Experience

Triad Financial Services, Inc.

Chief Technology Officer

Jacksonville, Florida

09/2022 – Current

Responsible for all company technology and technological resources, and establishes the company’s technology vision, strategies, and plans for growth.
Develops strategic plans and sets timelines for execution on plans.
Collaborates with senior leaders of departments for deploying technology systems to support the respective operational and administrative support functions across Triad.
Ensures the company’s technological processes and service comply with all requirements, laws, and regulations of Triad’s niche financial services industry. Including the annual SOC Audit
Monitors web analytics and makes recommendations that align with Triad’s business goals.
Identifies opportunities for web and mobile services development, and deployment of all technical, web, and mobile services.
Oversees and leads quality assurance processes, integration, and system tests.
Researches and stays abreast of current and new industry trends, technologies, and software development.
Develops and maintains the information security policies and processes for the organization
Manages timelines and budgets for all technology related initiatives
Develops, implements, and maintains appropriate disaster and emergency recovery plans
Defines company standards for systems, equipment, and software.
Responsible for the planning and adequate training related to the roll out of new systems functionality
Continually studying current and new industry trends, technologies, and software development
Represents the company at conferences and networking events.
Implementing and standardizing enterprise CRM & CMS ecosystems within HubSpot platform

Step Up for Students

Senior Director, IT Solutions

Jacksonville, Florida

12/2020 – Current

Provide leadership towards delivery of all aspects of software and infrastructure, to include Software Development and Engineering, Quality Assurance, Enterprise Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Architecture, and Production Application Support.
Responsible for technology solutions, mentoring, coaching, and management of teams such as architecture, software development and engineering, quality assurance, data warehousing and business intelligence, and production application support, while providing direct consultative support to the executive leadership team.
Driving direct reports to committed timelines, efficient and on-time delivery of requests from business stakeholders, project managers, product managers and owners, while developing effective and collaborative relationships with the leaders of those business and product teams.
Directing the modification of software applications or architecture to resolve issues and plan for future growth in both on-prem and cloud platforms.
Managing a team of technology professionals with the flexibility to deal with people at a variety of levels in addition to internal and external vendors and clients.
Heavy focus on modernizing legacy platforms and infrastructure to cloud based solutions, with minimal custom development, and increased control by the lines of business
Managing the relationships of third-party vendors, to consist of SOW negotiations for deliverables and resource staffing.
Directing the troubleshooting and resolution of support processes and issues, with hands-on involvement in software engineering functions when needed
Ensuring that systems needed by the organizations are fully functional and operating effectively 24x7x365 and establishing processes to ensure high quality solutions with effective methods that can be replicated for developing, deploying, testing, and supporting software solutions.
Overseeing and reviewing staffing needs for projects as well as evaluating the performance software and quality personnel.
Participating in and driving performance in the development and implementation of new business processes that improve efficiency and enhance productivity.
Managing the applicable IT annual budget and expenses for multiple cost centers within IT Solutions.
Leading the evaluation, selection and installation of enterprise-wide software, hardware, and cloud technologies
Working directly with executive leadership to provide research and recommendations for new approaches for software development technology and formulating the core software technology roadmap for long term success, with the intent to move to full cloud / SaaS infrastructure and software long term.
When necessary, hands-on engineering, scripting, testing, and triage where needed, across all company platforms.
Hands-On development and engineering as needed throughout the application and web platforms in multiple next-gen languages. Primary languages/frameworks: .Net Core, C#, JSON, PHP
Performance tools used: Nagios monitoring, Graylogs, Azure Monitor, Azure Logging,
Implementing and Administering CRM ecosystems / platforms: HubSpot, Salesforce CRM, Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Synovus Bank

