Christopher Sarama
St. Johns,FL
Summary
Portfolio Manager with a proven track record of delivering projects on time and within budget. Expertise in strategic planning, risk management, and effective stakeholder communication. Strong leadership and problem-solving skills drive high productivity and successful outcomes.
Overview
35
35
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Sr. IT Program Manager
Florida Blue
01.2024 - Current
- Currently supporting the enterprise rollout of various AI pattern capabilities (generative and recognition) internally, and to subsidiaries and affiliates. Also leading the corporate PMO in AI adoption and AI-specific project management methodology.
- Previous projects centered on various Finance Cloud migrations and the incorporation of third-party financial services.
Claims Domain Sr. IT Manager
Florida Blue
03.2021 - 12.2023
- Directly lead three separate IT Claims Domain teams: Portfolio Management (PMO), Issue Management, and the BlueCard development team.
- Served as the co-IT Execution Lead for the multi-year, multi-IT, and business area Blue Card Modernization (BCM) initiative.
- I inherited the PMO team with an employee survey favorability score in the 60% range. Within 2 years, I was able to raise the favorability scores into the 90% range and consistently maintain that year over year over the next 5 years, across all teams, with a 97% survey participation rate and a 92% 'Advocate' rate.
Claims Domain Portfolio Manager
Florida Blue
09.2016 - 02.2021
- Responsible for the Claims Domain Project Management Office (PMO) with a staff of 12-25 Project/Program Managers, Scrum Masters, and an Agile Coach.
- The team handled approximately 5-7 large corporate cross-domain and vendor initiatives yearly across BlueCard, FEP, Commercial, Compliance, Medicare, and customer-funded efforts, with an annual budget ranging from $10M to $37M.
- Additional accountabilities included domain-level intake, coordination, and review of and project business case initiation support.
- Also responsible for the centralized Domain-level Issue Management team for day-to-day SCT requests for break-fix, maintenance, and systems enhancement support.
IT Business Architect
Florida Blue
09.2014 - 08.2016
- Supported both the IT Enabling and Compliance Domains for alignment of planned capabilities to enterprise strategy, collaboration with other business and technical architects to understand people, processes, and technology, support of enterprise strategy definition, enablement, and execution of architectural activities under an adopted common framework, and business case development.
- Assisted with portfolio financial controllership and implementation across 30+ projects.
- Coordination and support of both operational and investing efforts.
Corporate Finance Business Architect
Florida Blue
07.2012 - 09.2014
- Finance Group Strategy: Translated high-level finance business strategies into operational strategies, and defined integrated business/technology solutions.
- Provided input into the 2–5-year operating vision for delivering business solutions that were aligned with corporate strategic objectives and corporate initiatives.
- Developed and executed formal communications for Sr. Leadership and stakeholders around capability and migration planning.
- Finance Group Operations: Ensured that the Finance day-to-day business needs were represented as part of the IT development of systems and solutions through integration and strong knowledge of the Finance Business Strategy and business and operational processes.
- Finance Program Integration: 2012-2013 provided program-level leadership and consultation to Finance regarding planning, execution, and benefit realization of business technology solutions. This is for both investing and operationally funded projects.
- EProcurement Program: 2014-2015 served as the Program Manager and Agile Product Owner for the complex procurement integration and rollout of their end-to-end Settle to Source system, ePro, and the retirement of its predecessor, CAMS.
Finance Business Advocate
Florida Blue
01.2011 - 07.2012
- Served as the Integrator between the Finance and IT divisions.
- Primary accountabilities were to represent Finance within IT and to help drive business strategy development, business planning, and project placemat selection and prioritization.
- This included the coordination and integration of project pre-execution with Business Capability Engineers, IT and business project managers.
- Secondary accountabilities were to provide coordination assistance for end-to-end solution design, solution development, delivery, and testing.
Senior Instructor
University of North Florida
01.2003 - 01.2012
- Served as an Instructor with 1,200+ contact hours teaching Basic and Advanced-level Project Management and PMP Exam preparation courses to a target audience of adult, working professionals.
- Material was focused on the PMBOK knowledge areas, project phases, project lifecycles, and integration points.
Project Manager II
Florida Blue
09.2006 - 12.2010
- Served as a Team Lead in the IT requirements area for support of Delivery Systems, Service Organization, and Finance division projects.
- Specific domain accountabilities were for all projects that impacted Medical Cost Management, Finance, Pharmacy, Medicare, EOB, and 835 transactions.
- Matrix-managed 3-5 Project Leads and associated project team members for the RUP Requirements, Analysis, and Design phases of the projects.
Manager of Sales Operational Reporting
Florida Blue
07.2005 - 09.2006
- Managed an operational and data analysis team of 20 individuals in the Channel Partner Information Management (CPIM) area.
- Operational responsibilities were for all Sales related agent/agency contracting, appointments, and vendor relationships.
- Data analytics responsibilities were for Sales reporting across geographic, product lines, and market segments to senior Sales Leadership.
