Atlanta Metropolitan Area
Senior Cybersecurity Leader with an exemplary record of building successful teams, systems, and vision in IT organizations both large and small. Demonstrated success partnering with business and IT teams to deliver maximum business value while minimizing the cost of security. Enabling business vision while cultivating a security-focused culture. Skilled communicator and relationship builder that fosters engagement and advocacy with end-users from frontline associates to C-level executives. Proficiency in leading cross-functional teams and building high-performance cultures. Special expertise in cybersecurity leadership, large-scale projects, selling systems, HR systems, and F&B systems. Enjoys taking on tough assignments and driving to success.
Leading several efforts with other leaders passionate about GENAI. Held GENAI hackathon to generate excitement and identify potential use cases. Deploying MSFT O365 Copilot. Supporting the teams using Copilot to ensure they are seeing value. Set up lines of communication to share Copilot training, wins, cool prompts, etc. Working with multiple teams to design, develop, and implement generative AI models. Leveraging deep learning and machine learning techniques to train AI models on large datasets, enabling these models to generate new, original content that mimics human-like creativity. Identifying and solving complex problems while pushing the boundaries of what machines can do.
Responsible for the Cybersecurity program at Floor & Decor. We exist to protect F&D associates, F&D customers, and the F&D brand. We enable the business of hard-surface flooring retail and supply chain by protecting our most valuable asset - trust. Key Responsibilities: -> BUILD and RETAIN a team of top-tier security experts -> PROVIDE the tools, training, and support they need to be successful and get out of the way -> ENABLE business -> Stay RELEVANT with Technology and industry trends
Responsible for Cybersecurity at Floor & Decor. Protecting the Floor & Decor brand. Enabling the business of hard-surface flooring retail and supply chain while securing our assets, associate and customer data. Key Responsibilities: -> BUILD and RETAIN a team of top-tier security experts. -> BLOCKING and TACKLING. Ensure the table stakes are table stakes. -> ENABLE the business by providing education, process, and tools to securely do their job every day while minimizing the cost of security. -> Stay RELEVANT by keeping up with industry trends in Retail, Supply Chain, IT and Security. Build a Cyber Strategy that aligns to those trends. -> Provide METRICS and VISIBILITY to ensure Cyber posture and maturity are moving in the right direction and keeping up with external factors.
→ Delivery leader for new CRM solution replacing 12-year-old legacy call reporting tool. → We utilized the 3rd party partner sales-i and dozens of integrations with NAPA’s electronic data warehouse. → Cultivated relationships with 3rd party vendor, internal IT teams and NAPA sales business in order to integrate NAPA selling SOP into this industry-standard tool. → Implemented a strong change management vision in order to convince a challenging sales force that this tool was purchased and deployed for their benefit. A major hurdle was moving from a comfortable 12-year-old call tracker tool to a true sales enablement CRM tool. → Deployed system to 1300 active users across 50 distribution centers in six months in 2019 after piloting in 7 distribution centers for the latter part of 2018. Total user population of 1500 company employees and roughly 60 independent owner groups.
→ Development program leader for the largest IT project in the history of APG. The focus of the project was to replace NAPA’s in-store system with a third-party solution. → The project was approximately 3 years behind and massively overbudget when I took over and the relationship with the vendor was ruined by years of in-fighting. → First order of business was to improve the relationship with the vendor and set a vision. Spend several months driving the one-team/one-dream message before realizing the vendor was never going to allocate the resources needed to bring the project to a successful ending. → That is when we started the effort of in-housing the code. We used clauses in the contract to demand that the source code be packaged and delivered to APG to manage and support. → There was very little development staff on the project at the time so we spent 6 months preparing for the code transition. This included hiring roughly 60 developers/architects/integration specialists/etc. We also had to recreate the vendor’s development environment. Including tools and hardware. The goal was to recreate their environment like for like with our eye on the future. Therefore we started planning our long-term pipeline solution. → The implemented the DevOps methodology (although DevOps means different things in different organizations). Our main focus was to align the people that can fix the issue AS CLOSE to the end-user as possible. → I worked myself out of a job by hiring very bright dev leads that came in with the mission to build their teams as they chose as long as it was in the budget, fostered a creative and fruitful relationship between teams and was built with speed, flexibility and most importantly customer service in mind.
→ Lead a team of Product Specialists that own Store Technology Product Management. This includes SME expertise of each area of store technology as well as setting visions for the same technologies. → Responsible for legacy systems as well as new all store solution (RPM). Worked closely with field leadership, HQ leadership and other partners to determine roadmaps. Then worked with execution teams to deliver. → Implemented intake process as well as "get to green" process for tracking definition phase so what is asked for is what is built.