Director of Technology, Specialty Services

Columbus, Georgia

11/2017 – 12/2020

Act as CTO / Head of Technology for the Synovus Specialty Services / Financial Management System family of companies, including Synovus Mortgage, Synovus Trust, Synovus Securities, The Family Office, Globalt, Creative Financial, and Global One, with resources across the five-state footprint. Reported to the Corporate CTO that also managed Retail and Commercial Banking.
Focusing on a reduction of monolithic legacy on-prem applications and shift to the cloud for IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS software platforms for higher scale-ability and flexibility, and reduction of custom developed application.
Creating effective technology teams for facilitating effective communication of available skills, information, and knowledge throughout the enterprise.
Analyze enterprise program requirements and anticipate staffing resources needed to meet objectives. Responsible for interviewing, hiring, planning, assigning, or directing work, appraising performance, disciplining team members and resolving problems. Acquiring and developing talent.
Partner with the executive business unit leaders, external partners, and suppliers to leverage technology to enhance business operations, while focusing on modernization and rationalization of current technology.
Implement business system plans; direct the development, release, and maintenance of company business application and process control systems.
Managing the relationships of third-party vendors, to consist of SOW negotiations for deliverables and resource staffing, effectively managing $15mil+ in department budget allocation
Stay abreast of industry, regulatory and company changes or trends as it relates to financial services, information management, information security, technological standards and trends, and IT efficiencies.
Promote ethics and compliance; ensure enterprise leaders receive the communication and instruction needed to act in accordance with policies and procedures.
Implementing and Administering CRM ecosystems / platforms: Salesforce CRM, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, & Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, with front end applications built in Lightening.

CAN Capital

Vice President of Technology

Kennesaw, Georgia

12/2015 – 07/2017

Lead strategy and initiatives of Software Engineering, Infrastructure (Virtual and Cloud), and Production Support teams consisting of 3 directors and 2 managers, for a total team of ~75-100 resources, across Atlanta, New York City, Costa Rica, and India, securing timely and quality creation of financial service solutions for small businesses
Supervises the development of software development and engineering standards, including security-focused coding and configuration, in line with enterprise architecture standards.
Manages and ensures maintenance of infrastructure and applications in multiple physical and virtual environments for Linux, Citrix, Oracle, and Windows, both on-prem and cloud (AWS and Azure) based solutions.
Administrator and architect of the Amazon Web Service infrastructure for web and DR/Backup setup for the company. AWS Administration for the following products: EC2, IAM, Elastic load balancing, S3 storage, RDS, Elasticache, SNS.
Hands-On development and engineering as needed throughout the application and web platforms in multiple next-gen languages. Primary languages include VB.Net, C#, SQL, PHP, JS, XML, HTML5, and CSS3.
Manage the support team for all enterprise applications, including VOIP telephony, Collections, Risk, and Oracle Finance systems
Performance tools used: New Relic monitoring, Solarwinds, VMWare performance monitoring for up time and service performance. Splunk used for logging audit and event monitoring.
Additional front-end development and deployment through Mendix RAD cloud platform.
Supporting legacy web development and deployment systems using Github repo, and CircleCI, Docker, and Heroku for deployment and hosting of Ruby on Rails / AngularJs web applications.
- Administered Google Tag Manager and analytics suite for website performance and metrics, with Optimizely as the A/B testing applications. Web integrated with Marketo for cloud direct marketing campaign creation and maintenance.

Synovus Bank

Senior Manager, IT

Columbus, Georgia

05/2013 – 12/2015

Led a core team of engineers and analysts, ensuring ongoing operational support to 60+ enterprise applications, including 185+ production servers. Core applications such as Salesforce, Kofax Capture, Empower.Net, Fiserv FIS, ServiceNow, Synergy, Vasco, and various other retail and commercial platforms.
Hands-on engineering when needed throughout the application stack.
Ensured readiness of applications for all IT verticals, from Digital Banking services to audit and compliance.
Leveraged effective monitoring and testing solutions for troubleshooting processes, including SolarWinds Orion, Dynatrace, Splunk, SOAPUI, and AppDynamics.
Led technical installation / implementation of AppDynamics platform across the enterprise for management by Dev Ops team.
Streamlined the migration process of code packages from development to production, by developing release management procedures from scratch.
Akamai Cloud Security certified, managed platform application integrations, while working with infrastructure team for network and server security architecture.
Ensured ongoing maintenance and update of company’s mobile applications for Apple and Google Play stores.
Partnered with vertical owners, network operations, enterprise architecture and infrastructure, and information security, ensuring alignment with system and support requirements.
Established ongoing training and development of teams to further increase performance and productivity.

