Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Accomplishments
Timeline
Generic
Gaurav Sharma

Gaurav Sharma

Summary

spanning Healthcare, Finance, and Public sector industries. Dynamic and results oriented, I excel in leading and elevating engineering initiatives within Finance Technology teams. My expertise lies in planning and executing strategies to optimize financial systems, evidenced by a proven track record of successful roadmap planning and execution in collaboration with engineering teams. I possess advanced skills in overseeing the integration of order and sales data into SAP systems, as well as provisioning SAP data for reporting and analytics purposes. Additionally, I am proficient in configuring finance and accounting processes within SAP to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. SAFE Agilist 5.0 SAFE Product Owner/Project Manger 5.0 OBIEE Certified Azure Certified Microsoft 365 Certified US Army Service Ribbon National Defense Service Medal Command Team Coin for Excellence Systems Manager skilled at troubleshooting and resolving system problems in order to maintain maximum business productivity. Good at integrating information from different data centers in cluster arrangements. Solid understanding of both hardware and software components.

Overview

12
12
years of professional experience

Work History

Finance System Manager

Lincoln Financial Group
11.2021 - Current
  • Helps people to plan, protect and retire with confidence
  • As of Dec
  • 31, 2023, approximately 17 million customers trust our guidance and solutions across four core businesses – annuities, life insurance, group protection and retirement plan services
  • As of December 31, 2023, the company had $295 billion in end-of-period account balances, net of reinsurance
  • Headquartered in Radnor, Pa., Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE: LNC) and its affiliates
  • My current role entails strategizing, leading, and advancing engineering initiatives within our Finance Technology teams
  • Serving as a key leader in our domain, I contribute to the development and implementation of strategies for our financial systems
  • Collaborating closely with engineers, I facilitate effective planning and roadmap creation
  • My responsibilities span various aspects, including:
  • Played a key role in Agile ceremonies, including daily stand-ups, sprint planning, demos, retrospectives, and backlog refinements, fostering a culture of collaboration, transparency, and accountability
  • Provided leadership and guidance to Agile teams, ensuring adherence to Agile principles and practices, and driving alignment with engineering expectations and project goals
  • Facilitated effective communication and collaboration between business stakeholders and Agile teams, fostering a shared understanding of project objectives and priorities
  • Cultivated collaborative relationships with stakeholders across Finance, Accounting, and technology teams, ensuring alignment with Lincoln’s evolving needs
  • Kept abreast of industry trends and technological advancements, providing strategic guidance and support to stakeholders in navigating complex business and technology landscapes
  • Facilitated cross-functional brainstorming sessions and solution discussions with leaders across Lincoln Engineering, driving innovative approaches to address business challenges and opportunities
  • Developed and executed comprehensive engineering strategies and roadmaps for financial systems, aligning with Lincoln’s business objectives and market dynamics
  • Leveraged data-driven metrics to prioritize and sequence value-adding work increments, ensuring strategic alignment and maximizing business impact
  • Focused on continuous improvement and innovation, proactively identifying opportunities for technical enhancements and strategic investments to drive long-term value creation
  • Collaborated closely with finance and engineering stakeholders to design and implement scalable and secure finance systems solutions, ensuring alignment with business needs and industry best practices
  • Maintained a deep understanding of Lincoln’s financial processes and systems architecture, driving the development of robust, scalable, and future-proof solutions
  • Championed the adoption of modern technologies and architectural patterns to optimize performance, enhance security, and streamline operations across finance systems
  • Led efforts to gather, analyze, and prioritize business and technical requirements, leveraging insights from stakeholders and market research to drive informed decision-making
  • Developed actionable delivery models, including Epics, User Stories, and Wireframes, to guide the implementation of high-quality financial products and solutions
  • Ensured alignment of project deliverables with business objectives and stakeholder expectations, driving successful outcomes through effective requirement management and communication
  • Directed and managed projects related to finance systems enhancements, upgrades, and implementations, overseeing all aspects of project planning, execution, and delivery
  • Allocated resources effectively, monitored project progress, and mitigated risks to ensure timely delivery within scope and budget constraints
  • Fostered a culture of accountability and collaboration, promoting cross-functional teamwork and communication to drive project success and stakeholder satisfaction.

