Chris Drynan

Acela leverages an on-demand fractional executive and consulting model to access tenured expertise in sales, operations and IT Infrastructure. Acela is built to assist business leaders and owners adapt and create meaningful change in their companies. Our team leverage proven experts from startups, early-stage and growth phase companies. We develop organizational structures, systems and processes with line of site across the entire organization to bring alignment and clear communication to every team member.

• Providing HR, organizational structure, partner development and legal support for a national technology company.
• Coached restaurant group through restructure and change management processes.
• Scaling and providing operation support to LA based entertainment company.
• Providing, organizational structure, partner development and legal support for a government focused technology VAR.

• Led cross-functional team to support top-line revenue growth from $10 million to $130 million, including 82% growth in professional services and support.
• Implemented HubSpot marketing automation software saving 40% on costs and increased lead generation by over 60%.
• Scaled resources and onboarding systems enabling growth from 10 to 103 employees.
• Negotiated risk management across three divisions and four locations and warehouses cutting costs by over 35%.
• Integrated procurement and special pricing software to reduce processing time and project setup by over 20%.
• Increased customer invoice processing by almost 20% on average across the project closure process by adding critical data points to quoting process and procurement templates.
• Created, reviewed and managed all customer, vendor and partner agreements resulting in $900 million in top-line revenues.
• Designed and implemented contract management templates and workflows:
• Increased scope of work (SOW) attach rates by 60% in 12 months, and
• Decreased project documentation processing by over 30%.
• Implemented security, change management and control procedures to ensure customer compliance and regulatory requirements leading to zero breaches and 100% compliance across every security audit.
• Consolidated nine separate systems/applications into three core applications: Salesforce (CRM), ConnectWise (procurement, project billable tracking and quoting) and Finance to provide complete end-to-end ordering process across three divisions.
• Assigned shared OKR and KPI tracking across inside sales, procurement, project delivery, support through invoicing.
• Customer facing leader for project delivery and escalation management for all key customers, vendors and partners.
• Implemented remote business and field operations and support maintenance during COVID-19.
• Maintained P&L and shouldered corporate fiscal responsibility for three separate divisions.
• Reduced headcount through Kaizen Rapid Improvement cross-functional processes eliminating duplicate efforts and manual entry errors.

• Increased efficiencies by 40% through restructuring sales and post-sales teams to ensure faster response, improved customer service, increased sales and leverage of enhanced supplier network.
• Reduced variable costs by 30% by restructuring compensation strategies to align with an incentive-based structure.
• Restructured sales and post-sales processes methodologies increasing close ratios from 50:1 to 18:1.
• Increased sales by 18% by aligning quarterly goals with tiered sales targets.
• Increased monthly repeat sales by 30%; developed new sales product and increased sales by 200% in less than one year.
• Built and managed sales team and separate 24/7 call center to support global customers and vendors.
• Re-prioritized and allocated human resources to support three corporate restructuring efforts.
• Partnered with financial and supply chain leadership to address economic and industry downturns in 2009 financial crisis.

• Directed RFP responses for marketing, inside sales, contract negotiations, compliance and partner development.
• Created joint U.S. and offshore inside sales teams (100+ person department), supporting 85% of revenues across enterprise.
• Reduced overall headcount by more than 35% through training and development of sales teams.
• Transitioned internal configuration business to partner facility saving 35%.
• Increased user productivity by 40% by developing new front end to SAP sales platform.
• Managed compliance for all contractual clients (pricing, audits, processes and customer implementations).
• Earned 5x marketing annual profit by integrating marketing strategies and aligning sales efforts.
• Increased GP by 16% through combination of upgrading partner levels to Microsoft Gold LAR Partner, Symantec Platinum including "Partner of the Year 2006" award and Cisco Silver DVAR.

• Grew new business by more than 70% through direct sales efforts.
• Established partnerships with key partners: Vernier Networks, Cisco, Foundry Networks, and local resellers.
• Drove new sales, partner development, and for SMB and SLED markets in Southern California in security, network engineering, wireless gateways, infrastructure management and strategic IS consulting.
• Developed a new vendor and solution stack leading to 80% increase in sales in 10 months.
• Created customized business development strategy driving over 15+ new prospect meetings per month.

• Configured and sold customized support programs totaling $32.5M annually.
• Promoted to field sales representative within six months of hiring date.
• Achieved on average over 135% of annual quotas through successfully growing major enterprise accounts: Sun Microsystems, Inc., NetZero Inc., Walt Disney Inc., PG&E, DIRECTV, JDSU, and Toshiba.
• Top performer in Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001. Achieved Presidents Club all three years.

• Managed finance and human resource departments.
• Produced monthly financial statements and managed company cash and budgets.
• Established internal accounting procedures and policies.
• Established budgets and forecasting for all departments.
• Set up and controlled the United Kingdom office, including financials, cash, and bank accounts.
• Produced monthly consolidated financial statements and prepared monthly journal entries and reconciliations.
• Worked with E&Y consulting to close quarterly and annual statements.