Kay McCormack

Kay M. McCormack Arvada, CO 80007 |-|- | LinkedIn PROGRAM MANAGER | DIRECTOR Commitment to Excellence – Challenges Status Quo to Derive Improved Results – Highly Collaborative Team Player Longstanding track record of repeatedly exceeding project savings targets and timelines Senior Program Management professional bringing clarity, direction, and execution to project teams by bridging requirements gathering, project management, change control, and business strategy. Experienced IT Leader with extensive program/project management experience and an ability to translate complex business requirements into successful enterprise initiatives. Exceptional business consulting experience with a customer-focused attitude and the ability to manage multiple high-profile projects. Strong initiative and track record of excellence in customer service satisfaction and achieving on-time deliverables. Highly-effective global program and agile transformation leader, delivering effective facilitation, coaching, process improvement, support guidance, project change control, and practical solutions to complex business challenges for Fortune 100-500 companies. u u u CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS: Key member of team facilitating the first scaled (SAFe) Agile release [utilizing portfolio, large solution, global program and team levels], spanning 10 Scrum teams and 8 sprints, resulting in 100+ high-value changes being delivered nearly 70% sooner, and saving $10M in potential revenue loss for the company – Nielsen Holdings plc. Built and managed new team for facilitating smooth code deployments, infrastructure stand-ups, and configuration changes into various pre-production and production web-based environments, delivering project at 98% success rate for over 500 change requests with over 1100 JIRA / deployment tag requests – Nielsen Holdings plc. Delivered more than $13M in cost reductions by negotiating dispute resolution with a key software vendor – Lake Shore Associates on behalf of US Cellular. u u u Project cost management leadership, yielding significant reductions, including 40% savings in project budget through negotiated project scope restructuring – Johns Manville. Successful global cost control management, realizing 10% annual cost reduction in telecommunications budget – Level 3 Communications. Drove policy standardization and contract negotiations, netting a 15% reduction in annual cellular service costs – Johns Manville. Certified Agile Coach | Certified Agile Team Facilitator | Certified Scrum Master | Certified Six Sigma Green Belt | PMI Trained Cross-functional Organizational Leadership | Strategic Planning | Enterprise Program Management | Process Design & Improvement Cost Benefit Analysis| Budget Management | Client Facing Management | Strategic Partnerships Contract Negotiation | RFI/RFP Creation & Management Project Management: Custom Software Development Agile Global Enterprise Implementations Software Development Models: SAFe, Kanban & Scrum Iterative Waterfall Value-Added Leadership: Global Cross-Functional Supervision Facilitation and Coaching Vendor Management Professional Experience and Contributions: Nielsen Holdings plc | Chicago, IL 2013 - 2018 A global measurement and data analytics company that provides a complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide. PROGRAM MANAGER (2016 – 2018) Implement $90m Platform Portfolio for Nielsen Buy Business that promises to offer innovative retail transnational insights to Global Fortune 500 clients, leading to the invention of Nielsen Data Exchange / Connected System. Systems are in ~40 countries, accounting for ~2B in annual revenues, and supporting ~$100M revenue with lowest known tech costs in company. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: w Directed software releases, move to production, new process creation and acted as the liaison on the Nielsen Connected System program, comprised of ~58 global scrum teams (approximately 600 staff.) w Member of team that led the restructuring of JIRA implementation to support SAFe, utilizing portfolio, large solution, program and Scrum team levels, interacting with multiple product backlogs. w Managed major releases for new global platform and web-based software client portal. Collaborated with 40 scrum teams for first and second version of new product. Received Platinum and Silver recognition awards. w Facilitate release planning, global program management, PMO process setup and infrastructure implementation. w Facilitated team and cross-team communication and retrospectives to build high functioning working relationships among a group of 20+ development teams located in North America, EU and India. SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER / RELEASE MANAGER / SCRUM MASTER (2014 – 2016) Member of Agile Transformation team, coaching multiple development and product leadership teams from waterfall delivery methods to full scaled-Agile methods (SAFe, Scrum and Kanban). Kay M. McCormack Arvada, CO 80007 |-|- | LinkedIn Page 2 of 2 KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: w Facilitated Release Planning, Sprint Planning, Backlog Grooming, and Retrospective meetings, removing team impediments on a daily basis to allow the team to deliver the sprint goals and deliverables. w Collaborated with members of the Product, Business and Engineering Teams to develop and maintain Product Backlogs. w Release manager for successful move of last client on legacy platform to a web-based client portal. w Recipient of team NA Buy Excellence Award – June 2016 (Gold award), October 2016 (Silver & Bronze awards) SR. PROJECT MANAGER / TECHNICAL DEPLOYMENT TEAM (2013 – 2014) Managed team of deployment managers responsible for facilitating smooth code deployments, infrastructure stand-ups in NOCs and data centers, and configuration changes into various pre-production and production environments (utilizing Oracle, Netezza, and others). Created and led team to complete deployment plans, resolving issues in real-time and supporting post launch war room activities and warranty support. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: w Worked with leadership to define deployment strategies and directly managed technology stream, delivering releases with a rate of 98% on time deliveries. Recipient of Platinum award in October 2015 for major upgrade release and management of business Yellow State for process from 2014 thru 2015. w Recipient of Bronze award in September 2015 for Nielsen Marketplace RedLaser Pilot Go Live. w Recipient of Platinum award in September 2014 for various accomplishments, including coaching and leading multiple successful deployments, and managing and executing over 150 change requests with a 98% success rate. w Effectively built and managed contractor team, including remediating poor performance. w Built a standardized, repeatable processes to support and ensure complex software architecture deployments were on time and well communicated. Lake Shore Associates | Chicago, IL 2012 - 2013 Management consulting firm delivering integrated solutions across diverse business units. PROJECT MANAGER CONSULTANT Managed change control governance for $450M operations and business support systems software upgrade project. Managed multiple service projects to retire redundant applications and replace middle ware services with an Enterprise Solution. Responsible for establishing oversight and management of various project team’s changes, managed executive reports, presentations and communication of overall status of program changes to senior leadership. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS: w Collaborated in dispute resolution with software vendor, driving $13M in project cost reductions. w Established and implemented governance improvements for change control processes. w Directed requirements validation and gathering for project change requests. w Conducted weekly communications to program (100+ members) to report out on status of program changes. M5 Networks, Chicago, IL - Acquired by ShoreTel, and now Mitel, a hosted VoIP phone service provider, focused on unified communications (UC) solutions. IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT MANAGER Managed client relationship during implementation phase of hosted voice services to small and medium businesses. Coordinated with IT partners and internal experts to design and install VoIP Services. Leveraged industry knowledge, applications, and product knowledge in order to support sales in closing opportunities. Maintained and cultivated client relationships at management and executive level and provided account reviews. Incorporated executive summary, Return on Investment (ROI) analysis and solutions designed to develop customer-specific proposals and presentations. Completed 20 successful VoIP implementations. Prior Engagements: DIRECTOR, ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING COMPLIANCE PROJECT MANAGEMENT, Western Union SENIOR LOAN OFFICER, A Grade A Mortgage, Inc. SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER, Johns Manville PROJECT MANAGER / MANAGER / ARCHITECT, Level 3 Communications, now CenturyLink Education: MASTERS IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS, University of Denver BACHELOR OF SCIENCE, BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, University of Phoenix