Frank L. Harper, Jr., MBA, MSc, PhD, PMP, PgMP(c.), ITIL, PIF, CSSGB

404-551-7690 flhjrphd@yahoo.com

 

Professional summary:  Sr. Program/Project Manager, Solutions Executive

Frank is a proactive Project Executive experienced in Strategic Management, Project Management, Program Management, Technology Management, Data Management, Business Intelligence and Process Engineering.  He has managed budgets up to 2.2 billion and has done vendor management for 15 years.   He is adept at providing technical delivery, leadership, and management in the retail, telecom, finance/banking, entertainment, logistics, manufacturing, government, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, healthcare and organic foods industries.   A Relationship oriented manager who values communication and teamwork to align technology with business objectives. Collaborates with stakeholders to develop projects and programs that satisfy corporate goals and strategic direction. Certified Project Management Professional experienced with the technical delivery of mission critical IT solutions. Skilled in balancing the triple-constraint of scope, time, and cost, while monitoring and controlling risk, quality, and customer satisfaction. Excellent communications skills used to convey project goals, objectives, and tasks to the project team, as well as progress updates to executive leadership. Experience with all phases of Lean Six-Sigma, ERP implementation, software development life cycle utilizing the waterfall and iterative project methodologies. Incorporates infrastructure best practices for high availability, fail-over, and disaster recovery.  Expert in multi-enterprise commerce and collaboration having worked with AutoByTel.com, Celarix.com, Chemdex, Marex, Travelocity, VerticalNet, Intuit, LLBean, REI, Yahoo, GE, Boeing Parts, and Walmart. Experience strengthened by Big 4 consulting (Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and Cap Gemini) and earning a doctorate specializing in Organizational Leadership and Transformation Self-published Author: A.G.I.L.E. L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. with a G.R.I.P.

 

Transformational Leadership skill

 

Ø       Solid business acumen in aligning business strategy to appropriate enterprise architecture linking critical business issues to critical business processes to requirements driving a technology blueprint

·         Hands-on translating enterprise architecture strategy into technical design documents including assessing the business/economic impacts of options and approaches

·         Proven ability to develop data, process, and program governance architectures

·         Excellent Enterprise Portfolio, Program, and Project Management skills (hands-on) skills with a track record of successful delivery and a positive “can do, will do” attitude.

·         Extremely proficient using MS Project and MS Office Suite /Visio to “get the job done.”

·         Highly developed relationship management skills with the ability to persuade and influence colleagues and external partners by having the credibility with business owners as well as with technology issues.

·         Strong Leadership and Management skills with the demonstrated ability to motivate at all levels by winning “hearts and minds” particularly in pressurized and/or conflicting situations with multi-disciplined teams.

·         Excellent facilitation management skills and demonstrated experience leading group sessions.

·         Team player with outstanding communication and inter-personal skills with an aptitude for developing and sustaining effective and professional working relations at all levels.

·         Decisive problem solver with the ability to manage ‘Change’, ‘Issues’, ‘Risks’ across cross-functional teams.

·         Excellent budgetary management skills with budgets ranging from $100K to $2.2B.

 

Employers, Positions Held, and Projects

 

Intelligent Systems Services, LLC, Atlanta, GA,                                                      01/2005 to  present

Owner & Chief Innovation Officer

 

A registered LLC company specializing in training, consulting, and mentoring in organizational leadership and organizational transformation

 

Intelligent Systems Services, LLC, Atlanta, GA                                                                    August 2013 to present

Author, A.G.I.L.E. L.E.A.D.E.R.S.H.I.P. with a G.R.I.P.

 

Marketing the release of my self-published book which uses acronyms to innovatively articulate world-class leadership behaviors and management practices to turn dreams into reality.  Marketed in (15) countries and sold in (6).

 

BBVA Compass Bank, Birmingham, ALA                                                                             7/2011 to 8/30/2013

Business Process Strategist / BPM-OCM Center of Excellence Lead, VP (Contract)

 

A financial services group with more than $740 billion in total assets, 47 million clients, 7,400 branches, and approximately 107,000 employees in more than 30 countries.

