Sr. Business Analyst

SUMMARY:

An MBA professional with 6+ years of work experience as Business Analyst and an exceptional record of delivering cost effective, high performance technology solutions to meet challenging business demands. Extensive qualifications in all facets of information systems methodology from conceptual design through documentation, implementation, user training, quality review, and enhancement. Worked extensively with top investment banks and financial and accounting companies.

• Extensive experience in roles such as Project management and Senior Business Analyst with excellent knowledge to the full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodologies, frame works and processes. Experienced in managing requirements from project inception through release.
• Good domain knowledge and work experience in Banking, Investment Banking, Health care, Insurance and Financial services, Hedge funds and trading.
• Advanced knowledge of Fixed Income — Corporate Bonds, Government Securities (T-Bond, T-Bills, T-Note, and Municipal Bonds), Money Market Securities, Mortgage and Asset Backed Securities (MBS and ABS). Knowledge in SOX (Sarbanes Oxley) compliance.
• Expert in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Object Oriented Analysis and Design and Agile Methodology. Experience in JAD Sessions, Live Meetings and Interviews.
• Knowledge and experience all areas of project life cycle in a highly structured change management environment using both proprietary methodologies, Agile Techniques and RUP.
• Well versed in project management tools like MS Project for project planning, Project scheduling. Organized JAD sessions to gather requirements at various stages. Good understanding of Project Process and ability to analyze business problems and identify solutions. Worked extensively with the team to meet business requirement, create prototypes and analyze workflow.
• Experience in dealing with web services, web technology related application and experience in infrastructure design changes.
• Experienced in creating Business Requirement Documents, User Requirement Specification, and Functional Requirement Specifications. Experienced in creating Data Flow Diagrams, Use Cases, State Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, Component Diagrams, Use Case Diagrams & Activity diagrams.
• Well versed in Process Narratives, Flow charting Techniques using UML, and Good Documentation Practices. Prepared documents to conduct user acceptance testing. Good working experience in all the sprints of the project in SCRUM.
• Skilled in performing Gap analysis and Impact Analysis by identifying existing technologies, documenting the enhancements to meet the end-state requirements. Extensive understanding of Operations Management and Logistics. Exposure to Change Request Management tools like Clear Quest.
• Assisted QA team in developing Test Scripts, Test Cases and Test Plans for the User Acceptance testing.
• Experienced in all areas of project life cycle in a highly structured change management environment using both proprietary methodologies, Agile Techniques and RUP (Rational Unified Process).
• Effective in executing multiple tasks and assignments ahead of schedule. Strong Image for dedicated teamwork, high energy, work ethics and commitment with capability to handle new technologies and situations.
• Team player and self-starter with excellent communication, coordination, documentation, project planning and interpersonal skills.

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Programming Languages: PL/SQL & Java, C, C++, HTML Design Tools & Languages: Microsoft Visio, Microsoft project Project Methodologies: UML, Rational Unified Process (RUP) Business Modeling Tools: MS Visio, Rational Rose Requirement analysis tools: Rational Requisite Pro Defect Tracking Tools: Rational Clear Quest, Test Director Operating Systems: Windows 95/98/2000/XP/NT, UNIX Quality Assurance: Load Runner, Software Application Testing Life Cycle Testing tools : Mercury Test Director , QTP Business Applications: Share Point, Microsoft Office Suite Databases: MS SQL Server, MS Access

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Confidential, Jersey City, NJ August 2011 – April 2012 Senior Business Analyst

Kristy Limited is a company that buys and sells cut and shaped diamonds all over the world. Company is also majorly involved in selling high quality diamonds in international fairs and programs held in Hong Kong, Bangkok, China, New York and many other countries.

