- Chief of Staff to the SVP of the large financial institutions division – supporting a leadership team of six general VP managers and multiple aligned matrix functions- Facilitated regular business line operating reviews for key functional areas – finance, sales, service, professional services, and product development – using consistent routines, credible data, analytics, and metrics for reporting progress, based on the client experience of the enterprise, to drive meaningful improvements- Lead workshops to identify product and process improvement opportunities for key programs and business lines. Building plans to drive change and where necessary developing business cases to support investment requests- Leveraged data and analytics to identify and advocate for process improvements- Identified staffing needs, tracking recruitment across the organization- Drove closure of operational risks and owned completion of client relationship actions- Supported product managers in defining product vision with development roadmaps for key applications, ensuring prioritization of scope to best meet business and client needs- Able to communicate and interact effectively with stakeholders at all levels- Accountable for vendor management - contract negotiation, SLA, and deliverables monitoring, managing a $13M engagement with a 3rd party consultancy- Organized regular updates to 500+ associates through Town Hall events, leader roundtables and recognition awards acknowledging those exemplifying organization values- Mentored associates on the Early Careers and Summer Internship programs- Built a network of leadership contacts across the enterprise to deliver department needs

- Directed program & project portfolio delivering IT infrastructure for financial clients across 7 divisions; ~100 concurrent projects and 10 programs- Managed PMO team of 4 program and 16 project managers across ~$25M annual portfolio- Accountable for directing delivery to completion within time, cost, and quality constraints- Performed capacity management of portfolio ensuring resource assignments aligned to prioritized demand- Communicated and interacted persuasively and with credibility to stakeholders- Monitored performance to defined plans and budgets, reviewing status reports to ensure progress, identifying risks, proposing mitigations, resolving issues, coordinating dependencies, and controlling change- Supported service management by leading incident and problem resolution- Generated cost estimates for projects and tracked them to meet the budget- Audited projects ensuring adherence to PMO standards, evidencing controls/processes followed, and best practices adopted- Line managed associates through goal setting, coaching, training and performance reviews- Created associate performance tools assessing skills, competencies, and stakeholder engagement to inform career development across PMO roles- Recruited PMO associates to the team, and supported program management recruitment as a subject matter expert- Promoted self-directed teams by creating a culture of trust, empowerment, and delegation- Evaluated the effectiveness of project lifecycles, recommended changes, and supported design and implementation of process improvements, seeking regular colleague feedback to ensure continuous quality improvement- Developed agile PDLC-lite approach for connectivity only projects to facilitate faster delivery – average duration reduced from 9 to 5 months- Provided technical and business guidance to clients; challenging proposals to understand impact to service or operations of business areas and any enhancement opportunities to increase business benefit

- Established the division’s program management standards, governance model, artifacts, processes, and approach for complex program delivery- Lead multiple successful program engagements in support of IT infrastructure delivery for the organization’s largest financial clients – budgets of $1M to $10M- Interacted, communicated, and presented effectively to stakeholders at all levels- Tenaciously managed all aspects of program governance – status reporting, project planning, budget tracking, risk, issue, and dependency management- Guided objective setting, coaching and performance reviews for direct reports- Defined program objectives and scope to support client needs and organized work and tasks into logical projects to enable program delivery most efficiently- Expanded delivery capacity to 7 concurrent programs managing 4 project managers- Created a task ownership culture and empowered teams and leaders to drive delivery- Generated cost estimations and tracked expenses to the meet the approved budget

- Performed compliance audits covering NACHA, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Banking Secrecy Act (BSA) and IT Security for financial services organizations- Reviewed procedures, reports, data, and files, and conducted interviews, to capture evidence supporting that organizations follow regulatory and operational standards - Delivered compliance reports to audit committees with recommendations on solutions to mitigate any identified operational risks and issues

- Lead Decision Transformation Framework and Fraud Transaction Monitoring System complex programs delivery of application design and build, managing a team of 30 analysts, developers, testers, and project managers; and a budget of $10M- Established program governance standards and processes for multiple project teams- Successful delivery achieved a Gold Group Functions award for the program team- Developed a platform wide resource capacity planning process and tools for supply and demand of 250+ colleagues and rolled out these systems to 20 project managers- Coached and mentored project managers for succession planning- Communicated and interacted effectively with stakeholders at all levels- Tenaciously managed all aspects of project governance – status reporting, project planning, budget tracking, risk, issue, and dependency management- Oversaw relationship management of 3rd party application suppliers for installation and configuration of product development- Planned multiple projects in support of program delivery creating interconnected schedules with clearly identified dependencies, work breakdown structures and a defined critical path to maintain key deadlines

