Daniel G Gillenwater
Troy,USA
Summary
Strategic Director known for high productivity and efficient project and task completion. Specialize in operational and technological strategies, team leadership, and financial oversight. Excel in communication, problem-solving, and adaptability, ensuring effective team collaboration and project success. Proven record of delivering innovation solutions for process optimization, and achieving organizational goals.
Overview
2027
2027
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Director, Legal Operations
Ally Financial
Detroit, USA
05.2020 - Current
- Lead operations team through servant leadership, mentoring, and fostering collaborative teamwork.
- Engage in strategic planning, aligning the legal departments goals with strategic objectives, and developing long-term roadmaps for operational excellence.
- Foster relationships for cross-functional collaboration, acting as a bridge between the legal staff and information technology, risk, finance, human resources, supply chain, compliance, anti-money laundering, and auto servicing.
- Transformed the legal technology stack, meeting strategic objectives, workflow optimization, and cost efficiency gains related to ELM (TeamConnect to Onit), Document Management (eDocs to NetDocs), Data Analytics (Business Objects to PowerBI), eDiscovery (TeamConnect to Exterro), Board Portal (BoardVantage to Diligent), and Entity Management (Diligent to HCue).
- Evaluate AI-driven automation tools, including Contract Review AI (Spellbook) and AI feature add-ons for ELM, eDiscovery, Document Management, and more.
- As product owner, develop business use cases for investments in existing and new technologies that align with strategic objectives, including AI initiatives.
- Provide data analytics and reporting to the legal staff utilizing metrics to inform decision-making, manage risks, manage spend, and show legal value to executive leadership and cross-functional collaborators.
- Provide data analytics on Outside Counsel spend to executive leadership as related to annual rate increase requests and negotiate with outside counsel to achieve agreed-upon rates that meet strategic objectives for expense containment.
- Annual review of various legal policies and procedures for revision, including Outside Counsel standard terms of engagement.
Sr Project Manager, Digital Channel Technology
Ally Financial
Detroit, USA
2016 - 2020
- Administered AAOS program portfolio, overseeing resource planning, financial budgets, forecasts, and asset capitalization to ensure alignment with strategic objectives.
- Project Managed the AAOS piece of the Advantage project for four years, with AAOS being the largest application integrated with Advantage (replacement for decades old mainframe), servicing over four million Ally Auto customers.
- Managed a project team of 50+ developers, solution architects, system analysts, business analysts, and testers.
- Project oversight included requirements gathering and review sessions, gap analysis, data mapping, unit testing, system testing, functional testing, UAT, regression testing, and performance testing (over 17,000 test scripts created and automated).
- Cultivated productive relationship between AAOS IT and Advantage IT, facilitating quick resolution of obstacles and challenges in line with 'One Ally' values.
- Executed four mock trial runs, identifying and addressing release plan issues, ensuring readiness for production deployment.
- AAOS-Advantage deployed to production in January 2020, with a high degree of success and accolades from Auto and Digital team leadership. The highly configurable platform allowed for a quick response to the Covid pandemic that enabled developers to quickly develop a feature allowing financially distressed auto customers to seamlessly request payment deferment.
Legal Technology Program Manager
Ally Financial
Detroit, USA
2008 - 2016
- Managed a team of six IT employees and contractors to deliver projects and provide operational support.
- Oversaw annual project portfolio budget planning and maintained monthly forecasts with minimal variances.
- Negotiated a three-year contract extension for matter management solution, saving $500k.
- Collaborated with sourcing to draft vendor SOWs and MSAs, renegotiating terms for cost savings.
- Engaged with executive leadership in strategic planning, aligning technology roadmaps with legal staff needs.
- Deployed eDiscovery solution (Encase) in 2015 to optimize data capture from various sources.
- Coordinated with CIO and Corporate Secretary for selection and delivery of BoardVantage portal, ensuring secure board book management.
- Successfully implemented TeamConnect legal hold module in 2011 to automate tracking of custodian responses.
- Supported Ally’s transformation into a Bank Holding Company in 2009 by building the Federal Reserve's regulatory requirements into the entity management system's design.
- Authored the legal department’s Outside Counsel Billing Guidelines in partnership with the Director of Legal, leveraging my experience working for a few Detroit-based law firms.
- Implemented an eBilling and matter management solution (TeamConnect) in 2009, onboarding over one hundred Outside Counsel firms, and saving Ally 5% ($2MM) in annual Outside Counsel legal spend.
Education
Master of Science - Business Information Technology – Project Management Specialization
Walsh College
Troy, MI01-2003
Bachelor of Business Administration - General Business
Walsh College
Troy, MI01-1997
Skills
- Strategic Planning
- Team Building and Collaboration
- Legal Technology SME
- Technology Innovation and AI
- Data Analytics and Reporting
- Financial Management
- Budget Oversight
- Contract Review
- Vendor Management
- Project Management and Agile Methodology
- Process Optimization
- Communication and Stakeholder Engagement
Certification
Project Management Professional PMP Certification, 430078, 2006
Recognition
- I’m an Ally, Q3 2024
- I’m an Ally, Q4 2022
Timeline
Director, Legal Operations
Ally Financial
05.2020 - Current
Sr Project Manager, Digital Channel Technology
Ally Financial
2016 - 2020
Legal Technology Program Manager
Ally Financial
2008 - 2016
Master of Science - Business Information Technology – Project Management Specialization
Walsh College
Bachelor of Business Administration - General Business
Walsh College