Thomas Roper Email & Phone Number

Greater Chicago Area

Greater Chicago Area

Dublin, Ireland

Reported to: Chief Technology OfficerResponsible for proposing, planning, starting up, and running software development for Spencer Stuart's $33M offshore corporate venture in Ireland. The corporate venture employs 115 full time, contract, outsourced, and offshore staff responsible for designing, building, testing, deploying, and supporting the Firm's next generation of proprietary software systems (see press release - http://bit.ly/ssireland). As the key technical director for the new corporate venture, responsibilities included technology oversight, organizational planning, budget, vendor selection, vendor management, staff management, hiring, professional development, disciplinary action, compensation, and performance reviews.•Relocated to Ireland, opened the new office in Dublin, hired the senior leadership team, and built the development group to a size of 75 within one and one half years.•Discovered the availability of R&D grants from the Ireland Industrial Development Agency. Prepared materials for a grant application, resulting in $1.6M of government funding to develop a new architecture for the future of Spencer Stuart’s software systems.•Directed the activities of multiple geographically distributed technology teams to design and build a new core enterprise application for the Firm. Teams included database design, architecture, development, data migration, reporting, finance system integration, search and taxonomy integration, database administration, business intelligence, and existing system maintenance.•Ensured that the organization was self-sustaining and able to carry current and future software development forward after my relocation back to the United States.

Greater Chicago Area

Responsible for initiating and leading strategic technology research projects and proposing directions for the future of Spencer Stuart’s technology portfolio. Worked with staff inside and outside of IT to aggregate ideas, past development, and ongoing research into a cohesive vision for the next generation of proprietary systems.Reported to: Chief Technology Officer•Recognized the need to better align the Firm's enterprise application portfolio with the changing business strategy and also to refresh the enterprise application's technology platform to enable building new functionality.•Developed a product vision for the next generation of Spencer Stuart’s core business application suite. This vision illustrated the integration of multiple technology components, platforms, and sources of information into a modern social web-based relationship management system.•Built an enterprise technology architecture framework for evaluating technology options for the future platform, including a model for calculating the total cost of ownership of each option.•Researched advantages and disadvantages of various countries for a possible offshore office for developing a new system and recommended Ireland as a location meriting further consideration.•Brought the product vision, technology options, organization design, staffing plans, and budget projections together into a business plan for an offshore corporate venture in Ireland.•Worked with the CTO to obtain approval of the business plan from the Firm's board and senior leadership team. The offshore corporate venture was approved and funded for $33M.

Greater Chicago Area

Reported to: Vice President of Applications DevelopmentResponsible for researching and evaluating specific technologies for enhancement of Spencer Stuart’s proprietary software systems. Led investigation into technology products, creation of proofs-of-concept, development of pilot programs, and publishing of findings. Oversaw transition of technologies into implementation within the Applications Development Group. Directed the activities of a core team of research engineers plus additional IT and non-IT staff allocated for larger initiatives.

Greater Chicago Area

Reported to: Vice President of Applications DevelopmentResponsible for full life cycle leadership of a new business intelligence development effort. Also led all web-based and client-server software development within the Applications Development Group. Managed a team of 17 developers and database administrators and was responsible for software architecture, development process, delivery, and quality leadership.

Greater Chicago Area

Reported to: Director of Application DesignResponsible for software architecture and delivery of quarterly releases of Spencer Stuart’s proprietary core business application. Built and led a team of 6 developers.

Greater Chicago Area

Reported to: Director of Technical ArchitectureResponsible for designing and developing upgrades and major new modules and functions within Spencer Stuart’s proprietary core business application.

Elk Grove, Il

Reported to: Company PresidentDesigned and developed Cavalry’s core business application, AirCATS, a system that ran all operational, financial, and managerial company processes. AirCATS replaced an incumbent system of FoxPro databases, Lotus spreadsheets, and significant manual effort, thereby allowing Cavalry to expand its top line revenue due to increased efficiency. At the same time, managed the entire IT platform and infrastructure, including networks, servers, and PCs for two offices, one in Elk Grove and one in Los Angeles.

Project Management Certificate Program

Project Management: From Idea to Implementation and Beyond Portfolio Management

Graduate-Level Coursework In Java, Statistics, And Web Technologies

Master Of Science, Computer Science

Fields of study focused on distributed databases, data communications and networks. Master's thesis: "The Design and Implementation.

Bachelor Of Science, Computer Science And Music