Responsible for:

·   Lead and manage an end to end BPM delivery team consisting of Program/Project Managers, Business Process Strategist/Architects, Business Analysts, Solution and Application Architects, and Development and QA resources

·   Execute and optimize the operating model including strategic alignment, business prioritization, demand and capacity planning, and performance management

·   Collaborate with banking retail and operations department and other functions (IT Architecture) to develop, manage and optimize an integrated Technology roadmap

·   Champion the execution model for approved programs from inception through launch, establish a systemic governance framework leveraging industry standards and best practices

·   Drive continuous process, service, technology and solution innovation, lead and manage change at all levels

·   Ensure highest level of transparency through a standardized communication plan, report status on initiatives and critical financial, operational and organizational objectives

 

Contributions:

Ø       Key contributor to rescuing a failing project whose objective was to prepare more than 1000 employees in all parts of Banking Operations for the arrival of a new banking platform

§         Assisted in clearly defining strategic project objectives and gained approval from senior project sponsors

§         Contributed to strategic approach employing Agile framework and Lean concepts

§         Performed as coach and mentor to teammates

§         Tactical leader of work stream teams examining processes and procedures in Legal Operations

§         Support and Treasury Management Operations Support

§         Identified and resolved “low hanging fruit” improvement opportunities along the way, identified and quantified larger opportunities with potential for substantial cost savings

§         Trained business unit personnel to use Information Mapping writing methodology to accelerate progress

§         Consistently completed work ahead of schedule while delivering superior quality documentation

§         Project successfully evaluated and re-designed >200 processes, created or modified documentation for >2100 step-by-step procedures, identify >200 process improvement opportunities, and train >1000 employees before February 2012

Ø       Proactively managed an Enterprise Architecture Program [Business Architecture, Data Architecture, Technology Architecture] to drive strategic BPM program initiatives supporting core bank processes recognized demonstrating how streamlined and quality processes would reduce the bank’s risk exposure by ten if not hundreds of millions of dollars

Ø       Authored BPM/Six-Sigma/SCRUM Agile Project Delivery Framework providing a global standard directing Transformation & Process, Business Partners, and Technical Architecture increasing the consistent and predictable development of automated core processes impacting real-time transactions across all channels [branch, call centers, ATMs, Internet banking and mobile banking] Oracle Financials, and new CRM system to support long-term customer relationships

Ø       Proactively managed BPM pilot projects to deliver improved processes in Complaint Management, Title Tracking, Point of Sale, and Mortgage Operations proving the viability of BPM Solutions Architecture and Project Delivery Methodology

Ø       Championed, coached, mentored, and contributed to establishing governance guidelines for BPM center of excellence [Alignment, Methods, Operations, People, Processes, and Knowledge] to serve as share services center and drive automation [Alnova Banking, Oracle Financials, Banking Satellite applications, webMethods, Microstrategy, SQLServer] across front and back office processes for retail banking and back-office operations

Ø       Innovatively researched and authored standard operating procedures (SOP) for developing organizational transformation plans to improve the consistency and repeatability of internal consulting group’s delivery processes.

Ø       Proactively managed process improvement/data management mortgage projects to successfully meet Federal Reserve Board audit and regulatory mandates

 

Quail Energy, LLC, Montgomery, Alabama                                                           Sept 2011 to June 2012

Project Management Consultant – Business Process Architecture (Part-time Contract)

 

Responsible:  Ensure integrity of process architecture and design blueprint of biomass refinery

 

Contributions:

Ø       Turned around a struggling RFP proposal project by driving the collaboration between a US-based and a Canadian-based alternative energy firms to deliver a $60M RFP proposal to build and operate a biomass refinery for a U.S. Armed Forces Facility successfully meeting the aggressive timeline of the Department of Defense

 

Learning Tree International, Inc., Reston VA, Sept 2010 – July 2011,   (Part-time contract)

Certified FAC P/PM - Instructor / Consultant

 

A United States-based training company that provides over 235 instructor-led, classroom-based training courses to information technology and business professionals.

