CAROL SMITH, BSIE, MBA, PMP

214-770-3178

carol@carolsmith.net

 

 

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Accomplished, results driven professional with a demonstrated record of success managing large-scale projects and programs in telecommunications, IT, e-commerce, and manufacturing with 16 years of experience.  Carol’s technical, managerial, and communication abilities contribute to the development of an efficient, well-informed, lean organization.   Core competencies and areas of demonstrated strength:

Business

¨      10 years in cost-benefit and variance analysis and business/IT process improvements

¨      Technical Project Management (SDLC): 8 years leading programs and teams across multiple functional areas in traditional and matrix managed organizations including turnaround project management and fast-tracking

¨      7 years of experience with all levels of management & non-management clientele (technical, business, finance, consumer)

¨      7 years in communications to a diverse audience using M/S Project, Webex, Sharepoint, PVCS, other financial/customer/project management tracking tools

¨      7 years in risk assessment, change management, and issue resolution

¨      5 years in staff development and resource planning (offshore and onshore)

¨      4 years in managing multi-million dollar budgets including financial analysis and reporting

¨      4 years in strategic planning to grow the product and implement cost saving initiatives

¨      2 years scorecard metrics reporting for upper management and stakeholders

Technical

¨      8 years in full life cycle implementations of complex s/w systems and e-commerce applications

¨      5 years in software web development, configuration mgnt, and UI design skills (*HTML, Perl, TCL, Oracle, SQL, Javascript, C, Lotus Notes, Visual Basic, Flash MX, ClearCase)

¨      7 years in Business Analysis/Requirements Mgnt/Use Case Design/User Acceptance Testing using UML, HTML mockups, Visio flowcharting, RUP, and acceptance criteria documentation

¨      3 years in Architecture – data, software, and hardware; distributed (client-server), mainframe (three-tier), and web-enabled architectures; infrastructure planning; systems integration; DR; capacity planning; migration planning

¨      1 year in Computer Telephony Integration, Voice Portal technologies, and Q based/skills based routing technologies using Rockwell/Nortel/Genesys/CISCO tools and components

General

¨      Proven soft skills:  Outgoing, excellent written/oral communication and organizational skills, mentoring, multi-task and completion-oriented, conscientious, resourceful, adaptive, decision maker, eager quick learner, enthusiastic self-starter, analytical, bilingual (Spanish/English), nominated and selected for Strathmore’s Who’s Who for leadership and achievements; Board member for the PMI-Dallas Chapter, 5th largest in the nation with over 3500 members.

 

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

 

GCI/Verizon:  October 2004 - Current

Position:  IT Technical Project Management Consultant

¨      SDLC technical project management for complex, high visibility CTI call center management initiatives for Verizon's High Value End Customers using voice portal technologies, Q based and skills based routing technologies, Genesys and ICM architectures

¨      Resource planning, cost budgeting, and SOW execution (hardware, software, and human resources)  -- project procurement management

¨      Manage Service Level Agreements (SLA) between IT service provider and stakeholder organizations/customer including post-implementation audits against baseline success criteria/metrics

¨      Communications management including project presentations, statusing of work results, variance analysis using information distribution project management tools (MS project, Sharepoint, Lotus Notes workflow, PACE financial modeling/time reporting)

¨      Requirements analysis/discovery, design reviews, documentation reviews, coordinate system/integration/user acceptance testing

¨      Training/mentoring on project management fundamentals

 

Verizon:  August 2001 – July 2004

Position:  IT Technical Manager, Sr. Consultant/Program & Project Management

¨      Led major cost saving initiatives across the Verizon footprint driven by software consolidation and common services objectives to minimize/eliminate redundant software, identify reusable assets, continuous improvement, modernize by eliminating old or unsupported versions, decrease software vendor licensing/maintenance costs, and reduce complexity/diversity within the software infrastructure (standardization) via vendor evaluations.

¨      Calculated projected net savings of these programs are approximately 50 million dollars through EOY 2004 reflected in labor productivity and s/w savings. 

¨      Managed and negotiated a $10M budget in 2003 and a $20M budget in 2004.

¨      Created a PMO -- Effectively hired, trained, coached, and mentored 20+ project managers to support the common services, s/w consolidation, and standardization programs.

¨      Successful completion of plans, escalations, problem/issue resolution, product analysis/usage, technical writing, vertical and horizontal communications (statusing at all levels and with peer/partner organizations), cost-benefit analysis, migration planning, staff augmentation/resource planning (offshore/onshore).

¨      Liaison between infrastructure and IT application owners/project architects.

¨      Infrastructure planning to assess software and hardware needed to meet business needs in production environments

¨      Cost estimation (manpower, h/w, s/w) for backend/non-web facing and front-end/web facing applications) and for all environments (development, test, UAT, Disaster Recovery/DR, and production).  

¨      Managed internal (e-Biz) projects such as IOBI Voice Portal and Vignette CMS; external projects to support lines of business such as long distance platform middleware architecture & call center applications; and infrastructure projects such as DR, disk expansions, logging. 

