Greater Chicago Area
I have over 20 years of experience in operations and program management building and leading high-performing teams to enhance organizational capability. Providing a balanced approach that executes large-scale change – business process transformation – while assuring operating efficiency and service quality is the value that I offer in an operational or program manager role. I have the ability to take complex and disparate projects / systems and create a strategic program to manage execution and communication more effectively. My passion is around driving change by prioritizing initiatives, building consensus, aligning all stakeholders, and managing expectations and expenses to achieve desired results. I enjoy creating innovative reengineering and technological solutions to solve operational issues in large, complex organizations. My reward – a sense of accomplishment by providing exceptional customer service, increased efficiency, and significant cost savings. Specialties: Operations Leadership | Program Management | Strategic Alignment | Team Building Change Management | Stakeholder Management | Process Optimization | Expense Management
Procedures Program and Operations Director in Global Banking
Directed financial operational departments for the Voluntary Benefit division including Agency, Billing, and Document Management and Output. Led Billing team of 65 associates that reconciled payroll deduction bills and files for employers. Led Agency department of 20 associates consisting of licensing brokers and enrollers as well as commissions for all new and existing brokers. Led Document Management team consisting of 15 employees managing mail, scanning, file storage, and policy maintenance. • Launched client level ACH billing that created a competitive advantage in the marketplace attracting new brokers and clients. • Launched customer-facing portal as product owner offering self-service to policy owners. • Managed outsourcing of printing of policies, letters, and kits from an in-house team to the vendor RR Donnelly to reduce risk, technical debt, and streamline processes.
Directed the In-Force operational departments for the Voluntary Benefit division including customer care, customer promise, billing, document management, and records.
Provided transformational leadership for the front end administration teams consisting of 39 FTEs that processed new contracts and serviced the dealers, agents, sales leadership, and contract holders via the telephone, email, and web chat. Led the imaging | mail team and office services for the division's facility of 250 associates. • Established comprehensive manager best practices which included one-on-one meetings, team meetings, department communication meetings, work condition reporting, quality monitoring, consistent interview practices and questions, performance management goals, job descriptions, career-pathing, compensation administration, and talent assessment reviews. • Facilitated successful close of a satellite office in MN and integration of work into the IL office with an overall reduction of 4 FTEs. • Restructured departments to better enhance manager alignment and talent, associate development, and team engagement. • Fostered a team environment for continual process improvement, learning, and resiliency to change. • Established Service Level Agreements with internal and external customers to enhance communication, workflow expectations, and streamline processes. • Initiated a pilot for an outsourcing engagement to achieve manual process reductions, time service improvements, and resource optimization. • Collaborated with IT for project and system requests' prioritization, business requirements, and user acceptance testing to increase project throughput and quality for successful implementations.
Led project submission, prioritization, funding and governance for the Distribution department with a budget of $55 million. Closely collaborated with AF Leadership to manage the project portfolio and expenses. • Partnered with PMO colleagues in Product, Customer Service and Technology within AF to prioritize, manage and ensure projects were aligned with AF's overall business strategy. • Facilitated bi-monthly committee meetings with Senior AF Leadership to review Distribution's strategies, program / project status, manage expectations and proactively address issues and challenges to ensure alignment. • Created and led the execution of the Engage-Grow-Sell strategy to facilitate the implementation of the 2013 variable compensation program for Allstate Agents. Surpassed the target goal with 83.3% of Agents meeting AF's Proprietary Products Sold qualifier. • Led AF's role in the first ever Allstate National Forum designed to strengthen Agent engagement and promote dialogue between Agents and Sales Leadership. The Forum included main stage workshops and an expo/ vendor fair for the over 5000 agents in attendance
Led Implementation and Training teams of 35 employees to support technical and business process installations for the Customer Service Departments in IL and NE, and overseas outsourcing teams. • Led multiple strategic initiatives: Producer Self Service, Producer Ease of Doing Business, and 299 Process Improvement opportunities targeting the Operations department to create process efficiencies which resulted in cost savings and time service improvements. • Managed Electronic Application enhancements projects for life insurance that increased agent utilization from 36% to 85% within 6 months and created an efficiency gain of 31 FTEs in the back office saving $1.6 million. • Implemented and trained 500 Customer Service associates on a new workflow system (Automated Distribution Workflow) designed to streamline life insurance and annuity processing by standardizing processes, eliminating manual processes, and increasing accountability of processors and managers for quality and work condition.
Led implementation teams of 30 employees to support technical and process installations. Supported life administrative, image\workflow, and underwriting systems.
Led a cross functional team of 45 employees responsible for the underwriting, data collection, and issuance of new business life insurance while providing contact center support for agents and customers.