 

Responsibility: One (1) of 100 selected from a pool of 10,500 trainer/consultants to be certified to deliver training programs and mentoring [Lean & Six-Sigma, Earned Value Project Management, Technology Project Management] to Veterans Health Administration Program/Project Managers to improve the delivery of process improvement and process optimization programs in serving US Veterans Health Administration

 

Contributions:

Ø       Delivered performance-based training to over 200 Program/Project Managers improving delivery and accountability to transformation projects valued at $250M.  Received consistent ratings of “excellent” in delivery, class participation, and real-world application.

 

Intelligroup, Inc., an NTT Data Company, Princeton, NJ, Sept 2010 to May 2011,

Sr. Program/Project Manager, Oracle BPM, MDM and Data Governance Architect

 

NTT DATA Corporation is the 6th largest global IT services company and part of the NTT Group, a Fortune 32 telecommunications and IT services company based in Japan.  Intelligroup is an information technology (IT) services, solutions and consulting corporation.

 

Responsibility: Partner with business on strategy, themes, priorities, project initiation; provide hands on function knowledge of supply chain, finance, order management, human resource applications in scope; manage development teams; serve as liaison between business and other development technology teams; manage customer expectations through consistent reporting and communication; manage scope and change requests through budget impact analysis; helps drive issue resolution; and develop and manage IT budget processes to execute against the business strategy.

 

Contribution:

 

Ø       (Biopharma) Proactively managed and developed a well-received data governance strategy and execution plan for data quality and DW/BI

Ø       (Biopharma) Successfully validated strategy and execution plan by leading a team [PM, Data Architect, BPM Architect, BPM Developer, BI Architect, Integration Architect, UI Architect, Information Architect, and QA] through an Oracle Data Integration proof-of-concept project to create a supply chain data warehouse/supply chain dashboard that demonstrated the benefit of data governance employed by the workflow of Oracle BPEL Process Manager to implement appropriate rule-based, event-based, and data-based delivery services resolving data integration and quality changes.

 

Renmatrix, Inc., Kennesaw, GA,                                                                                     May 2009 to Dec 2010

Director of Information Technology and Commerce / Acting CIO  (Part-time employee from Sept 2010 to December 2010)

 

The leading manufacturer of cellulosic sugar, an enabling feedstock for petroleum alternatives used in the global biochemical and biofuels markets.

 

Responsibility: Technical management oversight and strategic direction for multiple companies overseeing IT and commerce organizations with 20+ professional staff, supporting 6 divisions with 75 employees, and an annual operating budget of over $2 million.

 

Contributions:

Ø       Proactively delivered well-received RFP to the Department of Energy (DOE); deliverables for commercializing proprietary nanotechnology [Supply Chain Intelligence, Loan-Guarantee, and Manufacturing Costing Modeling] leading to promotion from Sr. Project Manager to executive management roles [Director / Acting CIO]

Ø       Proactively created company’s first IT Strategic Plan (2009 – 2011) that was well-received by CEO and Chief Strategy Officer with projected savings of $15M for 5-year period

Ø       Proactively managed the creation and implementation of a well-received Governance, Risk, and Compliance program resulting in upgrading non-compliant infrastructures with significant savings and cost avoidance in government penalties

Ø       Innovatively planned and managed the split of two (2) business entities by building from the ground up best-in-class data centers and commercial operations with projected TCO savings of $3M over 5 year period through:

–         Effective and efficient program oversight of the rebuilding of IT infrastructures for both companies

–         Coaching the deployment of  Microsoft Window servers, network routers, cabling, and firewall

–         Standardizing Sonic Wall Firewall with content filtering and VPN connectivity

–         Negotiating and monitoring the migration of Microsoft Exchange server to Google Apps on-demand service saving over $55,000.

–         Collaborating with the IT Manager in building a virtual environment to test infrastructure changes, evaluate new software, and vendor software updates

–         Collaborating with IT Manager to develop security policies and conducted network systems security auditing

–         Collaborating with IT Manager to instituted programs to manage and maintain the integrity of highly technical programs such as computer monitor systems [SCADA/PLC], vendor-supplied packaged programs [Microsoft Dynamics], on-demand applications [e-Procurement, e-Human Resource, AutoCAD, e-Shop Control, and e-Supply Chain] and telephony systems

Ø       Proactively led, managed, and contributed to the development of a business architecture and data architecture to support order-to-cash, record-to-report, procure-to-pay, procure-to-sales, and hire-to-retire process threads

Ø       Proactively created, implemented, and managed procurement policies and policies for a $35M spend yielding a positive ROI during 1st year of operation

Ø       Proactively led commercialization initiatives: multi-state site analysis identifying potential sites to build the world's first bio-refinery and selected potential supply-chain sourcing partners.

