Steve Richards Email & Phone Number

Provide statewide leadership and market support as a member of the Oklahoma VP direct report team, work cross-functionally across regions, roles and leadership levels to develop strategy, execute initiatives, find operational efficiencies, and help improve client satisfaction.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Area

Develop strategic vision for Sales Services team to support the sales process, revenue, internal and external service goals. Ownership of identification, communication, and resolution of recurring problems, process gaps and optimization at the state, region and national fulfillment operations.

Atlanta, Ga

Manage day to day operations of centralized Digital AdOps team; lead a team of analysts to support product planning and evaluate change impact on operations. Collaborate with Market Leaders during the design and development of key strategic initiatives. Serve in an SME role across all departments in the centralized Campaign Fulfillment Center during process design, change management and implementation.

Develop and establish collaboration and workflow processes among the Account Executives, Sales Managers, production, marketing, and the sales support team.• Partner with GM LSM and other functional area leaders to assess and develop solutions to maximize sales revenue and/or client services• Coordinate testing for new support initiatives, products, or processes to ensure that business needs are met or exceeded.• Recruit, coach, and develop account coordinators in all areas of performance including data entry, accuracy, productivity, adherence to deadlines and contract fulfillment.

Statewide Ad Sales Engineer – Cox Media, Gainesville FL ▪ September 2002 – December 2006 • Worked collaboratively with market leadership and corporate to complete the Gainesville and Macon traffic consolidations to the Florida ROC in Pensacola, FL.• Development and management of capital budgets and operational expense budgets• Evaluated current process to identify optimization opportunities in fulfillment efforts across the Florida and Georgia markets. • Created and executed strategic processes to ensure fulfillment of advertising contracts and services in a centralized environment.• Fostered interdepartmental partnerships across all statewide offices to promote efficient, accurate operations and support functions. • Recruit, coach and develop technical operations staff for all Florida markets. Ad Sales Engineer - Cox Media, Gainesville, FL ▪ April 1996 – September 2002 • Improved run rate from 78% to 98% within first six months of accepting position.• Recruit, coach and develop technical operations staff for all Gainesville, Florida market. • MIS duties consisting of administration of user computer accounts, telephone setup and maintenance/distribution of company owned computer hardware and software.Cox Communications – Saginaw, MI ▪ May 1990 – April 1996 • Promoted to Ad Sales Engineer in February 1992. Cross trained in Traffic & Billing, provided daily assistance and vacation coverage for Traffic Assistant. Supervised and trained playback operators. Relocated to Gainesville, FL system in 1996.