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Resume of Laura Leff, PMP

SUMMARY

15 years of in-depth experience in Program, Project and Vendor Management, insuring on time and on budget delivery of a wide range of technology products. A thought leader in the Vendor Selection and Management arena, creating new vendor selection processes that reduce selection time from months to weeks and insure optimal vendor selection based on the customer-specific requirements. These tools and processes have been effective in saving companies millions of dollars through better vendor selection, negotiation, and implementation. Areas of expertise include:

Requirements gathering	System design
Process engineering	Vendor evaluation & selection
Managing internal/external development	System testing
Training and documentation	System maintenance/troubleshooting

PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Program/Project Management and Leadership

Led development and deployment of over 50 software and telecommunications systems, with budgets up to $24 Million. Skilled in a variety of Project Management techniques, including Agile.

Served as consultant Program Manager for a $24M PeopleSoft ERP upgrade with a team of over 150 people, impacting hundreds of employees and tens of thousands of temporary and permanent staff. Developed the project’s first consolidated effort-based project schedule and budget representing the activities of all Program areas, which drove the deployment of a project that had taken over six years to deliver.
Implemented three upgrades to a company-wide Time and Labor Reporting System within 3½ months, providing faster performance and streamlined Web interfaces. These projects were recognized by the company’s Leadership Council as being among the best-managed in Corporate Information Technology.

Renewed and rehabilitated relations between corporate and market teams during product development; empowered the market team to influence the product direction, resulting in a sense of ownership and an on-time, quality deployment.

Managed internal development of Web tool for receiving orders from national corporate accounts; delivered product on time and 40% under budget.

Vendor Selection and Negotiation

Established Vendor Management Office for Fortune 50 company and created templates focused on vendor selection, contract creation, and ongoing vendor scorecarding and performance management.
- Vendor scorecarding resulted in significant performance and relationship improvement in 20 major vendors within 1 month of each scorecarding exercise.
- Negotiated 30+ contracts, resulting in savings of over $3M within 6 months.
- Reduced average contract processing time from over 2 months to 2 weeks.
Created and implemented process for vendor evaluation and standardized RFI/RFP formats, reducing decision time from months to weeks.
Analyzed over 400 vendors in a single year, evaluating their value and applicability to corporate needs.
Translated and consolidated concept input from Marketing, Technical, and Billing personnel into RFP-ready Alerting requirements in less than two weeks. Resultant vendor selection produced one of the smoothest vendor integrations in the history of the division, finishing three weeks ahead of schedule.
Led a large cross-functional team in an RFP effort to identify a long-term replacement for the Time and Labor Reporting System, including focus groups with all major areas of the company. Completed Voice of Customer requirements gathering to vendor recommendation in two months.

Process Engineering

Managed the Procurement-to-Payment team of 22 people for an SAP ERP system deployment, reducing 24 ordering processes to 4 and consolidating 10 systems into a single package.
Conducted Finance and AP process redesign meetings to identify issues causing millions in invoices to remain unpaid. Improvements are targeted to reduce open invoices by 80%.
Rehabilitated performance of Prepaid vendor utilizing techniques such as a vendor report card, consolidating national forecasts, improving system integration, and enabling personnel on both sides to better understand mutual needs.

Communication, Documentation, and Training

Bridged the technology gap between groups with varying levels of understanding, helping programmers to understand customer requirements, and Marketing to understand the technical impact of their needs.
Created documentation and training for a software tool to enable corporations to analyze their cellular phone usage. This tool and documentation were recognized as being very clear and user-friendly, resulting in almost no calls to Tier 1 support.
Led training for various software tools, and was recognized by students for keeping people enthusiastic and focused on learning.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

The Code Works Inc. Director, Professional Services and Senior Program & Project Management Consultant	2007 to present
(Fortune 50 retail company) Director, Vendor Management Office	2006 to 2007
(Electronics/General technology company) *Senior Project Manager, Developing Technologies (Contract)*	2005
(Biotechnology company) Senior Project Manager, Procurement and Corporate Information Technology (Contract)	2003 to 2005
(Telecommunications company) *Senior Project Manager, Investigative Engineering*	2001 to 2003
(Satellite telecommunications company) *Manager, Network Planning and Development Engineering*	2000 to 2001
(Wireless telecommunications company) Manager, Network Planning and Development Engineering	1998 to 2000
Project Engineer	1996 to 1998
Technology Analyst	1993 to 1996
(Biotechnology research company) *Clinical Systems Analyst*	1991 to 1993

EDUCATION/CERTIFICATION

M.B.A., Finance/Economics, Indiana University

B.S., Mathematics, Minors in Business and Radio/TV/Film, Purdue University

P.M.P. (Project Management Professional), Project Management Institute

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Authored a book on vendor selection and management (currently awaiting publication).

Listed in Strathmore's Who's Who 2005-2006 Edition.

ADDITIONAL LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE

Founded and grew a non-profit organization devoted to the research and preservation of classic media; membership is currently over 1,900 people in 19 countries. Organized a conference in cooperation with the National Comedy Hall of Fame and the Museum of Television and Radio, featuring discussion panels, show recreations, screenings, and professional entertainment.

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