Candace Starr
Fountain Hills,AZ
Summary
With over 20 years of experience in technology program delivery, client account and practice leadership, have developed techniques and methods to acknowledge and celebrate and reflect on the good, manage and improve the bad, and rescue the ugly. Leveraging expertise in partnering with clients and internal customers to grow healthy, profitable accounts and generate success. I am adaptable and analytical, with demonstrated creative and entrepreneurial thinking used to break down complex issues for mutual value solutions. I am a strategic thinker who thrives on reviewing and improving business processes, resulting in significant time/cost savings, and increasing customer satisfaction.
Overview
24
24
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
ServiceNow Sales Director
Linium a Cognizant Company
10.2022 - Current
- Identify ServiceNow entry points for newly opened vertical Telecommunications and Media clients thru data analysis and business unit cross team collaboration
- Plan pursuit strategy using business analysis with Executive Stakeholders within the vertical, account teams, and consulting practices
- Educate Industry Leaders and vertical gate keepers on strategic and functional benefits of the ServiceNow Platform using integration with existing client systems for maximum cost efficiency and impact
Engineering Regional Practice Lead West and Bay
Area, Infosys
03.2021 - 09.2022
- Utilized strong interpersonal skills and culture of inclusion to almost grow service line by almost 50% thru recruiting efforts in less than a year during the great resignation
- Oversee role changes and compensation for over 700 people in service line which included large IT accounts such as Apple, and Microsoft as well as Health care accounts and Consumer accounts
- Active participant in C Level client meetings at the Infosys Innovation Center on the ASU campus
- Effective Stakeholder Management thru successful negotiations aligning business objectives with appropriate management of expectations with account teams, Delivery Heads, and Executive team
Senior Manager, Cloud Sales Enablement
Accenture
12.2017 - 07.2020
- Assess/evaluate customers outsourcing requirements, business strategy and challenges utilizing a consultative approach working with business stakeholders to create account strategies and develop solutions implementing public cloud and SaaS solutions
- Provided advisory services to accounts across NA Territory which created business value, rationalized costs, and managed technical risks and effectiveness
- Achieved win double team average (FY18 thru FY20) for Direct Sales selling IT consulting engagements, including IT Security, and Partnerships with ServiceNow Platform, AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Analyzed business insights and customer requirements and made IT Solution recommendations that improved clients enterprise systems
- Achieved operational excellence by streamlining processes and implementing best practices.
- Evaluated user requirements, procedures, and business concerns returning a solution with a value proposition that improved IT systems and solved business challenges
- Quota doubled consecutive years due to attainment, wins and promotion – from $5M to $10M to $20M
- Drove client engagement, pipeline ~ $300M for AWS re: Invent 2019 brand Awareness at Marketing events such as AWS re: Invent 2017 conference cultivating business development opportunities
- Surpassed all event metrics for AWS re: Invent 2019 and scheduled follow-up meetings with stakeholders to maintain long-term client relationships
- Developed Cloud training program in conjunction with learning services for sales immersion training agenda for Cloud team which was successfully rolled out to North America sales thru a series of onsite visits in Bangalore
- Participated in Managing Director Leadership pipeline development for Technology resources
Manager • Bid Manager | Sales Proposal Writer and Coordinator
Accenture
07.2015 - 11.2017
- Owned full cycle sales and service of client proposal development and RFP management, to include forecasts, approvals, content, pricing, creating, and editing presentation materials, and contracting
- Built Intellectual Capital repository for the newly created Resources Bid Management team to assist with developing sales skills and hosting sales documentation
- Recognized for achieving consistent results, meeting tight deadlines, and providing excellent communication as a point of contact for customer-facing sales while mentoring junior members
- Collaborate across operating groups using strategic thinking to create new offerings to extend brand
Senior Manager, Global Cloud PM CoE
IBM
08.2013 - 06.2015
- Designed, developed, and led key initiatives thru improved Operations Management enabling a Cloud as a Service growth model
- Instituted a portfolio management approach for global practice elevating and industrializing the standards of cloud through creation of IT Cloud Governance, Cloud PM policies and best practices