- Executed extensive coordination with Legal counsel for the re-write and streamlining of the Sales contract documentation and associated processes, as well as primary coordination with IT for the streamlining and retirement of multiple redundant Sales support applications and databases.
- Received the Sales division ACE award from the Group VP of Sales for 'Leadership in providing excellent service and support to BCBSF Sales Partners.'
Manager I
Florida Blue
07.2001 - 07.2005
- Managed a team of 10 individuals in the Corporate Data Quality (CDQ) area, with primary accountabilities for the Corporate Codes Repository, Claims Repository, and metadata stewardship program for related data models and structures.
- Assisted CDQ leadership in analyzing corporate high-level business strategies for data quality impacts, and determining operational strategies and solutions.
- Additional management accountabilities were for the operational management of both technical and business resources, budget/financial reporting, operational reporting, and communications.
Sr. Project Consultant
Florida Blue
01.1999 - 06.2001
- Managed the Corporate Data Quality (CDQ) PMO with responsibilities to track multiple sub-projects.
- This represented 7 PMs and $11.5M over a 2-year period.
- Coordinated capacity planning and communicated project status information to corporate senior leadership and directly supported the VP of CDQ as needed.
- Project Manager over a team of 5 individuals on the Operational Performance System project.
- Coordinated business requirements, testing, training, and communication.
Healthcare Data Analyst III to Sr. Healthcare Data Analyst
Florida Blue
01.1996 - 12.1998
- Served as a Project Manager for the implementation of a standard physician-profiling methodology and software.
- Accountabilities included identifying Corporate and regional business needs and rules for a standard profiling tool while coordinating with external vendors for possible COTS solutions.
- Formulated a regional deployment strategy and coordinated hierarchical roles and responsibilities for problem resolution and ongoing support within IT.
- Created SOWs and assisted in the evaluation of RFI and RFP responses.
- Performed ad hoc and production programming in support of Illness Management, Network disruption analysis, and Provider contacting initiatives.
- Assisted the HCS medical staff during NCQA audits while utilizing Total Quality Management principles, procedures, and statistical analysis tools.
Junior Officer
United States Army
01.1991 - 01.1998
- Served as a Junior Officer in US Army Signal Corps and Transportation Corps with a final duty assignment as the Executive Officer of a 120+ member Company-level unit.
- Managed multiple 35-40 member Platoons and served as a Contract Supervision Officer supervising up to 50 civilian contractors for the Southeast Region Military Sealift Command.
- Leadership duties were to ensure that assigned soldiers were trained, executed tasks, and were evaluated relative to mission goals and objectives.
- Additional duties were to coordinate Company-level training with other Reserve, National Guard, and Regular Army units to ensure the unit met deployment readiness standards and potential overseas assignments.
Associate Programmer Analyst to Systems Analyst I
Florida Blue
12.1991 - 12.1995
- Performed SAS programming for end-user decision support utilizing mainframe tools and utilities such as abend analysis, JCL, TSO/ISPF, and Panvelet.
- Performed ad hoc and production programming support.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science, Minor: Mathematics
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FLMaster of Business Administration - Emphasis in Accounting Information Systems
University of North Florida
Jacksonville, FLSkills
- Agile and waterfall methodologies
- AI Project Management
- IT project and program management
- Portfolio management
- Cloud migration
- Strategic planning
- Cross-functional leadership
- Stakeholder management
- Budget control
Certification
- Project Management Professional (PMP), PMI
- Six Sigma Blue Belt and Green Certifications, Florida Blue
- Leading SAFe certification, Scaled Agile, Inc.
- Cognitive Project Management in Artificial Intelligence (CPMAI), PMI
References
References available upon request.
Timeline
Sr. IT Program Manager
Florida Blue
01.2024 - Current
Claims Domain Sr. IT Manager
Florida Blue
03.2021 - 12.2023
Claims Domain Portfolio Manager
Florida Blue
09.2016 - 02.2021
IT Business Architect
Florida Blue
09.2014 - 08.2016
Corporate Finance Business Architect
Florida Blue
07.2012 - 09.2014
Finance Business Advocate
Florida Blue
01.2011 - 07.2012
Project Manager II
Florida Blue
09.2006 - 12.2010
Manager of Sales Operational Reporting
Florida Blue
07.2005 - 09.2006
Senior Instructor
University of North Florida
01.2003 - 01.2012
Manager I
Florida Blue
07.2001 - 07.2005
Sr. Project Consultant
Florida Blue
01.1999 - 06.2001
Healthcare Data Analyst III to Sr. Healthcare Data Analyst
Florida Blue
01.1996 - 12.1998
Associate Programmer Analyst to Systems Analyst I
Florida Blue
12.1991 - 12.1995
Junior Officer
United States Army
01.1991 - 01.1998
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science, Minor: Mathematics
University of Miami
Master of Business Administration - Emphasis in Accounting Information Systems
University of North Florida
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