Rick Soto Email and Phone Number

Responsible for providing both technical and managerial leadership in day to day Media and IT operations, focusing on traditional and digital services infrastructures. Provide hands-on technical management for a global team with a full range of responsibilities including all aspects of global leadership, Infrastructure, project management, network operations, and technical customer support for internal and external clients. Project Management, including planning, implementation and coordination. Responsibilities Include: Lead Engineering Infrastructure, Network Operations, and Technical Customer Support Teams, plan projects and organize resources. Liaison between Executive Management, Development, and Operations. Manage operations staff, including recruitment, supervision, scheduling, development, performance evaluations, and disciplinary actions. Measure and report progress against key deliverables and business objectives.Establish and maintain regular written and in-person communications with the organization's executives, department heads, and end users regarding pertinent Media IT activities. Develop and maintain long-term strategy roadmaps in conformance with overall Infrastructure, Architecture and Strategy to deliver end-to-end solutions. Provide input on multi-year development roadmaps of other architectures, task definition,assignments and scheduling.Work with business and product leaders to understand business requirements and help them understand how technology trade offs influence strategy. Develop business case justifications and cost/benefit analyses for IT spending and initiatives. Conduct research, feasibility studies and testing and remain current with the latest technologies and solutions in support of procurement efforts. Develop and implement all functional policies and procedures, including those for infrastructure problems, release management, architecture, standards, purchasing and service provisioning.

Extremely motivated self-starter with the ability to build and manage effective global workflows, teams, standards, and processes. Valued for leadership, communication, problem solving, and technical skills. Comprehensive track record establishing and leading high growth entertainment and new media operations12+ years’ experience in Global Production and Corporate Information Technology Management.14 years in Global roles managing multi-cultural and dynamic technical environments
Ability to lead & motivate people and to positively influence distributed resources even without direct line authority. 
Experience in all aspects of Production and Corporate IT, Supply Chain, and Digital Asset Management.
Strategic thinker; Assessing and taking risks; able to work effectively in an environment with a sense of urgency and successfully building loyalty with egoless leadership and hard work regardless of role or title.

 Developed and implemented world class Production IT operation supporting Deluxe Media’s internal and external lines of business. Digital Content Operations: from workflow development, implementation and support to process re-engineering utilizing large-scale Digital Asset Management through to Digital Distribution.Proven enthusiastic and entrepreneurial individual with an accomplished proven and successful track record.

Extensive knowledge and experience, working in North America, and Europe in the Media & Entertainment marketplace.
 Skilled in managing customer and corporate needs while exceeding expectations of both.

Specialties:- Client Relationship Management 
• Project Management 
• Customer facing & relationship building skills 
• Digital Media Workflows
• 
• Contractual Negotiations 
• Customer Service/Support 
• Technical & Engineering Operations and Management• Video & Data Networks / Information Technology

West Region Manager of Information Technologies for North America, and Mexico.Manage Global Information Technology teams.Executive management experience.Design and implementation of complex OnBase digital asset management workflow for Business Affairs and Accounting Departments.Implementation of Digital Asset Management and Collaboration systems (Transmedia Exchange )Design and implementation of Tandberg IP global video conferencing system.Implementation \ Administration of 100+ US and International HP servers.Administration and configuration of Windows 2000 / 2003 Active Directory schemas.Administration and configuration of Terminal server, SQL 2000, IIS, and Media services.Implementation and Administration of Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003.Design and Implementation of VOIP Telephony solutions over Cisco routers and Avaya Phone switches.Design and Implementation of LAN and WAN’s in US and Mexico

Designed and implemented systems for physical/digital asset archiving, distribution of audio.Implementation \ Administration of HP \ Compaq Servers.Administration of various operating systems.Administration of various back office applications.Administration of Citrix and Terminal server applications.Solaris administration on Sun Enterprise 450, and 6500 servers.Implementation \ Administration of 150TB-terabyte Digital Asset Management Repository.Implement backup and offsite solutions. Administration and configuration of SQL, and 2000 Enterprise servers.Administration and configuration of IIS, and Media services.Windows Active Directory deployment and administration.