Financial System Lead

Charles Schwab & Co / TD Ameritrade
03.2017 - 10.2021
  • The Charles Schwab Corporation provides a full range of brokerage, banking, and financial advisory services through its operating subsidiaries
  • Its broker-dealer subsidiary, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc
  • (member SIPC), offers investment services and products, including Schwab brokerage accounts
  • Its banking subsidiary, Charles Schwab Bank, SSB (member FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender), provides deposit and lending services and products
  • Project: Compliance One (U4 Registration + Disclosure)
  • Orchestrated the seamless integration of finance systems with other enterprise systems, optimizing processes and data flows to enhance operational efficiency and data accuracy
  • Implemented performance optimization initiatives and conducted regular system assessments to identify and address areas for improvement, ensuring optimal system performance and reliability
  • Stayed current with industry best practices and emerging technologies, exploring opportunities to leverage new tools and methodologies to drive continuous improvement and innovation
  • Actively solicited feedback from stakeholders and end-users to identify opportunities for product enhancement and optimization, driving a culture of continuous learning and improvement
  • Collaborated with engineering teams to address technical debt and implement technical improvements, optimizing system performance and user experience
  • Encouraged experimentation and innovation, empowering teams to explore new ideas and technologies to drive business value and competitive advantage
  • Ensured compliance with regulatory standards and security requirements, collaborating closely with compliance and security teams to implement and maintain robust controls and safeguards
  • Oversaw adherence to timelines and execution of SOX control-related activities, ensuring accuracy and completeness of financial data and processes
  • Championed a culture of compliance and security awareness, providing guidance and support to teams in adhering to policies and procedures to mitigate risk and protect organizational assets
  • Independently managing complex project tasks, lead interviews, owned facilitation of discussions, and communications with impacted areas regarding project deliverables including senior leadership
  • Working with business partners to understand business processes for U4/U5 Filling with FINRA for Individuals and for Branch Registration (IA/BD)
  • Entitled system users at broker-dealer and investment adviser firms can file Form U4 electronically to fulfill securities registration and licensing requirements for registered representatives and investment adviser representatives
  • Creating process flows for annual attention through web CRD for registered and non-registered individuals (RA), like the Finpro/FINRA.org website
  • Designed table structures for Qualification Exams, Registrations with Affiliated firm, Jurisdiction Registration Disclosure, Fingerprinting, registered Branch & Organization location to support U4 Preview and Staging screen for the Appian DB
  • Analyzed Form U4 amendments that were applied to satisfy Rule 4530(a)(1) reporting requirements
  • Reviewed various data sets available on Finra.org (Individual Registration Validation Data supplement the FINRA API) for validation individual’s registration
  • Analyzed FINRA API ‘s Response to understand the sample data applicable for the registered individual for new Appian tables
  • Reviewed the Web EFT Schema documentation and Schema files for Form Filing U4, U5, NRF, DRP, BR and form filing Results (XSD)
  • Collaborating with business partners and the broader analytics organization (Advanced Analytics, Business Reporting, Data Governance) to lead value-driven data insights aligned with the firm’s strategic priorities
  • Representing business owners and end users and collaborating with technology and or vendors to meet a clearly identified “Business Need” which will benefit from a technology-based solution
  • Responsible for providing project and business analysis expertise and support to the department and assist them in meeting their business objectives; bringing leadership, perspective, consistency of approach, and quality assurance to assigned projects
  • Created presentation materials including Leadership project updates, workflow diagrams, and decision matrixes
  • Data sourcing, designing, building, testing, maintaining, and guiding others in creating stable and scalable dashboards, reports, and complex metrics to meet business needs by transforming data into meaningful information
  • Identifying and analyzing complex developments, variances, and trends in financial and business operations
  • Formulates and communicates recommendations to support business initiatives and management decisions
  • Educating and mentoring both team members and business partners on Business Intelligence concepts and best practices
  • Maintaining an understanding of how the data contained in various systems are utilized and marrying various aspects of the data into a usable format to support decision making
  • Ensuring data integrity within dashboards and reports and developing procedures for increasing the quality and accuracy of information from multiple data sources.

