Anne Stein

 Anne Stein, Project and Program Manager, Edmonds, WA 98020 -, c:-, LinkedIn PMP certified, award-winning Program Manager, recognized for skills in project management, critical thinking, global-facing communications, and inventive business solutions. Over 6 years' experience in program management in an IT environment; solution-oriented with customer-focus. Led 11 software engineering teams to open four new Amazon Device Warehouses, saving Amazon $62,500 YOY. Managed projects over $3.5m valuation for Amazon and Microsoft; contributed to Procurements’ $4b/yr PO actions. Made sound business decisions using methodologies including Scrum with Agile, Kaizen, Kanban, and at times a mix of these and other best practices (workback schedule, Gantt, roadmaps, work breakdown charts, with VSTS - Epics, Features, User Stories, JIRA, and Microsoft Planner). Planned project milestones, created reasonable and measured labor timeline, with four-person team in two time zones, mitigated scheduling constraints, setup work-to-be-done/yet-to-be-done transparency. Negotiated scope and deadline for content drops with global cross-organizational, cross-discipline teams and groups (product, developer, legal, finance and marketing teams). Brought two global Microsoft campaigns in on time, within budget. These were worldwide rollouts, completed to specs and plans. Facilitated fragmented communications between business and engineering teams; built back trust, enabled communication clarification through a workflow analysis and expectation “reset.” This led to a more collaborative, cooperative, and productive work environment. Led weekly and monthly meetings with Scrum methodology in an Agile environment; set agenda, facilitated communications, developed and disseminated notes on status, ownership, and actions. Followed-up. Managed people, programs, and projects by putting out fires, removing roadblocks, creating issue logs, communication hubs, building/recreating broken processes, and delivering successful programs and projects on time and within budget. EXPERIENCE State of Washington, Program Manager, Dec 2023 – Jan 2025 Managing 14 benefits programs. Issuing over $19,500/month in state and federal funds. Presenting programs to clients. Leading process change solutions. Communicating all necessary business (progress, eligibility, pay-backs, fund issuances) in writing and verbally to 150 clients/month. Communicated verbally and in writing internally to cross-discipline individuals and teams - five managers, eight professionally licensed staff, and not professionally licensed front line team of 25. Project Manager, Azure Subscription Support and Serviceabilityment, Enterprise level (contract), March 2022 to Sept 2022 Jumped into ongoing project, immediately on-point for next phase goals, tracking, and communications with developer lead and support management. Planned and executed change management - the transition of one group handling certain types of cases, in their system, to another group with a different system. Responsible for meeting coordination, publishing training schedules, communication facilitation, note-taking, capturing actions, identifying gaps and risks - and following-up. Project was overwhelmingly successful, coming in under budget and before deadline. Big team win! Disseminated project notes, updated all trackers, and inquired with managers regarding possible misses with full transparency. Created “walking deck” for Director of Azure Enterprise-level Support to use for global travel presentations. Created detailed team r/r decks for Manager of Azure Support. Reviewed 15 teams’ timelines and WBS’s for done/not done status and sent reminders of project artifacts due. Enforced engagement of stakeholders to adhere to schedule or provide written status communications. Surfaced all risks, challenges, or key issues to the two Directors of the 15 projects - who could/would take immediate action. Created “all-up” business improvement report of 15 project-lead teams’ status and next steps. Collected, created, edited and delivered ROB report for Director to present to Leadership Team. Project and Program Manager, Amazon Recalls and Market Withdrawals Compliance (contract), July 2021 to January 2022 Followed all letters of the law regarding product recalls, safety alerts, standards, regulations - including immediate customer notifications of such events. Managed self and others while delivering high-stress, high-risk event management. Executed Amazon's Public and Private Recalls and Market Withdrawals events using procedures and policies in response to officially and unofficially announced unsafe products for sale by Amazon and third-party vendors/sellers. Onboarded, conducted, and closed these events when tapped by US Food & Drug Association (FDA), US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Health Canada, and over five more federal government entities. Wrote, edited and published Amazon Seller Portal - Partner Seller help pages for policy Recalls, Market Withdrawals, and Stop Sales in North America (US and Canada). These were delivered in close cooperation and supervision by Amazon's Legal department (met with lawyers weekly). Delivered Phase One of worldwide help page project rollout for Amazon's Seller Portals in North America and Canada. Updated Compliance Product Assurance, Risk and Security Operations SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) - this effort was completed quickly, due to fast-changing, needful documentation - in preparation for large headcount onboarding. Developed successful training for new employees quickly with a helpful "who's who" matrix, 5-tool orientation, template library, and how to use these in concert with one another to execute