IT Manager, Digital Banking

Columbus, Georgia

05/2013 – 12/2014

Managed, controlled, and ensured successful development and implementation of technical solutions for Commercial and Retail Digital Banking lines of business, to include web and mobile application development and the necessary infrastructure required.
Supervised solution, infrastructure, and data architecture design, technology planning, and testing of applications.
Advised on information systems’ specifications to meet defined business needs and to ensure compatibility with enterprise and solution architectures.
Manage systems and applications in multiple environments for Linux, Citrix, and Windows 2003-2008 R2.
Managed and hands-on development, in multiple mobile platforms for iOS, Android, and Windows mobile. Served as peer reviewer for reviewer for development code prior to release.
Hands on engineering and SME of the FiServ Corillian and Mobility platforms used for Online banking platform.

Cicero Inc.

Implementation Manager / Lead Architect

Cary, North Carolina

09/2010 – 05/2013

Managed Call Center Optimization through application and infrastructure integration solutions for interactions including workflow, call scripting, analytics, computer telephony integration, and single sign on. Integrations with Avaya Dialer and Cisco VOIP platforms.
Managed integrations and data mapping in both mainframe and PC environments, working in a variety of environments and languages.
Undertook and successfully carried out contract negotiations and budgeting, working closely with the Executive team to create documentation for new and existing implementations.
Assumed responsibility for billing planning for new clients, as well as Project Change pricing – Expense planning for travel, while on client site Project management.
Developed a Master Project Plan for monitoring resources, managing client relationship, and ensuring successful implementation throughout the entire project life cycle.
Hands-on development for in Windows and Linux platforms, depending on the solution selected by the client, in various code languages, such as ASP.Net, C#, Java, SQL, and Oracle.
Provided expertise for the development and code implementation of the finalized solution.

Wachovia Bank (Now Wells Fargo)

Licensed Financial Specialist

Columbus, Georgia

10/2006 – 10/2007

• Formerly Wachovia Bank, Carried all licenses (Series 6, 63, insurance, mortgage, and bank product), responsible for sales of client investments, insurance products, mortgages, commercial lending, and daily retail banking products.

TSYS Inc. (Now Global Payments)

Technology Manager / Consultant

Columbus, Georgia

06/1997 – 09/2010

During almost 14-year tenure at TSYS, held various roles throughout the business, to include from newest to oldest:
– Lead .Net Developer – Distributed Technologies: Worked closely with client teams and product architects, to accurately define and develop solutions and products in an ASP.Net/C# environment. Supervised and guided development and business teams, ensuring alignment with coding standards.
– Lead Business Analyst – Distributed Technologies: Gathering and documenting business requirements for software front-end platform changes in .Net environment.
– Technical Manager – Technical Consulting: TS2 consulting for multiple TSYS clients for all platform functionality.
– Associate Programming Manager – AdHoc Programming: Managing a team of 3-5 AdHoc programmer analysts.
– AdHoc Programmer – TS2 Platform: As needed maintenance programming and reporting for all TSYS clients on the TS2 platform.
– Sr. Client Representative – TS2 Customer Service: Client support of multiple enterprise clients for services used on the TS2 platform.
– Sr. Business Analyst – TS2 Customer Service and Correspondence: Gathering and documenting business requirements for TS2 platform changes
– Mainframe Programmer Analyst – TS2 UCS Card Services: COBOL, IMS, and DB2 programming