Responsibilities:

• Conducted Business Requirements Gathering sessions in the form of questionnaires and business scenarios with the end users, subject matter experts (SME) and the developers.
• Analyzed and documented the business requirements, meeting minutes, responses to questionnaires and got approval of the documents from the client in the form of sign off.
• Developed various use cases, workflow, screen mock-ups, and conversion requirements.
• Conducted risk engineering to derive and execute action plans on time.
• Responsible for testing the entire application with Manual and Automated Strategies.
• Created Test Plan and Test Case Templates for testing the entire application.
• Responsible for performing Functional, Integration, Performance Testing and End to End testing. Involved in quality assurance phase planning, coordination an implementation of QA strategy for overall project. Performed user acceptance testing (UAT) to validate user requirements and expectation.
• Monitored project status to ensure progress toward completion, required procedural steps are completed fully and timely, participants are informed of progress. Tested the customer service management module in Amdocs.
• Provided Systems Testing & Integration for the Ensemble and Enabler modules of the Wireless Amdocs Billing System.

Environment: XML, UAT, UML, Rational Suite, MS Excel, MS Access, MS Word, MS Power Point, Windows 2000, UNIX, Java, Netscape, Firefox, MS- Outlook, Manual & Automation Testing, QTP 8.2,loadrunner.

Confidential, New York, NY November 2010 – July 2011 Senior Business Analyst

Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu Limited is one of the Big Four professional services firms. is the second largest professional services network in the world by revenue and has 182,000 employees in more than 150 countries providing audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk and financial advisory services. In FY 2011, Deloitte earned a record $28.8 billion USD in revenues, ranking second in the Big four accounting firm.

Responsibilities:

• Created Business Requirements Gathering sessions in the form of questionnaires and business scenarios with the end users, subject matter experts (SME) and the developers. Gathered user and business requirements through interviews, surveys and prototyping.
• Analyzed and prioritized user and business requirements as system requirements that must be included while developing the software. Planned and defined system requirements to Use Case, Use Case Scenario and Use Case Narrative using the UML methodologies.
• Created Use Case Diagrams, Data Flow Diagrams, Activity Diagrams and Sequence Diagrams in MS Visio.
• Created Business Requirements Gathering sessions in the form of questionnaires and business scenarios with the end users, subject matter experts (SME) and the developers. Gathered user and business requirements through interviews, surveys and prototyping.
• Conducted JAD sessions with management, SME, vendors, users and other stakeholders for open and pending issues. Implemented SOA concepts (search oriented architecture) for the application and implemented search engine based techniques.
• Helped prepare Logical Data Models that contains set of diagrams and supporting documents containing the essential business elements, detailed definitions, and descriptions of the relationships between the data elements to analyze and document business data requirements.
• Modeled cash flows for securitized transactions containing wide variety of underlying asset classes. Responsible for creating proprietary Excel-based models to calculate bond waterfalls, overcollaterization and interest coverage ratios, and several other portfolio criteria.
• Collected user requirements to create a technological platform to perform transaction -related asset level due diligence, analytics and cash flow modeling, structural and document review.
• Assisted developers to create a platform for compliance reporting tie-out process and to review note valuation reports prepared by CDO corporate trusts on a monthly/quarterly basis.
• Created excel based models to calculate both the distribution of cash flows to all related parties of a deal as well as various collateral criteria set forth in legal documents.
• Performed agreed-upon-procedures related to collateralized loan obligations (CLO) and other structured products and maintained client relations with key personnel at prominent institutions.
• Regular discussions with developers to make them understand the use cases and function requirements of the client. Excellent Ecommerce applications / websites experience.
• Responsible for supervising work activities (Development, Testing) to ensure that they are well-performed, coordinated among team members and consistent with the approved work plan.
• Coordinated the design phase with the architects in improving the efficiency of the project.
• Worked with QA team in identifying test cases/test data and lead the business team for UAT.
• Documented all custom and system modification. Assigned problems to appropriate software development team for fixes. Tracked problems from start to correction and test.
• Interacted with technical team in allowing them to make a better navigational plan for the project flow which would further make a better user interactivity tool for the application.
• Signed off progress and completion reports which were then submitted to project management on a weekly basis.

