QA Manager, Performance Testing Manager, Infrastructure Manager, Technical Manager, Project Leader \ Manager, Process Improvement

Summary

Self-Motivated, detail-oriented QA Manager \ Performance Testing  Manager \ Director of IT with 22 years of IT \ Testing experience within the HealthCare, Banking, and Financial Investment industries. Responsibilities include evaluating development\testing process, redefining and implementing an efficient testing process for manual, automation, performance, regression and integration testing. Design testing standards, templates, quality gates, engagement models, service level agreements and change control process. These efforts resulted in a solid structured testing process with an output of quality and increased time to market. Responsibilities also included, managing QA test engineers, performance testing engineers, network engineers along with managing multi site production server environments, and large testing labs. I have been recognized several times for my leadership, flexibility, work ethic, project management capabilities and doing whatever it takes to deliver.

Strengths

• High level of personal energy viewing hard work and challenging assignments with enthusiasm, and dedication.
• Capable self motivated individual contributor with a preference for teamwork.
• Recognized for outstanding job performance, reliability, multi-task skills, efficiency, accuracy, and speed.
• Well-developed communication skills demonstrated through extensive customer service.
• Expert in computer operations, network operations, software development life cycle, QA testing procedures. Specializing in the design, implementation and maintenance of Testing Best practices.
• Strong commitment to the highest standards of job excellence.

Program Manager/ Testing & Development Manager - Global Delivery Center of Expertise

Confidential - Gateway Village - Charlotte NC - Present

Responsibilities include defining and implementing a scaled down version of the DMAIC process. Provide oversight of business development activities. Define the UAT testing process, and implement controls to mitigate issues. Represent the GDCE Business and communicate their needs and expectations to the offshore technology team. Oversee the program, engagement, processes, communication, and report status to the user community along with GDCE Executives.

• Managed all development activities for the GDCE.
• Defined standard templates to be used for capturing detailed business requirements, HLD, LLD etc.
• Facilitated team meetings, status meeting, and weekly development status meetings
• Mapped out all the initiatives and current status to show dependencies, risks, and potential release conflicts

• Demonstrated effective communication and leadership resulting in a successful increase of cross project collaboration.
• Assisted  in defining the scope and impact of projects while effectively communicating the impact on the organization
• Established project tasks, timelines and budgets and effectively managed them.
• Defined and evaluated problems and planed effective solutions.
• Managed Risks and Issues across multiple projects, escalated dependencies that required attention

Test Manager - System Integration Testing- CFC & ML Transition Team
a - Gateway Village - Charlotte NC 7/09 - current

Responsibilities included managing all aspects of the Systems Integration Testing process. Managed resource allocation and working closely with the business community.  Followed the TCoE DMAIC process throughout the project lifecycle ensuring all required documentation, tollgates, sign-off, and environments were completed. Provide daily status reports outlining SIT testing progress to all stakeholders. Facilitated daily defect meetings and provided insight to problem resolution. Monitor and maintain quality center to ensure all the test scripts are in place and have business sign off.

• Lead large team of test engineers across numerous locations including near shore, offshore and onshore.

• Developed Master SIT Test Plan outlining the strategy how and what will be tested.

• Provided off hours support during the SIT execution cycles.
• Act as the single point of contact for all of Provide strategic direction and vision for the testing team and lead them in the right direction to work smarter and more efficient. Evaluate and recommend new technologies to enhance efficiency and increase communication between critical technology areas.
• Developed and revised project materials and maintains project documentation
• Provides numeric and graphic status reports and assisted with presentation materials
• Recommended  improvements in project deliverables and activities
• Worked under minimal supervision from engagement to production hand off.
• Provided leadership to the SIT testing team and supported the SIT Execution cycle
• Participated in the Component Integration Testing meetings and monitored progress
• Triage problem tickets. Lead daily problem resolution meetings ensuring high severity problems are worked through to completion within the defined service level agreement.
• Manage vendor defect tickets and coordinate external vendor testing and development schedules

Director- Managed Testing Practice Carolina's
Sogeti USA (Cap Gemini) 2/08 - 7/09

Responsibilities include managing a large team of quality assurance test professionals across the Carolina's that are stationed at various client sites. Oversee all testing activities across the Carolina's, and manage client relationships. Provide insight to project issues, strategies, and act as the single point of contact for the east coast testing services. Provide Performance Testing presentations to executive management at various client sites. Developed performance testing best practices for the National Sogeti Testing Practice to establish consistency across Sogeti offices.

