Russ Johnson Email & Phone Number

Fishers, In, Us

Create and implement new technology strategies throughout the organization; aligning the Company’s technology resources with its short-term and long-term goals, perform research on new and innovative technologies that will help the business scale and monitor the use and effectiveness of technologies used across all departments.Ensure that there are scalable software solutions and data architecture for every department and that the right tools are leveraged as effectively as possible. Drive the strategy for Frictionless Point of Sale for the customer and define the technology roadmap and the steps needed to move the company forward as well as migrate to the Cloud.

Chicago, Il, Us

Led the IT vision and strategy to enable achievement of Levy's Sports & Entertainment strategic objectives. Owned and developed the IT roadmap designed to enable company growth and organization transformation. Partnered closely with the executive team to define and implement specific technology strategies including but not limited to digital, data, marketing, research, strategic programs, supply chain, development, finance, HR and others necessary to meet Levy's strategic imperatives. Responsible for 60-person IT team including Support/Service Desk, Security, Infrastructure, Development, IT Service Delivery, Product Ownership, Project Management, and Portfolio Management.• Rebuilt & reestablished the entire IT team from $0 revenue in April 2020 to record profit months starting September 2021.• Responsible for cashless solutions in all venues/locations moving from ~ 45% cashless transactions to 98% over the course of 12 months thereby decreasing operational costs of using cash and increasing profits by 25% on average based on per-cap spend.• Led the Digital transformation of all Levy applications across all functions. Ensured the Cloud migration of on-prem solutions was successful & built for redundancy in both AWS and Azure. Created process & policy for Service Desk optimization. Led & solutioned the Development Process Re-engineering plan for both in-house & 3rd party development.• Project sponsorship & technical responsibility for strategic projects such as Birchstreet for supply chain, eLevy for e-commerce B2C front-end, Suites Management System for in-suite ordering, Mobile Ordering throughout stadiums & arenas, POS strategy for the 250+ locations, Frictionless strategy from pilot to implementation, and setting/maintaining Key IT Controls for global security compliance.

Bethesda, Md, Us

Sr. Director, IT DeliveryLed cross-functional, distributed/matrix teams in support of application delivery including application support, resourcing, budget (>$20M), structure, project management, change management, operational account management, and policies & procedures across multiple platforms and technologies. Included in which is leadership and overall responsibility of all Incident / Problem / Change / Monitoring / Change/ Configuration / Release activities.• Leadership, team building, and direct oversight of all operational support activities for all Marketing & Loyalty systems. Transform the IT Operating Model as it relates to structure, process, tools, and people into an agile and efficient business unit. This includes redefining the Delivery Onboarding Framework for proper handoff to disciplines requiring ongoing support. • Partner integration and IT Transformation lead for the Run organization to include mergers, acquisitions, and joint-venture opportunities, including merging of products/technologies between Starwood & Marriott, and IT partnership with Alibaba impacting over 100 million Rewards members worldwide. • ServiceNow champion and lead partner for key ServiceNow product enhancements. Responsible for continuous improvement efforts between Sales & IT to drive automation, cost savings (>$150M), and increased customer satisfaction.

Stamford, Ct, Us

IT Service Management and direct responsibility for driving efficiency, effectiveness, and continual improvement across global support teams of more than 800 onshore & offshore resources supporting 63 mission-critical applications and over 200 business-critical applications.• ServiceNow Platform Ownership. Direct the ITIL Enterprise Service Management function including Service Desk, Service Management (SLA), ServiceNow SaaS platform, Incident, Problem, Change, IT Asset Management, Configuration Management Database (CMDB), Service Catalog, Content Management System, Knowledgebase, and overall continual improvement efforts.• Responsible for >$15M technology budget and fiscal oversight of key enhancements and growth opportunities.• Develop and standardize new end-to-end processes for Incident, Problem, and Change based on ITIL best practices impacting over 100,000 Incidents per month leading to an efficiency increase of more than 20% annually.

Stamford, Ct, Us

Direct a globally located team responsible for sales product development, planning, strategy, and support for a $120M worldwide sales platform impacting over 20,000 users in more than 750 hotels globally.• Defined the strategy, developed the standards and procedures, and directed the creation and operations of a global multi-tiered support organization including onshore, offshore, contract, and FTE resources and support for all 3rd party dependencies.• Responsible for achieving Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including Service Level Agreements (SLAs) were met or exceeded, First Call Resolution (FCR) and operational efficiency were continually improved, and customer satisfaction was maintained or improved. This included driving FCR above initial projections to over 70% driving savings of $450K annually.• Led the Agile development team accountable for solutions and implementation of all sales application defects and enhancements. This included trend analysis, business prioritization, and execution in overall software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Stamford, Ct, Us

Responsible for global strategy and standards of technology & property-based operations & infrastructure for Owned/Managed/Franchised hotels.• Directed the research, development, Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP), evaluation, pilot, project management, partner/vendor relationships, and product lifecycle management of Guest-facing, Associate-facing and infrastructure related projects including an industry leading RFID, keyless guest Check-In program.• Brand liaison to St. Regis and the Luxury Collection brands for all Guest and Associate technology strategy, standards, products, pilots, projects and services. Directed global in-room automation and energy management projects for total cost per key reduction.• Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Starwood on Guest and Associate-facing technology including Wi-Fi and Broadband services, Mobile technology, Distributed Cellular Antenna Systems (DAS), Converged Network, and Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions. Among other solutions created, this expertise resulted in a communications standard reducing monthly telecom operational expenses by 40%.• Led the Global Infrastructure Standards Committee designed to drive consistency in technology to all divisions globally. Direct the Property Technology lab environment for piloting Guest and Associate-facing innovations.

Stamford, Ct, Us

Single point of contact for providing wired and wireless (Wi-Fi) broadband services to guests. Responsible for overall broadband strategy, standards, contracts and partner/vendor relationships.• Generated $52M in total broadband revenue – North American Hotel Division.• Developed and implemented comprehensive “Broadband Meetings” standard rolled out to over 150 hotels (Six Sigma). Program resulted in 45% increase in broadband revenues.• Renegotiated service contracts with tier-one service providers including Sprint, AT&T and Unisys achieving in 20% cost savings to partner hotels – over $400K aggregate in 2005.• Primary liaison for Starwood’s divisional operations leaders, brand teams, global sales teams and technology teams.

Stamford, Ct, Us

Direct information technology operations for 10 luxury hotels in the Mid-Atlantic region.• Managed all technology projects, servers, networks, computer systems, computer needs, broadband Internet, vendor relationships, and telephone systems for the properties.• Coordinated the rollout and training of new technology to all hotel executive teams and associates which included the research, negotiation, purchase and installation of all computers, upgrades for systems, related software and hardware, as well as service contracts and SLAs from approved vendors. These projects included new Property Management Systems (PMS), Point of Sale (POS) systems, wiring and installing entire hotels with broadband Internet as well as Wi-Fi overlays, and upgrading/replacing large PBX telephone systems adding combined revenue of over $3M annually.

Towson, Md, Us

Provide total technical support and problem management across the entire enterprise for complete network connectivity and technical operations on all clients/servers at an employee-owned architectural firm.