→ iOS Project Management/Development: Lead effort to deploy suite of iPad apps for traveler use in airport terminals. Built infrastructure to manage fleet of deployed iPads. Partnered with iOS vendor and Micros to deploy food ordering App. Built and deployed “Launch App” that allowed traveler to surf web in a controlled environment. → iOS Project Management: Partnered with Channel 10 San Diego to deploy iPads in Paradies Shop. Travelers are able to use iPads to check news and weather. Technology creates draw and traffic which translates into sales lift. → Infrastructure Project Leadership: Currently leading $4 million network upgrade project. Partnering with network vendors, local contractors and Airport IT to design and implement MPLS network. The upgraded infrastructure will increase stability and promote sales growth by increasing speed to complete transactions from up to 60 seconds to under 5. It will also build the framework for additional technology in a marketplace where innovative technology is becoming the key differentiator. → New Initiatives: Currently working with augmented reality vendor to deploy Virtual Mirror for guided selling of high end sunglasses. This C++ technology platform can be seen at www.ray-ban.com/usa/science/virtual-mirror. This will create sales lift through a projected increase of 10% in customer traffic and improved customer experience. The expected traffic lift is 10%. The mirror will also be used to measure data such as transaction counts and user mix as well as the items viewed. This data will be mined to assist buyers in merchandise mix decisions.
→ Leadership: Span of control is 36 FTEs. Mix of Associates, onshore and offshore contractors. → Large Project Leadership: IT lead for $8.3 million Labor Forecasting and Scheduling system deployment. Project was responsible for ~$20 million in annual savings by driving insight and efficiencies and ultimately lowering Payroll % to Sale. Coordinated 3rd party software proof of concept “bake-off” utilizing actual in-store systems. Conducted technical proof of conduct. Dropped new functionality every 2 weeks through agile sprint releases. Responsible for vendor productivity as well leading significant THD development effort. Responsible for reporting to all levels of organization. Involved in contract negotiations specifically responsible for technical clauses. → System Stabilization: Responsible for stabilization and support of recent Kronos Time and Attendance upgrade project supporting 300K+ associates. Responsible for planning and upgrade of SQL Server 2005 32-bit database to SQL Server 2005 64-bit database. → Vendor Partnership: Member of Empower Software Solutions advisory board. → Key experiences: Labor forecasting and scheduling, HR systems, Time and attendance, Large project leadership, leading leaders, Agile development.
→ Leadership: Span of control of 26 associates. Mix of FTEs, onshore/offshore contractors. → Driving Stability: Worked with cross functional technical teams and business to identify and track opportunities for stability improvement and enhanced functionality through projects and releases. → Driving Stability: Drove six week effort with ten person swat team with goal of reducing problem incidents by 25%. Resulted in 30% reduction in incident volume or roughly 180 incidents per week. → Supply Chain/Central Fulfillment Project Lead: IT Lead for team of four involved in the deployment of Central Fulfillment Supply Chain initiative that allowed a store closer to a delivery site to delivery merchandise. Deployment improved customer experience and reduced store to customer delivery fees company wide by more than 10%. → Supplier Portal Project Lead: IT Lead for development and deployment of supplier portal system. This portal enabled non-EDI suppliers to communicate invoices, insall date availability, etc electronically. This tool reduced the manual effort needed to support those vendors thereby increasing speed to payment. Application utilized WebSphere, J2EE compliant JAVA, Struts and SOAP integrated Webservices. → Siebel Development Lead: IT Lead for development and deployment of Siebel lead entry application. Application provided a simple three step process for entering customer leads. Provided electronic lead tracking in Siebel CRM, replacing a more cumbersome legacy process. → Key experiences: Siebel, Informix, Websphere, Java, J2EE, Supply Chain, Call center business, people leadership, large project management, public speaking, mentoring.
→ Team Leadership: Identified, defined and implement team structure for newly formed release prep team comprised of 10 associates. Responsible for growth and development of all team members. → Project Leadership/Vendor Management: Project manager and technical lead for $1.5 million project to integrate and deploy third party Window Treatment application. → Project Leadership/Vendor Management: Project manager and technical lead $3 million project to integrate and deploy a third party Millwork design application. → Enterprise System Support: Coordinated 3rd level support for 7 store based systems in 1700 stores. → Vendor Management: Strong focus on 3rd Party integration and configuration. → Key experiences: Leadership, Vendor and Relationship Management, Project management.