• Responsible for assembling, and Training the Sogeti worldwide Testing Boot Camp focusing on all testing best practices and testing tools.

• Provided performance testing technical support across all Sogeti offices \ clients as needed.
• Establish and manage all vendor relationships relating to testing tools and best practices.

• Managed resource planning, delegation of deliverables, problem resolution, staff augmentation, and the coordination of efforts across multiple lines of business
• Build the Managed Testing Practice across the Carolina's.
• Mentor college hires that want testing to be their career
• Established and grew all client relationships and managed vendor relationships
• Participated in the construction of Testing Centers of Excellence at various client sites
• Constructed a new Sogeti Performance Testing Practice
• Provide management oversight, scheduling, and training coordination for QA activities performed by the QA Team

Testing Team Manager - eCommerce Functional Testing Online Banking
- Gateway Village - Charlotte NC 12/06 - 2/08

Responsibilities include managing the Quality Assurance Functional Testing Team within the Testing Center of Excellence eCommerce Division. Manage a large team of associates and contractors, and am responsible for hiring, termination, and performance management. Manage systems and/or software QA associates to ensure standard quality practices/processes are followed and manage associates responsible for the design and execution of test plans and procedures for acceptance testing of new or modified applications and/or systems in an environment of diverse development platforms, computing environments, software, hardware technology and tools. Responsibilities extend to the development, maintenance, and enhancement of QA standards, process and procedures within a line of business and technology function. Provide management oversight, scheduling, and training coordination for QA activities performed by the QA team.

• Lead and manage large team of Sr, and Jr. Level test leads and test engineers.  Provide guidance and act as a mentor for all employees. Provide guidance and work with all team members to help them grow professionally and help them reach their professional goals.

• Manage department budgets and resource allocations. Provide Insight and guidance to the test leads managing highly visible, multi-million dollar enterprise testing projects. Ensure direct reports have the tools and resources they need to be successful in their roles.

• Manage resource planning, delegation of deliverables, problem resolution, staff augmentation, and the coordination of efforts across multiple lines of business
• Provide strategic direction and vision for the testing team and lead them in the right direction to work smarter and more efficient. Evaluate and recommend new technologies to enhance efficiency and increase communication between critical technology areas.
• Manage external Vendor relationships and provide direction for problem resolution during the testing lifecycle and lead root cause analysis efforts.
• Provide direction on process improvement, vendor compliance management, and identify and correct process gaps during project lifecycle.

Managing Director -Information Technology &; Testing
Confidential - Columbia 8/06 - 12/06 (80 Miles Each Way)

Responsibilities included overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Information Technology area which included web development, production support, and all of testing totaling 37 direct reports to me. Ensure project deliverables are met on time, and the resources have the necessary tools to perform their job functions. Establish relationships across all lines of business. Manage resource planning for proposed projects; prepare reports identifying gaps within the development process to ensure business requirements are covered. Identify areas of improvement within the IT SDLC process, increasing time to production. Evaluate technologies to better the quality of products delivered to the customers. Manage highly visible, multi-million dollar enterprise testing projects, including resource planning, delegation of deliverables, problem resolution, staff augmentation, and the coordination of efforts across multiple lines of business.

