Kristen Luciani

 BUSINESS EXPERIENCE: USA Today Bestselling Romance Author, 11/2014 – Present Sand Hill Romance, LLC USA Today bestselling author of various subgenres of romance, including suspense, contemporary, new adult, and erotica. Innovation and startup entrepreneur blogger and beauty blogger with a total social reach of 45,000. Penned and published 12 romance novels to date, with 4 additional novels scheduled for release by year-end. Crafted a nonfiction narrative focused on building a business in the fashion industry, with an anticipated release in early 2019. Managed the compilation and publishing of a romance short story anthology with twenty romance authors where one hundred percent of the proceeds benefitted St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. The project was featured in a number of print and online publications, including the USA Today HEA Blog. Selected by Hollywood Swag Bags as an author whose books were presented to the 2018 Screen Actors Guild Award nominees and talent. Founded The Idea Mama (www.theideamama.com), a business-focused blog the covers topics about entrepreneurship, innovation, and interesting new startup ideas. CEO and Founder, 09/2016 – Present Communi-Mate, LLC – Monroe Township, New Jersey Established a company focused on concept creation for a unique relationship app. including technical specifications, wireframes, logic, branding, and marketing. Designed the wireframes and technical specifications for the app screens, as well as the overall logic and process flow. Outlined a preliminary pitch for the app concept, as well as a high-level marketing plan to guide the launch. Seeking development partners who can build a prototype for the app. Director of Business Instruction, 05/2014 – 07/2016 MetLife, Group Voluntary and Worksite Benefits – Bridgewater, New Jersey Established an end-to-end training program for Group Voluntary & Worksite Sales and partner support organizations including: the development of innovative training mediums such as podcasts and video blogs to accommodate diverse learning styles, management of project delivery timelines to ensure alignment of training initiatives, milestone development and logistics management, editorial review of training content, execution of planned sessions, and creation of a metrics reporting process to measure impact of educational efforts on daily activities. Established a methodology to govern the prioritization, management, and execution of all incoming training requests, including clear roles and responsibilities around the intake process, as well as metrics to measure the effectiveness of content delivery to targeted audiences. Created the education strategy for sales partners in support of building out key capabilities needed to further the organization’s strategic objectives. Designed and delivered a full-scope digital marketing, training and communications program with the intent to raise awareness of MetLife’s digital technology capabilities in market. Launched a communications program designed to raise awareness of product and strategic initiatives, as well as cross-organizational project efforts. Senior Business Procedures Consultant, 04/2013 – 05/2014 MetLife, Group Voluntary and Worksite Benefits – Bridgewater, New Jersey Delivered complete project management and oversight for initiatives designed to bring group insurance products to market including: development of processes and tools that support a standard approach to program and project management (OMM templates, SharePoint workspaces, project milestone plans and issue tracking tools); interfacing with operational and product management teams to ensure that all program level issues and risks are escalated, mitigated, and tracked to resolution; coordinating with marketing and training management to craft weekly communications to Field Sales teams that instruct them on newly available system functionality, rules and guidelines around product sales, and availability of capabilities training; production of executive level reporting and presentation materials that highlight status and progress of ongoing voluntary benefits initiatives. Managed launches of Accident & Health and Specialty products including Critical Illness Issue Age, 3.5 Attained Age, Cancer and MetLife Defender. Hosted weekly project meetings focused on launch logistics and coordinated with work stream leads to track progress around established key milestone dates for quote readiness, enrollment readiness and effective date readiness. Oversaw the monthly project reporting governance process for GV&WB via SharePoint. End User Computing - Production Management Senior Lead, 12/2011 – 02/2013 MetLife, Investments Technology - Morristown, New Jersey Managed the Windows 7 migration initiative for Investments, Investments Technology and the Tampa Financial Management Group, including: overall project administration and coordination of daily activities; hosting all working group and steering committee meetings to review task progress, issues requiring escalation, and action items; oversight of Corporate and Investment application testing efforts, relationship management with partners across multiple LOBs; development of key metrics and status reporting tools for senior management; issue tracking, escalation and