Environment: Enterprise Architect 6.5, Oracle 10g, MS Project, MS office suite, Java, J2EE, JSP, HTML, JavaScript, Agile methodology ( SCRUM ), Rational Rose, UML, rimavera, UAT, Websphere.

Confidential, New York, NY October 2007 – October 2010 Senior Specialist/Business Analyst

Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol MER.

Responsibilities:

• Worked majorly on all the derivative products. Advanced Knowledge of all CDS products: total return swaps, credit linked notes, asset backed securities, and mortgage backed securities. Also familiar with CDS trade legal documents and the underlying mortgage-backed securities features.
• Derived Functional Requirement Specifications (FRS) based on User Requirement Specification URS. Conducted user interviews, understood and articulated business requirements and further converted requirements into technical specifications.
• Responsible for translating Business Requirement Documents into functional specifications and test plans. Closely coordinated with both users and developers for arriving at mutually acceptable solutions.
• Lead the process throughout the SDLC, which included requirements, specifications, design, analysis and testing utilizing RUP methodology. Utilized guidelines and artifacts of RUP to strategize the implementation of Rational Unified Process effort in different iterations and phases of software development life cycle.
• Created documents of the use cases and created the use case, activity, logical, component and deployment diagrams using MS Visio and Rational Rose to communicate clearly with the development teams.
• Redesigned web services methodology for the application while implementing reusability from different servers. Liaised with the technology team to derive Functional Requirements.
• To better define the rationale for the new process compiled Vision and Scope documents. Prepared reports for process improvements and trend analysis
• Responsible for Risk Analysis to detect the risks associated with the development of the new system. Additionally, formulated a Mitigation Plan to remove or reduce risks of high severity and one that would have major financial impacts.
• Played a pivotal role in conducting Functional testing, Regression testing, Integration testing, Smoke testing and UAT (User Acceptance Testing)
• Managed Change Requests from stakeholders by conducting extensive Impact Assessments to capture the expected consequence of such changes
• Responsible for creating and updating all documentation for the project, which required interacting with all concerned departments on a regular basis.
• Reviewed integration test plan for integration between modules.
• Conducted Defect Validation using Test Director to screen the illegitimate defects raised by the QA and UAT teams before hitting Development.
• Developed a Credit Default life cycle process and prepared a power point presentation. Helped developers while they are preparing unit test cases and while preparing test plan.
• Developed documents for Credit Derivatives businesses and the end-to-end transaction lifecycle.
• SOX (Sarbanes Oxley) compliance rules implemented.
• Worked in product settlement, documentation, collateral & margining processes.
• Created cash flow models for Credit Default Swaps, Interest Rate Swaps, Total Return Swaps, CurrencyForwards, Cross-Currency Interest Rate Swaps, Equity options, Structured products, Currency Futures, Options, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), and indexes.
• Prepared test cases and came up with a testing strategy for testing the Banking Application by analyzed the Business requirements and the Accounting, Budget, and Procurement systems.
• Developed Base line testing scripts for testing the future releases of the application using Test director. Participated in conducting Manual and Rational Tools for testing. Extensively used SQL for data integrity testing at the backend. Designed user and administrative privileges such as authentication.
• Documented workflow, Designed UI and results of business analysis and obtained sign-off from client on specifications.
• Created UAT/QA test plans, strong manual, functional, system and regression testing in an agile development environment.
• Worked with project team on: planning, analysis, requirements, design & testing and training for production implementations.
• Lead requirements review sessions of requirements with end-users, created process flowcharts for reference data, financial instruments data attributes.
• Worked with the technical team to ensure that varied changes including configuration change requests submitted by the test team are logged, cross environment impact is assessed and cross environment migrations are managed.
• Interacted with various members at the management level to understand business decision and analysis needs in order to generate appropriate and relevant data analysis reports. Extensively worked with Quality Analysts to make sure that the functionality meets requirements.
• Communicated with clients, settled credit derivative payments with sensitive clients and broker dealers, investigated the discrepancies and communicated with Middle Office, Front office to resolve the discrepancies on asset-backed credit default swaps.
• Appointed by senior management to work on process efficiency that would help the team reach their quarterly goals of reduction in breaks. On joining the team, created a macro system to streamline the process of cash settlements. Created the dynamics and mechanics of two major macros and programmed for large settlement database every month and for settlements on a daily basis.
• As a Financial Analyst responsible for several tasks for the entire team, i.e. sending out team preconfirmations emails for confirming the coupons for the ABS/ABX/CMBX/CMBX rolls and working on team internal book-to-book transfers. Confirmed payments for Bank of America and Merrill Lynch & Co.’s broker-dealers and clients on company systems as well on CLS platform. Mastered the DTCC and CLS process as it continues to be a platform that influences the derivatives business. Communicated and assisted MO, sales, trading on settlement of daily and life-to-date cash flows of clients.
• Worked with the Information Technology teams on coupons, shortfalls and reimbursement reports for the entire team.
• Communicated with Middle Office on bookings and payments for clients and broker dealers.
• Worked with global clients, sales, strategist, traders and middle office to calculate structured product Credit Default Swaps (Credit Derivatives or CDS) interest, credit event fees, shortfall and reimbursements.
• Researched payment discrepancies to confirm compliance with ISDA Agreements.