and close cases successfully. Managed development, writing, editing, publishing of shared Wiki’s, SOPs, and Just-In-Time guides to new FTE employees. Project and Program Manager, Microsoft Procurement (contract), August 2019 to December 2020 Managed the Microsoft MyOrder Procurement website. MyOrder is the internal Procurement Operations Portal for all hands to Procure any devices, items, or services required to fulfil their role at Microsoft. Including OEM (i.e., Dell, Lenovo, HP), Surface, and Sample devices and accessories. There are over 420 Microsoft presences in over 80 countries worldwide. This program supports the publishing of all items agreed upon (types, price, release dates, and other Procurement, Finance, and Accounts Payable actions) within the Microsoft’s Supplier Program (includes: SOW, Master Service Agreements, taxes and customs). Delivered over 42 projects - onboarding new suppliers and vendors to Microsoft’s worldwide presence – expanded footprint. Coordinated work with accounts payable, finance, legal, hardware, and hardware certification teams, in alignment with the Microsoft Supplier Program, OEM account managers, internal and external developer teams. Addressed over 100 employee communications per month. Issues ranged from request for country presence to purchase order navigation. From invoice assistance to portal usability, and special arrangements for pandemic response. Responsible for Catalog Purchase Orders worth over $246 million. Project Program Manager, Microsoft Elite (contract), December 2017 to January 2019 Managed the Microsoft Elite program (Elite is the program Microsoft managers use to test their products or services by internal Microsoft users before being released to the public). Coordinated content and publishing schedules to support Windows, Office, Excel, Xbox games, MS Learning, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and many more. Program and project managed delivery of over 45 Microsoft Elite (dogfood) programs from kick-off to close within one year. Worked with End User Services Engineering, Core Services Engineering and Operations, and WorkSmart teams’ pipelines for coordination of deliverables. On-point for writing and distributing marketing and program campaigns to over 26,000 for each of the 45 Elite programs, and up to 75 program updates with the same media reach for each. Project Manager, Amazon Devices – Kindle Offline Retail (contract), September 2016 – March 2017 Co-managed Q4 Channel Marketing Shipper Project, monitoring and reporting major milestones, blocks, risks, ownerships, and deadlines for multi-million-dollar pick, pack, and delivery of Amazon displays and devices to thousands of retail store locations in North America within four weeks (pre-Black Friday). Stepped into partially initiated project with validated savings in Devices supply chain processes – project was worth over quarter of a million within two years, and continuous cost savings YOY due to this project. Grew project start nubbins to fully engrossed project phases; developing all critical directional aspects and plans, presenting to Devices Kindle Offline Retail and Fulfilment Operations team, receiving buy in. Engaged Legal, Supply Chain, Accounting, Amazon Fulfilment Network, KOMPAS, EDI software engineering teams, Devices Kindle Offline Retail team management, and one Amazon North American (devices) warehouse Operations team to land the North American warehouse expansion project with the ERP software integration. Enabled North American device-specific warehouses to be opened, come online, and deliver Amazon devices with all device displays, end-to-end in the electronic and physical shipping and delivery space from China through distribution operations matrix, to customers in stores such as Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Kroeger, Fred Meyer, Lowes, AT&T and others via ERP. Created and tracked 11 software developer team’s actions, and 40+ vendor-stakeholder communications. Enabled clarifications, catalyzed process definitions, and consistently reported progress, while digging in to solve problems, and remove blocks, and engaging teams to remove blocks if my authority or tools and abilities didn't provide. Managed project end-to-end of Channel Marketing Lookbook site build. This gave rapid uptake of visual information to Amazon Devices team and upper management. Marketing Manager II – Amazon.com Gateway (contract), November 2015 – February 2016 Successfully delivered Gateway and sub sites’ marketing campaign events Black Friday, Cyber Monday, 12 Days of Deals, Last-Minute Deals, Year-End Deals, and Valentine's Day (ramp time was two weeks). Published over 134 campaign assets using Content Symphony, Gateway processes, and worked with Amazon Creative and Studios. On-point for all go-live publishes – executed flawlessly (highly developed detail-orientation). Brought over $12m profit to Amazon.com. Program Manager, Microsoft OEM Marketing Asset Portal (OMAP) (contract), November 2014 – March 2015 Microsoft's Enterprise Gold Certified Partners utilize this portal to access all Microsoft Confidential advertising, marketing graphic assets, and other licensed collateral. These assets are crucial to Enterprise Partners' (i.e., ASUS, Lenovo, Dell, HP) campaign endeavors (in selling their equipment – loaded with Microsoft products). Created, developed, managed, and carried out portal-related communications program internal to Microsoft, and external to over 650 licensed Enterprise-level Microsoft Certified Partners from over 46 countries worldwide. Developed portal UI relative training, including highly technical information regarding software/hardware conflicts, troubleshooting, and offered solutions. Removed customer pain and