- Lead the business risk and fraud application systems function, a team of 50 developers, analysts, testers, and project managers to provide functional and scaling application changes to support largest financial services account migration in Europe- Supervised production application service management: sharing weekly service report, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to assure improvements, and prioritizing production defects and enhancement requests for quarterly maintenance releases- Supported organization out of hours support schedule as a Technical Recovery Manager for incident and problem resolution- Performed capacity management for the project portfolio ensuring current resource assignments aligned to prioritized demand and supply was understood for future demand- Communicated and interacted effectively with stakeholders at all levels- Tenaciously managed all aspects of project governance – status reporting, project planning, budget tracking, risk, issue, and dependency management- Oversaw relationship management of multiple 3rd party application suppliers for production support, maintenance releases and new development- Guided objective setting, coaching and performance reviews for direct reports- Negotiated a $5M contract for outsourcing application support and delivered the knowledge transfer for successful service transition saving $850k per year cost- Nominated for Group Operations colleague of the year award

- Lead a $10M change program for a comprehensive Anti-money laundering (AML) and Sanctions screening system (Actimize) across a banking group to monitor 20M customers, 40M accounts, 7M domestic and 100K international transactions per day- Supervised production application service management – incident and problem resolution- Developed the program business case including cost estimates and expected benefits- Negotiated contract with supplier for 3rd party licensing, maintenance, and implementation costs, managed the service and delivery relationship approving invoicing- Managed a team of 35 through data feed development, application installation and configuration, infrastructure build and all test phases to successful phased go-lives- Mapped source data to business and systems requirements, modelling outcomes to ensure optimal solution in support of business processes- Planned, tracked, and delivered all stages of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) through Waterfall approach; monitored costs ensuring budget alignment with Finance- Communicated regularly with stakeholders, including C-suite executives, on progress, risks identified, and mitigation proposed, decisions required and achievements- Created a strong team dynamic and improved morale through recognition rewards- Line managed associates through goal setting, coaching and performance reviews- Regularly chosen to troubleshoot ‘at risk’ projects in the wider PMO department, performing project reviews to identify risks and upskilling other project managers to ensure improved standards across the team- Matured into a product subject matter expert supporting audits and industry conferences

- Lead the Program Management Office (PMO) for the Retail division on a bank wide initiative to mitigate operational risk through upgrading the existing Windows NT data center and office estate to an XP operating system for desktops and Win2k3 for servers- Gathered scope and estimates from project workstreams for application development, testing and deployment work including 3rd party supplier costs and infrastructure to produce clear objectives and business case for $10M program- Established and managed the program governance model across 10 project workstreams including procedures for change approval, risk mitigation, issue escalation, budget management, plan tracking and status reporting to efficiently run program and achieved a green status from the internal audit assurance review of governance quality- Identified detailed resource plans for all workstreams and through recruitment grew the central PMO team from 2 to 10 members- Line managed associates through goal setting, coaching and performance reviews- Ensured the critical path for delivery was understood, dependencies identified, and deadlines met by creating a task ownership culture and empowering teams to drive achievement- Created a divisional application inventory, challenged their necessity to simplify the program scope, rationalizing the landscape by 75% from 2,500 to 550 applications- Lead an agile delivery to plan, test, and rollout Internet Explorer 6 to a banking network of 2,000 branch outlets, 10 contact centers and 65 regional offices- Devised process to capture desktop application and colleague access requirements in support of deployment solutions to meet business needs and minimize service disruption- Created application stacks and role profiles for teams to simplify 18-month deployment to 11k colleagues across 85 business areas with detailed countdown task schedule for each implementation, including a VIP approach for executive leaders

- Supported the Loan Sales Process program delivering a new loan application process including risk-based decisioning and pricing tools- Created a program test strategy and environment plan covering unit, integration, system, user acceptance (UAT), performance, security, and regression test phases- Gathered business requirements and produced functional specifications, including providing cost and effort estimations for project initiation- Coordinated all test preparation activity including test plans, scripts, and data preparation- Line managed associates through goal setting, coaching and performance reviews

- Supported the Bank of Scotland Integration program delivering integrated business processes and IT systems in support of the merger with Halifax bank- Tracked financial synergies and benefits across Merger & Acquisition (M&A) workstreams- Monitored and updated issue status at program level for all workstreams- Built and maintained an Intranet site for program communication

- Supported the Sales Prompts project creating a marketing tool for Retail banking branches to assist colleagues in cross-selling financial products to existing customers- Delivered implementation plan and tracked change management processes and execution to ensure successful go-live delivery- Engaged service teams, produced procedures and support processes, to enable application handover to service teams following project warranty period