• Defined, standardized the testing engagement process resulting in effective communication
• Implemented a central repository for defects, requirements, test cases, test scripts, and project status, giving all stakeholders powerful visibility into their projects real-time.
• Identify, implement opportunities for automation.
• Worked with partners to define Performance Testing strategies, metrics, and guidelines
• Evaluate and recommend new technologies that would increase efficiencies and reduce redundant work.
• Manage, motivate, and coach employees.
• Manage all aspects of the testing process. Pro-actively seeking feedback on areas of improvement.
• Implemented testing solutions that increased time to production, and overall quality.
• Hired, reviewed, and promoted staff as needed. Prepared staff augmentation request and cost analysis.
• Oversee all testing documentation and provided feedback when appropriate. Ensuring best practices were followed.

QA Manager \ IT Manager
Confidential 8/05 - 8/06

Experienced Quality Assurance Manager has demonstrated organizational, leadership and supervisory abilities during the management of the QA team, development, and business analysts. Responsibilities included overseeing the day-to-day operations of the QA team and development, to ensure that they are prepared to meet the demands created by business and customer teams. Managed the company's infrastructure operations and provide technical support for the servers, connectivity, and desktop issues. As The QA Manager, I was responsible for developing, presenting and implementing a formalized QA process and methodology for all aspects of testing, which also included recruiting, hiring, working with testing tool vendors and evaluating testing tools.

• Direct report to the CEO, provided operations, QA, development status daily.
• Successfully implemented a streamlined testing process from the ground up for all of testing.
• Reviewed, designed, and approved detailed test plan/procedures that drive quality of our applications in the areas of performance and functional quality.
• Reviewed, designed, and approved detailed documentation plans that capture and track the progress and nature of our continually improving product quality.
• Defined performance testing strategy that would meet the business needs for the online radiology billing system.
• Drive efficiencies within the QA, development, and operations organizations.
• Interviewing, testing, hiring and training temporary/full time QA personnel when needed and conducting reviews
• Efficiently allocating available resources so that QA teams are competently staffed to test multiple applications simultaneously
• Facilitated weekly change control meetings and status meetings.
• Negotiate staff augmentation contracts and prepared cost analysis.

QA Manager \ Director of Testing
Confidential, Bloomfield CT 1990 to 2005

QA Manager \ hands on tester in CIGNA's corporate eCommerce practice division with responsibility for managing a large group of test engineer's \ Sr. developers along with the physical testing lab facility. Manage enterprise application efforts from conception to production. Provide hands on performance testing, troubleshooting to resolve complex technical issues quickly. Manage test lab outages and testing schedule. Provide employee semi-annual review and career coaching. Facilitated weekly change release meeting and report on application deliverables. Proactively seek feedback from developer teams and project managers to streamline the application life cycle.

• Direct report to the Senior Vice President of CIGNA's eCommerce division.
• Provide performance testing assistance using loadrunner for enterprise web applications.
• Implemented QA best practices from the ground up for the eCommerce group; including entrance and exit quality gates, defect tracking process, unit testing standards, performance testing standards, and tool selection.
• Developed service level agreements with the developers and business customers, setting clear expectations.
• Conducted needs assessments, resource allocation, prepared lab hardware budgets, constructed development plans.
•  Successfully implemented a multi- million-dollar portal technology framework on time, which enables CIGNA's customers the ability to customize and personalize their online benefit information portal.
• Participated in loadrunner focus group top define enhancements to the loadrunner product

Confidential, Hartford CT -1998 -2000

Managed the production infrastructure which included bridges, routers, vendor connections, servers, integrated voice response, and desktop Services between across multiple locations. Directed desktop support team and second level server administration team. Responsibilities included managing vendor contracts, recruiting consultants and converting end of life operating systems for over 200 production servers to Microsoft NT server 4 and exchange mail servers. Sole responsibility for planning, needs assessment and resource allocation.