Ø       Innovatively initiated and proactively led and managed an operational excellence initiative resulting in Standard Operating Procedures, Data Governance, Ergonomic Studies, Program/Project Management

 

Intelligent Systems Services, LLC, Atlanta, GA,                                                          Aug 2008 - May 2009

Delivery Project Executive (Organization Change / Process Excellence)

 

A registered LLC company specializing in training, consulting, and mentoring in program/project management, organizational change management, and business process management

 

Responsible:  Program/project governance, escalation, prioritization, resource allocation, benefits management, and stake holder management; collaborate with client to manage engagement financials; including but not limited to: defining requirements, planned project lifecycle deployment and defined resources and schedule for project/program implementation; created strategies for risk mitigation and contingency planning;  planned and schedule program/project deliverables, goals, milestones; provided oversight to project engineering teams managing conflicts within group; conducted team assessments and evaluations; effectively and efficiently identified and solved project issues;  demonstrates leadership to define requirements for project risk; develop Requests for Proposals (RFP) for external services; designed and maintained technical and project documentation

 

Contributions:

 

Applications Technology Group, Inc., Atlanta, GA (Contract)                                          07/2008 – 08/2009

Interim Managing Director/Chief Learning Officer 

 

Ø       Ensured quality development and seamless delivery of educational programs to develop Certified Oracle consultants to meet organizational goals.  Managed off-shore resources in China, Singapore, India, and UK

Ø       Proactively developed and delivered well-received adoption & learning program for a major retailer as a critical deliverable of a corporate rollout of a solution prototype of a customized Project Management & CRM Solution (Oracle Projects/Oracle APEX) for improving the merchandizing operations for major retailer using offshore resources (Singapore).

Ø       Uplifted struggling efforts working with cross functional team leads to perform Six Sigma Lean Analysis and Process Improvement within and across business units for:

ü       A healthcare client [revenue cycle management] meeting 100% of the stated goals to achieve higher productivity, faster payments, decreased costs, and improved patient service

ü       A regional banking client --($525 million)- Deposit Operations Best Practices and Process Assessment

ü       A global retail client—($750 million)—Order-To-Cash Process Improvement

Ø       Proactively developed and delivered well-received adoption & learning program  for a major healthcare provider as a critical deliverable of a corporate rollout of a solution prototype of a mobile application with Siebel Customer Relationship and Business Analytics Healthcare's applications [Informatica, OBIEE, BI Publisher] focused on the expanded healthcare ecosystem: insurance subscribers, health plan members, employers, group administrators, independent brokers, direct sales channels, health systems, physicians, hospitals, networks, and ancillary providers for healthcare.

Ø       Proactively developed and delivered a well-received adoption & learning program for a major bank as a critical deliverable of a corporate rollout of a solution prototype of mobile application for enterprise banking analytics service offering based on Oracle's Siebel CRM and BI for Retail Banking, Private Banking, and Treasury Services organizations.

Ø       Proactively led and managed the implementation of Workforce Management Solution [Oracle iRecruitment, Oracle Advanced Benefits, Oracle Training Administration, Oracle iLearning] to overcome issues for a regional healthcare provider streamlining its human resource operations from more than 300 different processes down to fewer than 90.

 

       Capstone Consulting, LLC, Omaha, NE,                                                                  10/2007 – 07/ 2008

       Sr. Project Manager/Principal Consultant – Advisory Services)

 

Ø       For a global pharmaceutical rolling-out Oracle R12 GL, AP, and FA worldwide, led development of business process architecture/adoption & learning streamlining the US GAAP to European GAAP adjustments and revaluations, translations and consolidations. Process improvements reduced monthly time to close from 600 hours to 3 hours (client’s estimates).