roadblocks to customer success. Managed (administrator-level) 4 systems (CMS, CRM, MDM, O365), to successfully issue licenses, and grant permission levels into the asset portal. Balanced multiple and conflicting priorities; responsively changed focus using good judgment; maintained all SLAs to stakeholders and customers, while under intense pressure. Windows 10 Back-To-School and Holiday marketing campaign assets publish. Led 4+ employees. Over 1200 tasks/moving parts. Planned project with the end-goal in mind, sourced resources, approximated costs, established WBS, tested work package timing, created schedule, oriented/trained staff, managed virtual team via Skype meetings and 1:1s, SharePoint-leveraged WAS and schedule, and negotiated deliverables. Monitored and controlled all phases. Project in on time, within budget. OMAP internal process solution, change management related (confidential). Streamlined processes; tested new processes, timed work packages, defined resource requirements, and reported findings. Suggested solution immediately green-lighted by management. Trained new solution to staff and management. Received instantaneous, proven payout, received accolades from Microsoft. Editorial Program Manager – Microsoft Bing Deeplinks and Whole Page Relevance (contract), July 2013 to August 2014 A Bing result includes parent URLs and child URLs which are clustered together neatly on the first page of search results. This real-estate on the page is called the "deep links". Bing Deeplinks are the most-viewed, and most-clicked on. For the Top 1,000 most-searched terms, deeplinks are carefully vetted and "cleaned" via Editorial hand in conjunction with an algorithm. Owned publishing process end-to-end for Deeplink Search results. This included: suppression, navigation categorization, landing page selection, QA, and editorial placements. Authored marketing copy of over 500 Deeplink properties – titles with snippets. Assigned work for team of five editors, trained, coordinated, and approved/rejected work daily. High-profile, high-impact, and high-traffic; breaking news, Fortune 100, 500, and Microsoft Product marketing coverage. Led team of 5 associated editors regarding Deeplinks CMS and Style Guide adherence, approving/rejecting work daily. Invented new customer satisfaction metrics model by marrying 4-DSAT input streams. This established a new, better, stronger, actionable program, based on fine-tuned granular feedback. This led to monthly DSAT meetings (including authoring PowerPoint decks, agendas, facilitating (Lync/Skype), managing discussion, taking minutes, and following-up with email action items (co-managed with PM)). Succinctly presented soundbites and case stories to upper management. Actionable sprint and longer-term goal including Monetization, 404 filter injection (QBR data down 40%!), seasonal developer manager hire, editorial return experimentation, and overall cost-reduction. Co-managed Real-Time Audit Tool Launch with new team onboarding Co-managed 5 in-house judges, over 32 crowd-source judges. Responsible for work package estimations, work process creation, WBS, project schedule adherence, process instructions, and many feature and issue logs. Production runs, and tool improvements and changes. Controlled several phases of project; new employee ramp-up, tool orientation, tool use, data collection, data analysis and reporting. Brought Whole Page Relevance and Search Result Adherence delivery KPI and scorecard scores up, enriching Bing user satisfaction. Education PMP Certification May 8, 2021 PMI Project Management Course, Completion March 2021 Joseph Phillips Udemy online Project Management courses, completed and ongoing English Bachelor of Arts degree, University of Washington Technical Writing and Editing Certification, Bellevue College Software Content Management Systems Atlassian JIRA, CMS at Amazon, ICM, VSTS, SharePoint, SharePoint Designer, Amazon's Content Symphony, Amazon Gateway internal processes, Microsoft OEM Marketing Asset Portal systems (OMAP), Microsoft CRM (MIMOS), Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Dynamics, O365; Bing internal proprietary Editorial Tool; Microsoft.com CMS's internal tools; Xbox Microsoft CRM & CMS tools; Office.com Content Management System (OCMS) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Languages/Database scripts Basic HTML, XML, SQL queries based on previously created scripts. Data tools Many databank tools over several years – including SQL re-use of scripts and templates (i.e., Sales data pulls at Amazon Recalls), PowerBI, Excel data imports with pivot tables and Vlookup; Scorecard, MSN TriggerFinder, eExplorer, BingDebugger (d2Saver), QueryProbe, Bing Feedback; ComScore/Omniture, WebTrends, MSListens and Content Watson. Skills Program Management Project Management Leading daily scrum standup Agile framework SDLC experience User Interface, User Experience, design input experience Content Management Systems Content Management Content Development Writing and Editing Requirements Gathering Change Management Supervising experience SLAs Growth opportunities Feedback – 2-way street Remove blocks Servant Leadership Thought Leadership Business Requirements Process mapping Process improvement Continuous improvement Microsoft Office - Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more Certifications PMP Certification, May 8, 2021 Membership PMI Continuing Education Business Analysis, certified completion, Udemy course, PDUs earned, 2022 Project Management, certified completion, Udemy course, PDUs, earned, 2021 Excel for Project Managers, Udemy course, PDUs available, in progress (2022) Groups Edmonds Police Department Academy – Citizen Program 2023 Toastmasters 2021, 2020 References Upon request