• Manage desktop support team eight FTE's and Sr. network engineers four FTE's. Negotiate consultant's contracts.
• Designed, tested, and implemented disaster contingency plans to preserve mission critical data, minimizing non productive, or downtime due to power disruptions.
• Developed standard financial services desktop image, which decreased workstation and laptop, builds.
• Developed a team database on common technical issue pertaining to workstation error messages.
• Developed a solid financial understanding and knowledge of the business.
• Mentored team members on complex issues and coached them into obtaining their personal and professional goals.
• Managed local area network, servers, and communications connections to remote locations.

Confidential, Bloomfield CT 1988 to 1990

Collect, manage, and manipulate CIGNA's HealthCare provider network data. Provide sales teams with customized presentation tools for prospective customer meetings. Provide end User training on In house developed sales applications. Responsible for providing technical assistance to team members and traveling sales staff.

• Developed back end mainframe applications using IBM QMF to house and report on provider data.
• Managed all aspects of data collection process and recommend \ implement efficiency solutions.
• Maintained hardware upgrades, provided troubleshooting, and software support on network workstations.
• Designed and taught computer classes for Sales Proposal Application, achieving a 100% completion rate.
• Provided programming support for the world wide zip code database, network profile database, SPAN system and central provider file database.

• LoadRunner
• IBM Rational Suite
• ITKO Suite
• HP Quality Center & ALL Products
• DMAIC Process 
• IBM WebSphere
• Performance Testing
• Network Infrastructure
• Compuware Testing Tools
• LAN \ WAN Administration
• Altiris, SCCM
• Testing Best Practices
• Agile, Waterfall Methodology
• SharePoint Services 
• SAN Backup Solutions
• Tibco Portal
• Server Administration
• Network Design & Implementation
• Ghost, LDAP, oracle, BRIO 
• Technical Project Mgmt • NT, UNIX Admin 
• Capacity & network planning 
• Software Dev Life Cycle
• Office Communication Server 
• Application Compatibility 
• Virtual Server \ PC 
• VMware 
• Testing Lifecycle Mgmt
• Windows 7, Server 2008

Certifications

• Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
• Microsoft Certified Professional plus Internet (MCP+I)
• Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)
• COMPTIA Network plus Certified
• COMPTIA Internet plus Certified
• COMPTIA Server plus Certified
• Windows 7 BETA EXAM PASSED
• Currently trying to finish PMP and QAI Certification

Education,

Granby, CT 1988 - H.S. Diploma, ALL

Some college courses taken (plan to return)

Workshops, Seminars and Formal Training

WebSphere Administration Conference, 2001                       
Sun System Administration I, 2000
Successful Project Management, 1999
Mercury Load Runner Testing Suite, 2000
Microsoft Certified Training courses, 1998 to 2005              
Team Building Skills, 1998
Management Sensitivity Workshop, 1999                              
Rewarding Performance Workshop, 2003
Effective Customer Service Class, 2000

CIGNA Awards
Performance Recognition Award, 1988. Outstanding Job Performance
Performance Recognition Award, 1991. Outstanding Job Performance
Performance Recognition Award, 1995. Outstanding Job Performance
Team Excel Award, 1996. Superior Customer Service and Dedication
CIGNA Presidents Club Award, 1998. Above and Beyond Service Contributions
Peer Recognition Awards (4), 1999. Going the Extra Mile to Success
CIGNA Presidents Club Award, 1999. Above and Beyond Service Contributions
Performance Recognition Award, 2001. Outstanding Job Performance
Performance Recognition Award, 2002. Successful Implementation of Critical Projects
Performance Recognition Award, 2003. Successful Implementation of Critical Projects

Blue Cross Blue Shield Awards - Team Excellence 2006, Zero Defect Project Implementation

Bank of America - Spirit Recognition Award For 2007 I have received 11 Recognition Awards within 11 Months

Charlotte IT Quality Assurance Association - Program

Director (Volunteer)
IBM Rational Users Group
ITKO
HP/Mercury (Former User Group head)
Charlotte Chamber of Commerce
BLOC - Business Leaders of Charlotte Member
Microsoft Developers Guild - Charlotte Location
Member of the CITQAA