Environment: RUP, UML with MS Visio, Rational rose, Rational RequisitePro, Java, HTML, Oracle, Crystal reports, Test Director, Reporting tool, Share point, Cognos, (FDM), Rational Tools, Clear Quest.

Confidential, New York, NY September 2006 – September 2007 Business Analyst

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients.

Responsibilities:

• Planned and defined system requirements to Use Case, Use Case Scenario and Use Case Narrative using the UML methodologies.
• Conducted JAD sessions for effective communication of vision and goals between stakeholders and gathered business requirements.
• Designed Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs), Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) and web-page mock ups using modeling tools.
• Prepared Business Process Models that presented modeling of all the activities carried on by the business from the conceptual to procedural level.
• Effectively utilized prototypes to demonstrate and verify the behavior of the system.
• For User Acceptance Testing (UAT) provided technical and procedural support.
• On a regular basis communicated and interacted with the users, project manager and development teams during various stages of the product life cycle to make sure everyone was on the same lines.
• Maintained documents for change request and implemented procedures for testing changes.
• Maintained Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM).
• Interacted with technical team in letting them to make a better navigational plan for the project flow that makes a better user interactivity for the application.
• Signed off on progress and completion reports which were then submitted to project management on a weekly basis.
• Responsible for the development, design and implementation of new relational or multi-dimensional databases, including the analysis of user needs.
• Primarily responsible for interacting with the users and business relationship managers and changes on the database in order to ensure UAT completion.

Environment: Rational Rose, MS Office Suite, Oracle9i, Windows NT/XP, Business Objects, ASP.Net, BizTalk 2006, SQL, Excel, Oracle, Windows, Rational Rose, Rational RequisitePro, RUP, UML.

Confidential, New York, NY February 2006 – September 2006 Business/Financial Analyst (Hedge Funds)

The Citco fund services companies are the world’s pre-eminent hedge fund administrators. The company offers a full range of fund administration services. Citco Hedge Fund Service offering includes fund accounting and net asset value calculations, investor relations services, anti-money laundering compliance, corporate and legal services, and various other ad-hoc services such as tax reporting and financial statement preparation.

Responsibilities:

• Involved in requirements analysis and development using Activity, Use Cases, Sequence diagrams and Visio approach and produced detailed use cases and functional specifications for all the required users and teams.
• Conducted and managed meeting sessions with users, team members, business managers for collection of requirements and business process information. Designed the application using Unified Modeling Language.
• Utilized and maintained two major software systems of the company used in the consolidation of monthly Balance Sheets and P/L.
• As a financial accountant/analyst prepared daily reconciliation of portfolio positions, activity and cash balances for various Citco hedge fund clients. Declared daily NAV and prepared daily schedules to reflect foreign dividend payments for various hedge funds. Researched breaks and trade discrepancies using Bloomberg software notified fund manager and facilitated correction. Booked dividends, accruals and payables, expenses and incomes into fund accounting software system named Aexeo.
• Conducted book allocations and collected requirements for preparation of tax workbooks. Developed several excel-based Macros for accounting and taxation.
• Computed and inputted month end adjustments and closing entries, processed, maintained and communicated financial and informational data to traders and evaluated and computed daily and monthly cash reconciliation reports.
• Responsible for writing Functional Requirement Specifications (FRS) and User Requirement Specification (URS).
• Utilized Rational Unified Process model for the different phases of the application development of the Software Development Life Cycle. Conducted daily build validation and report status to product and QA teams.
• Responsible for weekly status of the reports. Provided valuable input on requests for Modifications and Enhancements.
• Conducted UAT (User Acceptance) Testing. Provided end user training and extensive go-live assistance to users.
• Conducted several JAD sessions for communicating with Stakeholders and Project directors. Additionally facilitated JAD sessions with the clients and assessed the facts of the discussion to gain an understanding of the issues and propose possible solutions.
• Was part of the team that was involved in development of User Requirements Document (URD) and Functional Requirements Document (FRD) using Rational Requisite Pro.
• Assisted via phone/email by providing solutions through presentations and various screenshots, which in turn helped them to understand the process swiftly.

Environment: Microsoft Visio, RUP (FDM), Rational Tools, Clear Quest, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, Windows 2000 Professional.

Confidential, Stamford, CT April 2005 – December 2005 Business/Financial Analyst

Capital Credit Group provides a one-stop menu of value-added services to investors in life settlement assets. The vast breadth of services has given the company greater control of life settlement transactions and has allowed it to generate exceptional opportunities for investors in an asset class known for its strong collateral value and high risk-adjusted, non-correlated returns. Capital Credit Group is a vertically integrated pioneer in the emerging US Life Settlement Market originating in excess of $4 billion in face value transactions.

Responsibilities:

• Researched and understood thoroughly the Life Settlements market and the various risks involved in trading the life insurance policies.
• Analyzed business processes to identify challenges and created solutions through the use of database and communication software across the entire company.
• Detailed documentation of business and system requirements, process flows, and data models and converted them the system needs into Vision Documents, Business Process Flows, Use Cases, and Non Functional Requirements.
• Collected useful requirements to design the model calculating return on investment on the life settlement policies and presented it through Use Cases, Activity Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams, OOD (Object oriented Design) using UML and Visio to the next level of teams.
• Performed Gap analysis by identifying existing technologies and subsequently documented the enhancements to meet the end state requirements.
• Lead the user interview process at both in-house and client locations. Gathered and analyzed requirements using RequisitePro – RUP.
• Lead a project involving “Monte Carlo Simulation” in pursuing funding proposals with a variety of commercial banks, investment banks and hedge funds.
• Assisted in a project entitled “K-ratio Analysis” that formalizes financial trading decisions the company made in the past, which helped in maintaining consistency and discipline in company’s pricing decisions.
• Applied and extensive experience in User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Presented internal financial models to investment groups. Compiled packages of documentation to fulfill due diligence and business process requirements of funding firms. Implemented a software analytics program in the company, called “Milliman” which played a central role in all the company’s pricing and lending decisions.
• Involved with business groups to give hands-on training and subsequent support for Business Intelligence toolsets like OBIEE, Business Objects.
• Lead discussion sessions and meetings with development team to discuss related issues.
• Assisted in the preparation of timely and accurate SEC financial reporting information so that important business decisions can be made based on the results.
• Prepared several training materials and conducted user training across the teams.
• Involved in the maintenance of historical financial statements and other financial information of the company.
• Analyzed the existing reporting systems and used Rational Clear Case/Quest as change control tools.

Environment: Windows XP, SQL, Java, J2EE, Agile, Clear Case, Clear Quest, Rational Rose, Oracle, MS Office, MS Visio, Project, Test Director.