Ø       Collaborated with Director of Information Systems to redefined solutions delivery methodology for an R12 Satellite Integration project reducing the scope from 300 to 25 integration points.

Ø Innovatively initiated a process improvement resulting in implementing a collaborative project management tool (MS Project Server/Web Access) decreasing project planning from 100 hour per week to 20 hours per week.

Ø Proactively assume a quality assurance role to identify schedule conflicts between Business Process Architecture, Business Requirements Definition, Business Requirements Mapping, Application and Technical Architecture, Build and Module Design, Data Conversion, Documentation, Business System Testing phase identifying potential risks in R11/R12 DW/BI data integration strategy saving $5M in cost overrun.

Ø       Implemented an ITIL triage process to resolve mission critical applications errors flagged in HP Quality Center.  Increase the percentage of errors resolved as specified by SLA from 25 % to 90%.

 

City of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA,                                                                                May 2006 to Jul 2008

Division Chief Information Officer, Business Strategic Services / Chief Program Management Officer

 

International city serving 5 million citizens, 10,000 employees, and a city budget of $5B

 

Responsible: Technical management oversight and strategic direction for this shared services [enterprise architecture, program/project management, process improvement, organization change, and technology enablement] division charged with aligning the strategic goals of 15 strategic business units with overall city goals; developing a roadmap to achieve each business units mission through optimizing core business processes within and efficient information technology environment

 

Contributions:

Ø       Transformed an underperforming division:

1.       Teamed with Human Resource in redefining jobs, roles, and responsibilities aligned with the achieving strategic objectives

2.       Developed professional development plans and coached employees allowing a smooth transition into their new roles and assignments

3.       Collaborate with CIO, Deputy CIO of Operations, and Director of Enterprise Systems to streamline business processes improving day-to-day operations of departments, IT functional areas, and vendor RFP proposals decreasing the projected spend by over $83M over 5 years.

4.       Created the 1^st program management office (PMO) to deliver operations excellence initiatives; instituted a portfolio management system [MS Project] streamlining fiscal year project budget from $165M to $110M; centralizing process improvement, enterprise architecture, data governance, change management, and PMBOK program/project management thought leadership

5.       Innovatively refocused change committee for $65M Oracle ERP rollout integrating Finance, Purchasing, and Human Resourcing; Courtview ERP rollout for municipal court system to minimize configuration and customizing rework saving estimated $15M

6.       Drove the creation of city’s 1^st enterprise architecture and data governance solutions improving program/project selection, funding and implementation

7.       Partnered with Human Resource Department to spearhead a city-wide adoption and learning initiative to support my citywide process excellence [process improvement and organizational change management] impacting Finance, Procurement, Human Resource, Public Safety, Parks and Recreation, Watershed Management, and Court Administration with projected revenues of $120M and savings of $50M - $60M over a 5 year period

8.       Proactively assumed program oversight improving the selection and delivery of an Oracle Enterprise Resource system, a $65M city-wide business and technology platform linking Procurement, Finance and Human Resources functions; Digital Radio Communications project, a $41M digital technology and business operations upgrade of the Public Safety Communications system, Assessment and Technology Upgrade of the e911 Call Center, ICIS-Mobile Upgrade, eCitation [electronic citations], 800 Mhz Rebanding, $3.5M Atlanta Municipal Court CMS Modernization, ITIL Implementation, and ePermit, a $1.5M permit tracking system

9.       Innovatively applied FEAF to identify optimization and continuous improvement process metrics for a Watershed Management’s Capital Improvement projects ($250M) for the next 100 years

  

Intelligent System Services, Corp., Atlanta, GA                                               January 1995 to April 2006

Owner and Executive Principal Consultant

 

In the roles of Global Practice Director, Engagement Manager, Managing Consultant, Program Manager for [Computer Horizons, Deloitte Touche, Ernst & Young, Cap Gemini, Professional Developments Services, LLC, Sterling Software, ATGWork] for the following: insurance [AIG], utilities [Duke Energy], telecommunications [MCI, Qualcomm], federal government [IRS, Federally Employed Women, NNPC], banking/financial services [JP Morgan, 5/3 Bank, Citibank, Wachovia, MBNA, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, South African Reserve Bank], healthcare [BCBS, CDC, Mayo Clinic], pharmaceuticals [Pfizer], transportation/logistics [Freightliner, APS], and retail [Walmart] companies in the development and implementation of strategies for business and software modernization. 