- Contributed to the development of IT strategies relating to governance, principles, skills, and sourcing
- Created roadmap for the newly created PMCoE with improvement plans for the PM team, scalable tracking of new projects and Operational Services for first line managers including training for PM team
- Defined global managed cloud governance methodology and rules of engagement between cloud team and other business units as well as Channel Sales
- Aligned IT with business models across industry markets, streamlined PM process and organizational re-engineering programs/project streams to align with DevOps practices
- Developed cadence with Cloud product development team to manage demand generation and roll out of new features and integration of product management with customer contracts
Manager • Bid Management | Sales Proposal Writer and Coordinator
IBM
07.2011 - 07.2013
- Led proposal teams in end-to-end coordination of sales responses for cross offering professional services opportunities > $20 million for the Global Business Services (GBS) Consulting Practice
- Advised engagement teams on overall solution design activities, coordinated with legal, collected available assets from ICAP tools and databases
- Worked with Risk Management, Contracts and Negotiations, Pricing and proactively resolved problems throughout sales process
- Communicated significant wins and evangelizing success of team across business units and partnerships
- Mentored managers through QA certification process, which resulted in new skills for global team
Portfolio | Program Management
IBM
02.2000 - 07.2011
- Full lifecycle Project thru Portfolio Management with increasing levels of leadership and responsibility
- Recognized for exceptional people management experience, hiring practices, sound decision making and excellent judgement with risk management programs, logistics and continuous process improvement
- Provided thought leadership for process improvements in lessons learned activities and improved agility of team impacting both sales and delivery transition of clients by reducing and streamlining activities initially approximately 50% with ongoing continuous improvement
- Contributed significantly to Financial and Industrial sector performance thru improvement of accounts managed surpassing metrics by more than 8% as a Transition Program Manager
- Provided excellent customer support to assist clients thru hardware, computer software, and support changes delivering value on time and within budget
- Successfully managed portfolio over $900M exhibiting excellent interpersonal and leadership skills to successfully coach, mentor and inspire team of 21 direct reports, vendors, and sub-contractors
- Improved project client ratings over 11% thru oversight of portfolio of over 100 ongoing projects
- Instrumental in account receiving its first ever “A” rating thru operational service excellence, because of resilient processes, administrative reporting analytics, conflict resolution and strict quality management
- Significantly reduced contract exceptions, improved accounts receivable thru improved change management processes recovering ~ $1M in outstanding invoicing positively impacting gross profit
Education
Bachelor - Commerce, Labor Studies, Business
McMaster University
Hamilton, ON04.1996
Diploma - Business Administration And Management
Capilano University
North Vancouver, BC Canada04.1990
Skills
- Business Development
- Staff Management
- Adaptability
- Problem Solving
- Innovation Management
- Client Relationship Management
- Risk Assessment
- Change Management
- Process Improvement
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Cross-functional Collaboration
- Team Leadership
Certification
- PMP - Project Management Professional
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner - Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- IBM Executive Certified Project Manager- IBM
- Stanford Certified Project Management Program (SCPM) - Stanford University
- SAFe® 4 Certified Agilist - Scaled Agile, Inc.
- CYBERSECURITY FOR MANAGERS: A PLAYBOOK - MIT Sloan Executive Education
Additional Information
Have retained both US and Canadian Citizenship and can travel easily between countries
Timeline
ServiceNow Sales Director
Linium a Cognizant Company
10.2022 - Current
Engineering Regional Practice Lead West and Bay
Area, Infosys
03.2021 - 09.2022
Senior Manager, Cloud Sales Enablement
Accenture
12.2017 - 07.2020
Manager • Bid Manager | Sales Proposal Writer and Coordinator
Accenture
07.2015 - 11.2017
Senior Manager, Global Cloud PM CoE
IBM
08.2013 - 06.2015
Manager • Bid Management | Sales Proposal Writer and Coordinator
IBM
07.2011 - 07.2013
Portfolio | Program Management
IBM
02.2000 - 07.2011
Bachelor - Commerce, Labor Studies, Business
McMaster University
Diploma - Business Administration And Management
Capilano University
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