capital expenses by introducing Box.net for staff collaboration and secure file storage, reducing the need for replacement of obsolete file/print servers, storage arrays, and tape backups.• Avoided $300,000 in capital costs by transitioning internally hosted newspaper websites to a private cloud provider with higher performance, scalability, and resilience, eliminating existing RedHat clusters.• Reduced time-to-market and dropped the rate of ordering errors by reengineering the business process flow used by the newspaper group to deliver new products to market.

Directed operations and strategy for a 75-strong enterprise IT organization, with authority over comprehensive, end-to-end IT planning, development, implementation, and business support. Drove planning and execution of key technology projects. Identified and pursued key areas for reducing the $18 million IT operating expense budget, including pinpointing areas for process, performance, and service improvements. Administered and allocated a $100 million technology capital budget.Selected Achievements:• Instrumental role in the development and launch of a corporate IT strategy.• Aligned business applications development, integration, and maintenance with company business strategy.• Eliminated $1.3 million in annual production expenses through a business process outsourcing strategy that combined with a centralized technology platform to simplify newspaper advertisement production.• Reduced annual costs by over $600,000 by migrating 10 legacy newspaper editorial systems to a private cloud solution.• Saved $2 million annually by transitioning all SAP landscapes from SAP Hosting to the internal data center.• Lowered annual technology spending an additional $2 million through collaboration with NIIT Technologies to create a new company and migrate Morris IT to an onshore / offshore IT outsourcing model.• Cut annual technology expenses $450,000 by analyzing and then replacing obsolete, high-maintenance technologies with new technologies.• Facilitated outsourcing of high-premium technologies to third-party providers through critical evaluation of public, private, and hybrid cloud computing.• Executed a streamlined strategy for migrating numerous data center-hosted applications to public or private cloud services providers.

Leveraged strategic IT roadmaps to guide planning and implementation of mission-critical IT projects centered on achieving operational and support centralization at a single location. Established and managed project scopes, schedules, and budgets. Acted as a champion of change to senior executive teams, providing recommendations, feedback, and presentations on proposed initiatives. Selected Achievements:• Orchestrated planning and implementation of a $4.5 million corporate data center, successfully centralizing and consolidating 4 disparate data centers with more than 220 servers.• Lowered the computing footprint in the data center and reduced the need for costly maintenance contracts on legacy servers by introducing a blade server strategy.• Assured 100% scheduled backup and recovery of file systems in the data center through a backup strategy.• Introduced a competitive advantage for printed and electronic products through third-party strategic partnerships that provided new technologies and services.• Enabled business scalability and future adaptation by tracking and identifying valuable emerging technologies.• Ensured Sarbanes-Oxley and PCI compliance as key leader on compliance initiatives.• Streamlined IT project management through implementation of a project management process.

Handled daily business applications operations support and operations, supervising up to 10 technologists in managing full-lifecycle development, testing, and deployment of custom internal applications for corporate budgeting and financial reporting. Managed a 20-strong Oracle support team providing assistance and troubleshooting to over 2,500 enterprise-wide Oracle Applications users in diverse locations. Oversaw wireless and local area networking, telecommunications, remote access, security, and email. Identified and implemented new and emerging technologies supporting business goals. Administered capital and expense budgets. Provided key insight and leadership for corporate-level technology planning and standards.Selected Achievements:• Aided in a critical decision regarding utilization of 2 data centers for IT services at all newspapers vs. decentralized local IT through a 2-year business case to determine cost and operational benefits.• Coordinated the internal Oracle Applications 10.7 to 11i upgrade, featuring 380 customizations and integrating modules such as AP, FA, GL, and PO.• Upgraded from Self Service Purchasing to Oracle iProcurement, with specialized custom-tailored procurement processes adapted to meet the needs and business processes of the Shared Services Center.

Managed a team of 44 developers in 2 locations to drive development of the Internet Procurement Adapter for SAP R/3, liaising with cross-functional teams to develop features, define scope of release, and align functions of disparate technologies. Coordinated integration with third-party services and applications. Coordinated product marketing. Additionally supervised development of an OLAP-based reporting solution for Oracle Financial Services Applications. Contributed recommendations for technical architecture for the Financial Services solution.Selected Achievements:• Drove the full lifecycle for development and launch of the SAP R/3 Internet Services Procurement Connector, priced at $150,000 per customer install.• Introduced integration between Oracle Applications and non-Oracle applications through an XML integration strategy for the Applications Technology group, using XML documents conforming to OAG standards.• Facilitated integration of real-time trading systems at large financial institutions with Oracle General Ledger through a hub-and-spoke middleware strategy for Financial Services integration.• Launched the Financial Services solution center in London, providing a comprehensive overview of Oracle financial applications and integrated third-party applications.• Secured 2 deals for sales of the solutions footprint, valued at over $3 million each, with additional revenues generated by more than $10 million in consulting services for each.• Gained traction with key executive-level influencers at financial services companies with a vested interest in the Oracle solutions offering.• Supported acquisition of Treasury Services Group and their analytics solution by conducting due diligence.• Guided integration of the Treasury Services development group into Oracle.

Orchestrated client engagements to deliver performance assurance projects for Oracle enterprise database and Oracle ERP suite implementations at client sites. Provided analyses and recommendations for improvements to client system responsiveness and throughput. Authored consulting proposals and presented benefits to prospective clients. Brought in a multimillion dollar ERP deal through a 10-week performance benchmark. Delivered numerous launches for Oracle Applications 10.7. Introduced improvements such as parallel processing and enhanced security. Supervised teams of technologists on individual engagements. Recruited and mentored new personnel.