Sr Product Owner

New York City, NYCHPD
05.2015 - 02.2017
  • Established in 1978, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the largest municipal housing preservation and development agency in the nation
  • The agency’s mission is to promote the quality and affordability of the city’s housing and the strength and diversity of its many neighborhoods.

Senior Business Analyst / Product Owner

New York City Housing Authority
03.2014 - 04.2015
  • Project: Served on the REES eService Initiative, which was a project of NYCHA’s Department of Resident Economic Empowerment and Sustainability (REES) and Information Technology
  • The REES eService Initiative is envisioned as an integrated solution that supports NYCHA’s model for connecting residents to economic opportunity services
  • The goal of this project is to implement a system that is supported by IT, communicates with other NYCHA data systems, is interactive for NYCHA residents, and services providers, and a system which REES staff may draw information to manage REES initiatives and to make thoughtful, data-driven policy decisions
  • Collaborated with Project Managers and other stakeholders from different teams to ensure all necessary requirements are captured and validated
  • Understands Siebel business processes and defines client requirements
  • Mapped Siebel business processes to Siebel applications
  • Created functional design documents for Siebel applications
  • Met with functional SMEs to identify and document Siebel system business requirements, functional and non-functional requirements, and business rules
  • Participated in proof of concept and designs solutions to meet functional requirements
  • Developed requirements specification documents
  • Interfaced with clients and obtains all necessary signoffs for documents
  • Gathered requirements and business objectives from key stakeholders, both internal and external, for future application or technology-related solutions
  • Participated in JAD meetings with clients for technical design for Release 1
  • Mapped business requirements to day 1 critical functionalities
  • Developed Siebel System process flows and mock-up screens for key functionalities including Paper Application, Appeals, Household Maintenance and Verification
  • Worked on end-user training with OCM (Organizational Change Management) team
  • Performed sanity check for Siebel environment readiness for SIT, UAT and training
  • Performed bug management and triaging for defects in downstream environment
  • Utilized Agile and manages team
  • Worked with Agile methodology and maintains a backlog of all items that were captured for project
  • Collaborated with SMEs, program managers, and product owners to assign items in backlog to various sprint cycles.

Senior Business Analyst

BCBS of Florida
09.2012 - 02.2014
  • Project: The objective of this project was to develop SQL query capabilities of claim data used to perform analytics and send data output to New Direction Behavior Health (NDBH) bi-weekly
  • Developed additional data files to provide the behavior health vendor NDBH (New Direction Behavior Health) with additional information to support collaborative efforts for member care and to provide data to satisfy contractual requirements
  • Florida Blue developed member level analytical data to identify members with chronic conditions and high-risk levels based on claims data
  • Before this project initiative took place, the above-mentioned population was identified through manual analytics identifying members with chronic behavioral health and potentially associated medical claims as high risk
  • Conducted one-on-one meetings with project SME to gather requirements
  • Facilitated sessions with users and documented changes in requests
  • Created use-cases and business requirement documents after accessing status and scope of project
  • Understanding business processes
  • Performed feasibility study and risk analysis to identify critical requirements from user’s perspective
  • Conducted JAD sessions with end user community to ensure member’s medical claims data based on determinates were extracted and sent to new direction via secured file transfer protocol (SFT)
  • Clarified client requirements, business needs, and project objectives via feedback sessions and client meetings, in collaboration with all stakeholders
  • Critically evaluated information gathered from multiple sources, reconciled conflicts
  • Decomposed high-level information into details along with the ability to use detail to gain an understanding of the end-to-end solution
  • Supported UAT/business testing shadow testing activities using TFS as tool to track Agile progress
  • Utilized MS Office Suite to prepare status reports
  • Provided project manager with regular status updates assisting overall project management initiative.
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Education