¨      Responsible for the identification (pre-packaging), scheduling, technical implementation and rollout of major call center application releases every 2 months requiring coordination from multiple functional organizations, including backend billing and ordering systems.

¨      Projects managed have met business priorities including cost minimization objectives, revenue objectives, regulatory mandates, and improved performance objectives.   Examples include DSL pre-qualify, local package bundling, bill compression, AAIS interface for TN assignments and address validations, local number portability (LNP).

¨      Designed and deployed productivity tools and project controls: ‘alignment’ packaging, fast-track/adjustment, and reporting processes in accordance with IT product release schedules, to streamline processes, and maximize resource productivity.

 

Sabre:  December 1995 - August

Position:  Product Manager, Project Manager, Software Consultant

¨      Worked on life cycle of web projects from a development, project management, and product management perspective – ie. from strategizing to analyzing the client’s business requirements to defining the functional specifications  to development to implementation (and subsequently maintenance/steady-state and continuous improvement initiatives).  Recipients include the following e-commerce sites: Travelocity.com, Swissair.com, and VirtuallyThere.com.

¨      CGI scripting for web applications with integrated ORACLE database connectivity to (1) track / report implementations, bugs, budget, and business partnerships,  (2) reduce client/supplier costs, and (3) improve manageability and quality of reporting.

¨      Improved web site performance as Infrastructure liaison between Sabre Virtually There and data center staff – included introduction of new production servers, burn-in of new machines, regression testing applications, upgrading servers, applications, and OS, retiring domains, system monitoring, etc.

¨      Supported the business by launching RMS/profiles (CRM), personalization of content, Vignette/XML content management, email push, Travelocity.com and VirtuallyThere.com destination module from 3rd party content providers or aggregators

¨      e-commerce Web development for Travelocity GUI (front-end) and Java-based, open server architecture, Swissair.com.

¨      Selected to represent Travelocity / easySABRE in the client/server council meetings for the Y2K effort.

¨      Travelocity.com Webmaster.

¨      Developed and maintained intranet web sites for 2 key Sabre business units, including Travelocity.com.

¨      Implemented cobranding, tagging, associate preferencing and targeted advertising for the various Travelocity partnering agreements to increase Sabre revenue.

¨      Conceptualized, designed, and managed development of ad-hoc tools to support sales and marketing teams by providing useful statistical data on content and click-throughs/site visits.

¨      Developed and implemented 3-way revenue sharing, using Engage ad-server technology, for Travelocity systems - with internal business owner, content providers, and cobrand partners.

¨      Participated in technical due diligence efforts for acquisition of Worldview Systems and others.

¨      Managed and provided requirements for creation of test lab facility to improve quality of testing and appropriate tools such as WinRunner, LoadRunner, incident reporting tools, etc.

¨      Technical liaison/project manager between clientele, partners, and core technical teams for Travelocity.com, Swissair.com, and VirtuallyThere.com.

¨      Received Impact award from Travelocity.com client for successful launch of destination module.

¨      Received Impact award from Swissair for on-time delivery of Swissair.com.

¨      Received (3) Sabre Pyramid of Gold team awards and (1) Individual Contributor award for successful launch of VirtuallyThere.com and subsequent major functionality enhancements.

 

LTV and Westinghouse:   August 1987 – December 1995

Position:  Sr. Engineer, Associate Engineer

¨      Conceptualized, justified, and designed work holding fixtures & shop-aide tools which reduced setup/run times of mfg processes by 20-80% translating to cost improvements.

¨      Established and maintained time/performance stds for mfg operations in accordance to military specifications, which led to favorable audits and commendations from the customers.

¨      Provided technical floor support and I.E. services such as writing technical documentation, material handling, ergonomics/safety, materials procurement, efficiency studies, manufacturing planning, cost-benefit analysis.

¨      Designed and developed a menu-driven application for tracking methods improvements.         

¨      Audited and initiated changes in manufacturing planning and material routing to reflect current manufacturing processes, clarify the build instructions, ensure accuracy, and minimize rework.

¨      Prepared financial reports and budgets for offshore facilities, performed variance analysis against the master budget, and automated necessary reconciliation steps.

¨      Dispositioned defective PWBs and PCBs requiring repair or rework as an MRB (Material Review Board) writer and in compliance with quality specifications.

¨      Researched and analyzed contract requirements in response to government solicitations (DoD) for communications equipment, which subsequently led to prolific proposal-writing efforts that netted multi-million dollar contracts.

¨      Developed various tactical and strategic marketing/business plans for a mail order business, South American expansion of cellular communications, and ISO 9000.

 

EDUCATION

MBA: International Management                                               BS:  Industrial Engineering
University of Dallas, December '94                                           Texas A & M University, May 1987    

 

HOBBIES

¨      When not at work, Carol swims with the Irving Masters, is a Board member of the Project Management Institute (PMI)-Dallas chapter, and enjoys snow skiing, running, tennis and travel.