Katepalli, Sushma Email & Phone Number

San Francisco Bay Area

• Overall program delivery of a multiyear global SAP S4 implementation. • Manage the overall program risk, resolve escalations, lead and facilitate discussions between various cross functional workstreams, vendors and tech and ensure all related dependencies stay on track. • Design organizational change management strategy, end user training, and communications to ensure successful end user adoption. • Develop cut-over strategy with detailed ramp down and ramp up plans all the while ensuring minimal disruption across all sales channels and protecting AOP goals. • Establish Hypercare and Post Hypercare support model to allow for quick support and timely resolution of issues across users and systems. • Responsible for the overall technology portfolio of 40+ projects supporting the global organization.• Manage a culturally diverse global team of high performing program managers, project managers, change managers, and business analysts. • Partner with business executives and other members of the IT leadership team to establish the enterprise roadmap. Drive focus, prioritization, and appropriate resource allocation to ensure successful delivery. • Responsible for the PMO and CMO functions; built change management capabilities from ground up and integrated successfully into the PMO framework and processes. • Designed Project Management Office transformation by restructuring the team and support model; standardized and stabilized processes and framework, and established KPI monitoring and reporting.• Designed processes and protocols to drive better collaboration between various IT functions resulting in improved delivery and trust amongst teams.• Designed, configured, and rolled out Smartsheet as the PPM tool of choice to manage all projects across the organization. Increased user adoption across the organization by 100 times within a year via training, and allocating dedicated support.

San Francisco Bay Area

• Responsible for the overall technology portfolio of 25+ projects supporting the global organization, eComm, Marketing, Supply Chain, International, Sales, Sales Ops, Product, Finance, HR, Distribution, Planning, Strategy & Reporting.• Hired, coached and developed a global team of project managers and analysts.• Introduced, designed and transitioned to Agile project methodology. Developed Ariat Agile framework, trained the teams on tools (JIRA, Confluence), processes and methodologies. Improved quality, delivery, and speed to market.• Responsible for financial compliance and integrity of IT Capex; reviewed / negotiated vendor contracts, reconciled vendor invoices, maintained / reflowed project LEs, and tallied monthly IT capex spend. • Established framework, processes and phase gates to ensure all IT projects complied to accounting and financial standards as it relates to cost capitalization practices.• Led exploration of new market opportunities; researched competitive landscape and developed GTM strategy, organizational structure and business plan to launch a brand new B2C sales channel. • Collaborated with business executives from product, sales, sales ops, planning, supply chain, ecommerce, finance and IT. • Led the vendor selection process and implementation of the ecommerce platform • Developed organizational structure, roles and responsibilities and support model to stand up the new channel• Collaborated with head of Asia Business Development to lead exploration of setting up commercial operations in China. • Collaborated with business executives from international, product, legal, planning, supply chain, and finance. • Partnered with Legal to interview local legal partners, researched local labor and commercial laws. • Partnered with International Ops team to conduct market research, develop business plan and material for board approval

San Francisco Bay Area

• Built the IT PMO function from the ground-up. Developed PMO framework, established processes, built templates, and trained the IT team. • Managed a portfolio of 15+ active projects supporting the global organization.• Led major cross functional strategic initiatives – Ariat’s foray into Retail stores, B2B eCommerce site, Direct To Consumer eCommerce site(s), PLM implementation and SAP AFS upgrades.• Led and orchestrated several business process improvement projects. Partnered and worked across cross functional teams to identify, document, analyze and streamline processes by redesigning and implementing systemic solutions where applicable.• Awarded "Rockstar" by the sales organization for exceptional customer centric support, and successful roll out of the B2B platform.

San Francisco Bay Area

• Brought in by Head of Customer Success to rescue a troubled project. Coordinated all activities between cross functional teams and vendor, managed all testing activities, and cut-over planning. Project completed on schedule and Global Sales went live on the system in January 2013

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States

• Hand-picked by VP of IT to lead implementation of ADP eTime across all unionized Dairy plants. Coordinated activities between Legal, HR, Payroll, IT, and 3rd party vendors to establish standard pay policies and practices. Developed a 3-year program roadmap considering legal requirements, priorities, scope, funding, and technologies to ensure a successful transition.• Led multiple new system implementations, business process improvement and system upgrade projects - Oracle Datawarehouse, Blackline, Cadec, iCiX, Muddy Boots, Marketing SharePoint, etc. for the Dairy Foods and Corporate business units

Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States

• Conducted gap analysis of all ERP systems across the Diagnostics division and advised the IT leadership on a global ERP roadmap as part of the Global Standardization Initiative. • Established a Mergers and Acquisition framework for IT systems and key business process integration resulting in reduced turnaround time to integrate new sites and reduced working capital by 15% over 2 years.• Led multiple global implementations (US, Switzerland, UK, Germany) of JD Edwards as a subject matter expert (SME) and project manager for the Diagnostics division. Collaborated with a culturally and geographically diverse team of technical and functional users, and vendors. Developed and facilitated end user training for Manufacturing, Distribution, Planning, Sales Order Mgmt., Master Data and Finance teams.• Managed 3rd party vendor relationships, vetted vendors, negotiated contracts, set up statements of work, tracked progress, reviewed and approved invoices.• Led multiple continuous improvement initiatives (using Kaizen) leading to cost savings and elimination of waste. Certified Practical Process Improvement (PPI) professional.• Worked as a business systems analyst, subject matter expert (SME), project manager, and jack of all trades over the years and supported all business functions in the organization, Manufacturing, Distribution, Planning, Customer Service, Sales, Master Data, and Finance.• Awarded "MVP" for leading successful integration of a newly acquired site.• Acted as an interim Head of IT during a critical M&A activity.

Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States

• Part of the core team to support implementation of JD Edwards.• Developed programs to migrate data from legacy system to JD Edwards, built JDE Reports.• Great learning experience to work alongside IBM as a grad student.

Chief Strategy Officer, Strategy

Masters, Computer Science

Industrial Engineering

Education record