 

Contributions:

Ø       Managing Consultant and Trainer for insurance, telecom, banking, healthcare, logistics, federal government, and retail clients, delivered training, consulting, and mentoring on PM process and IT/PM governance driving the execution of strategic initiatives through 250 programs/projects impacting cross-functional and virtual teams [10+ members] having budgets [$100k to $150M] increasing revenues [$800K to $400M] and savings [$200K to $1.5B] with a 97% success rate.  Outstanding performance resulted in over 65 additional contract engagements over 6 years

Ø       Global Practice Director/Engagement Manager for 8th largest software company thought leader influencing the technology and training decisions for over 2000 clients worldwide, drove the organic growth of a global business intelligence/data warehouse practice allowing clients to experience ROI ranging from 50% to 25,766%.  Revenue growth [$40M in 3 years] exceeded projections [$20M in 5 years]

Ø       Sr. Program Manager for global oil refinery, drove the turnaround of a faltering $2.3B Business Modernization Program budgeted at $2.2B resulting in increasing benefits delivery rate from 45% to over 92%, contributing savings of $800M with revenues over $20B, and improving environmental conditions

Ø       Infrastructure Program Manager for major utility led a data center consolidation using VMWare resulting in streamlining 1000 servers to 50; 3000 network ports to 300; 200 racks to 10 racks; 400 power whips to 20 power whips; man hours from 10,000 to 300 with annual savings of $3M

Ø       Chief Information Engineer | for a state government entity led a multiyear process and data modeling effort resulting in the selection of a turnkey solution for child and adult protective services budgeted at $75M saving $11M

Ø       Chief Software Architect / Program Manager | Led a team of managers and engineers [network, software, data, systems, and information] in building a proprietary ERP software package [Visual Basic, C#, Assembler] targeted to small businesses. Contributing to 20% sales growth over a 5 year period.  Negotiated a multi-million dollar deal to sell software outright

 

Certifications / Courses / Education

 

Certifications

PMP - Project Management Professional (PMP), 6-Sigma Green Belt (GE/ASQ), PIF-Process Improvement Facilitator (Rummler-Brache); ITIL-Foundation of Service Management (EXIN); CSP-Systems Professional, Oracle Database 7.3 (1992); PgMP – in process

 

Courses

Oracle Training in: R12 Advanced Supply Chain Planning Fundamentals, R12 EBS Fundamentals, R12 and 11i Financials, Projects 11i and R12, Seibel v8 Essentials - CRM - Analytics [Healthcare, Banking], OBIE Installation and Administration, Balanced Scorecard 11i (Hyperion); SAP Netweaver/ABAP/R3/BI3.5/7.0, Coupa iProcurement, ARIBA Procurement/Contract Management; Building and Implementing a Strategic Management System using the Balanced Scorecard; The Open Group Architecture Framework TOGAF 8; Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework using the IBM RUP and the UML, IT Governance Institute – COBIT; CMMI; ScrumMaster / Agile Project Management, ADDIE Instruction Design; Lean 6-Sigma Black Belt; Kaizen Process Improvement, BBVA DMAS, Lean and Six Sigma

 

Education

Columbia Commonwealth University, Rock Springs, WY

Earned Doctor of Philosophy, Administration and Management, 2005, with Distinction (3.94/4.0 GPA)

Dissertation: "Effective Leadership in Enterprise Commerce Management" – research uncovered leadership behaviors, architectural principles, e-Commerce Models, and c-Commerce strategies enabling multi-enterprise commerce and collaboration.  Research involved over 900 respondents and empirical evidence working with over 15 companies from 1998 to 2005

 

University of New Haven, West Haven, CT

Earned M.B.A., Marketing and M.S., Industrial Engineering

Earned B.S., Computer Technology, 1979 (Minor in Industrial Engineering), Cum Laude

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