Certified Scrum Master PSM 1 -

MS - Information Technology Service Management

Saint Mary’s University Twin Cities Campus
Minneapolis, MN
2015

Bachelors - Pharmaceutical Sciences

Rajiv Gandhi University
2006

Skills

  • Proficiencies / Languages / Development Platforms
  • Methodologies Waterfall, Agile, RUP
  • Requirement Management Tools JIRA, Confluence, Rational Requisite Pro/ Rational Composer, Teleologic Doors (V 94,90)
  • Project Management Tools Teamwork, Planview, VersionOne, MS Project, JIRA, Confluence, Azure Devops, Mural
  • Business Modeling Rational Rose, MS Visio, (v 7,10,13) Axure (V 6,65) Balsamiq
  • Test Management Tools HP Quality Center, Test Director, Jira, Bugzilla, Beans
  • Database
  • Oracle, MS SQL, DB2, Mainframe, Snowflake
  • Application Development Tools TOAD, Oracle SQL Developer, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
  • Operating System Windows, Unix, Linux
  • Vendor Platform
  • Appian, Health Edge, Health Rules, TAAG, Project Tracker, SSTS, OBIEE 11g, Oracle
  • OLAP Tool Business Intelligence (OBIEE) 12c, Crystal Reports, Power BI, Tableau
  • CRM Tool Salesforce, ELITE, SAP CRM, Siebel CRM 82, D365 V82, MDM, TAAG, Elite, ASAP Recert

Accomplishments

  • Project: DTRBI SAP Crystal Reports 2016 v
  • Developed and implemented dynamic reports using SAP Crystal Reports in past projects, enabling effective analysis and presentation of data
  • Utilized SAP Crystal Reports to create custom reports tailored to project requirements, including tables, charts, graphs, and summaries
  • Successfully integrated SAP Crystal Reports with various data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, and Excel spreadsheets in previous projects, ensuring seamless data connectivity
  • Leveraged dynamic data linking functionality in SAP Crystal Reports to consolidate and analyze data from multiple sources within project reports, providing comprehensive insights
  • Implemented parameterized reports using SAP Crystal Reports, allowing for flexible data filtering, and sorting based on specific project criteria
  • Exported project reports to different formats like PDF, Excel, Word, and HTML using SAP Crystal Reports, facilitating easy sharing and distribution among project stakeholders
  • Integrated SAP Crystal Reports with other SAP products such as SAP BusinessObjects BI platform, SAP ERP systems, and SAP HANA in past projects, enhancing reporting capabilities within the project ecosystem
  • Implemented robust security features in SAP Crystal Reports to control access to project reports and data, ensuring data confidentiality and compliance with project requirements
  • Scheduled report generation and distribution using SAP Crystal Reports in previous projects, automating the process of delivering project reports to stakeholders at scheduled intervals
  • Leveraged SAP's extensive documentation, tutorials, and support resources for SAP Crystal Reports in past projects, contributing to continuous learning and skill enhancement throughout the project duration.

Timeline

Finance System Manager

Lincoln Financial Group
11.2021 - Current

Financial System Lead

Charles Schwab & Co / TD Ameritrade
03.2017 - 10.2021

Sr Product Owner

New York City, NYCHPD
05.2015 - 02.2017

Senior Business Analyst / Product Owner

New York City Housing Authority
03.2014 - 04.2015

Senior Business Analyst

BCBS of Florida
09.2012 - 02.2014

Certified Scrum Master PSM 1 -

MS - Information Technology Service Management

Saint Mary’s University Twin Cities Campus

Bachelors - Pharmaceutical Sciences

Rajiv Gandhi University
Gaurav Sharma