Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Generic
DeAnn Gould-Lancaster

DeAnn Gould-Lancaster

Technology Leader | Effective Operational Strategist
Shawnee,KS

Summary

During the last 15+ years of award-winning leadership, I have built 7+ high-performing teams who have accomplished challenging goals in a complex environment. My specialty is “connecting the dots” within a company by cultivating strong relationships and building trust to yield creative thinking and positive outcomes.

Overview

15
15
years of professional experience

Work History

Manager, Contact Center and Clinical Technologies

GEHA
Lee's Summit, MO
05.2019 - Current
  • Responsible for building, leading, and developing a new contact center and clinical desktop application technology team.
  • Design and deliver technical solutions aligned to key business units: clinical operations, contact center, customer experience, provider relations, marketing and inside sales teams.
  • Developed and executed a strategy to successfully deliver a multi-faceted telephony improvements project which included upgrading all telephony infrastructure and applications within a tight time frame.
  • Created and maintain a multi-year product roadmap to deliver technical solutions to increase IVR containment, empower agents and automate processes.
  • Reduced operational cost by delivering solutions which reduced live-agent call volume by 52%, introduced a screen pop with a 42.6% take rate, and increased IVR automation containment by 15.3% (goal was 6.8%.)
  • Lead executive sponsor and governance team meetings comprised of C-level executives, VPs, and directors to review and align on short- and long-range deliverables.
  • Negotiate with vendors to secure discount pricing on professional services and halt overage spend.
  • Expanded cross-functional organizational capacity by collaborating across departments on priorities, functions and common goals.
  • Controlled costs and optimized spending via restructuring of budgets for labor, capital assets, inventory purchasing and technology upgrades.

General Manager

H&R Block
Kansas City, MO
05.2017 - 05.2019
  • Led a team of 300+ seasonal associates across 15 cities comprised of 27 retail tax offices (average district size is 17 offices.)
  • Selected for a special job rotation to oversee what was once two separate districts in western and central Missouri.
  • Developed and implemented a business sales strategy to grow revenue from $8MM to $9MM.
  • Within first 6 months, achieved an 18.5% increase in sales revenue.
  • Consistent performance in year two resulted in a 16.3% increase in sales.
  • Recruited, onboarded, and trained associate talent by encouraging existing associates to refer job seekers in understaffed areas (grew staff from 250+ to 300+ within first year.)
  • Create a positive workplace culture through regular recognition, soliciting associate feedback and enacting change to improve the district team.
  • Drove year-over-year business growth while leading operations, strategic vision and long-range planning.

Product Owner

H&R Block
Kansas City, MO
12.2012 - 05.2017
  • Promoted to a corporate position leveraging my field experience, project management skills and cross- departmental relationships to influence multiple national pilots and program launches.
  • Led program management office function for BlockWorks professional tax preparation software national launch.
  • Optimized and led go-to market efforts resulting in an 85% adoption rate (goal 55%.)
  • Created Quality Performance Review process dramatically lowering the number of user entry errors through qualitative and quantitative analysis of software usage.
  • Translated key learnings into a 3- year product roadmap to implement a software feature called Quality Plus Review (QPR) to prevent errors and reduce claims costs.
  • Produced product metric dashboard to guide strategic decisions through all phases of national deployment.
  • Prepared weekly program status presentations for C-level executives.
  • Conducted monthly cross-functional stakeholder reviews with senior executives.
  • Equipped our on-site contact center with a multi-year plan to improve and standardize the use of KANA software at onshore and offshore facilities.
  • Implemented a regular cadence to review backlog items, solicit stakeholder feedback, and gain sponsor approval resulting in improved departmental alignment.

Operations and IT Manager

H&R Block
Ellisville, MO
09.2010 - 12.2012
  • Led operations and IT team of 27 full-time associates in supporting 511 retail locations across 7 states in the East, Midwest and Western United States.
  • Delivered effective office operations within schedule and budget of $17MM.
  • Achieved client engagement facility score of 90% (versus 80% company average.)
  • Designed an improved onboarding program for new operations and IT associates.
  • Contributed to the development of Enterprise Office Readiness Workflow tool by sharing best practices of how high-performing operations associates plan and implement tasks.
  • Developed 5 associates for promotion – 3 became district managers and 2 accepted corporate positions.

Education

Master of Arts - Arts Management

University of Illinois

Bachelor of Arts - Political Science

Clarion University of Pennsylvania

Skills

Change Management

Stakeholder Management

Cross-Functional Leadership

Strategy & Execution

Scrum/Agile Methodologies

Communications Strategy

Executive Presentations

Contact Center Technology

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DeAnn Gould-LancasterTechnology Leader | Effective Operational Strategist