resolution; and end user communications and training. Developed strategy for the domestic Windows 7 roll out to users across various locations to ensure a seamless transition, including critical success factors, potential risks, and clear and actionable mitigation plans. Managed application functional testing and remediation activities to ensure compatibility with Windows 7 for all applications used by individuals in scope for upgrade, including test lab setup, security administration and status tracking. Created and managed an all-encompassing deployment project plan to outline the tasks involved with the delivery of a Windows 7 computer to an end user from hardware procurement to post-deployment support, highlighting timeframes for task completion, dependencies, predecessor tasks, and task owners. Established a post-deployment support process to identify the key resources involved with managing user issues to completion and to depict the various workflows for issue escalation and incident management. Designed a process for incorporating automation into the current planning, build and deployment plans for 2013, to eliminate error-prone tracking activities and to reduce overall delivery timeframes. SharePoint Investments Workstation Application Manager, 06/2006 - 12/2011 MetLife, Investments - Morristown, New Jersey Managed the daily operations and maintenance of the SharePoint Investments Workstation, which was the central repository and distribution channel for all Investments reporting data, including: strategic planning and design; requirements governance; prioritization of work efforts, overseeing system enhancements and development upgrades; supporting operations; managing site content; managing production support and overall issue escalation for a population of approximately 1,800 users; and developing and maintaining metrics reporting. Provide oversight and governance through development and enforcement of policies and procedures around requirements delivery and prioritization, content management and maintenance, as well as the distribution of information to users throughout the Investments organization. Managed the decommissioning effort to sunset the original IBM WebSphere Investments Portal, and migrate all applications and content to the SharePoint Investments Workstation, which would result in savings of over $2 million per year. Forecasted and monitored budget for new development projects included within the scope of the Investments Workstation, for example, design and delivery of tools and applications as part of an overall information distribution effort for users within the Investments organization. Directed a complete redesign of the Investments Workstation, utilizing the Microsoft SharePoint Services 2007 technology platform in conjunction with SQL Server Reporting Services to improve user decision-making, increase productivity, and support the future growth of the Investments business. Created and implemented the Information Delivery Requirements Governance Process to govern the analysis, design, development, and implementation of business and technical requirements and enhancements within the scope of the Information Delivery program, to align user requests to available budgeted projects. Project Manager – Client Information File, 03/2004 - 06/2006 MetLife, Individual Business Information Technology - Jersey City, New Jersey Managed the production support activities for the Client Information File, which was the complete customer database for all MetLife products across the enterprise, including coordination of development and testing activities for identified code defects, resolution of data issues identified by business partners, and metrics reporting to quantify the progress of support efforts. In addition, oversaw integration maintenance efforts including planning, scope definition and prioritization, forecasting and budgeting, variance explanation, and management of partner suppliers. Also designed and implemented an environment management process which governed CIF interactions with Enterprise Technology for code deployments throughout the testing and production environments. Managed the CIF Integration Maintenance project initiative to promote a consistent data communications strategy to downstream partner systems. Managed the escalation and resolution of reported production issues, according to set business priority and impact, to ensure timely turnaround for business partners. Established plans to correct impacted production data by planning resynchronization efforts with partner system groups. Coordinated with business partners to escalate and prioritize the resolution of production issues based on cost/benefit analysis. Synchronized IT support strategy across quality assurance, business analysis, data services, and development teams. Employment history from 1996 – 2004 available upon request EDUCATION: Adjunct Professor of Information Technology, State University of New Jersey at Rutgers, September 2017 - Present Adjunct Professor of Computer Information Systems, Hofstra University, September 2002 – May 2004 Hofstra University, Master of Business Administration, May 2002; Concentration in Information Systems Fordham University, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, May 1996; Concentration in Accounting