Donna Rodela
Colorado Springs,CO
Summary
With over 20 years of multi-disciplined IT experience, my expertise lies in strategic planning, process optimization, and organizational leadership. My focus is on helping organizations navigate transformation and drive growth by leveraging technology and talented individuals to create engaging digital, data, and people-driven experiences. I am passionate about inspiring teams to generate value through digital transformation and thrive in roles involving building strategy and executing operationally.
Overview
30
30
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior Director, Information Technology
Verizon
01.2020 - Current
- Led the 2-year transformation of Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance, resulting in rationalization of 200+ business processes and 8 applications utilized across 18 cross-functional stakeholder organizations, impacting over 11,000 end users and external vendors on the Service Now platform. Annual return on investment is over $26M in savings and cost avoidance.
- Leading a 4-year transformation of Finance Planning & Analysis including envisioning, developing, and evangelizing the long-term connected planning, data, and reporting strategy for the company. Includes implementation of Oracle SaaS EPM platform, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) based corporate data platform, and advanced AI/ML driven reporting and analytics platform. Eliminating over 100 manual Excel-based financial models, rationalizing 12+ standalone applications, connecting planning across 7 business units to drive real-time results and decision-making that directly impact company P&L and results reported to the street. Annual benefits include $30M in cost avoidance and hard savings.
- Leading a 2-year transformation of Enterprise Portfolio Management including rationalization of 4 applications, and standardization of 79 disparate portfolio processes utilized across 7 stakeholder organizations. Annual benefits include $5M in cost avoidance and hard savings.
- Responsible for managing multiple vendor 3rd party labor, service, and software contracts ranging from $2-25M investment, including workforce management and governance of service and software provider relationships.
- Understand business processes and strategy to identify opportunities for technological solutions to deliver value to the corporation. Partner with 44+ stakeholder groups across the enterprise to align people, processes, and technology around transformational goals.
- Responsible for developing and managing yearly capital and expense budgets ranging from $10-50M, including business case development, ROI calculation, monthly plan to forecast tracking and variance control, and operational management.
- Lead development of techno-functional, multi-year roadmaps for digital transformation and modernization of processes, technology, and organizations across the enterprise.
- Drove development of enterprise 'North Star Architecture' for Portfolio, Planning, and Risk Management journeys, aligned to business objectives and capability needs, with an eye for technology rationalization and innovation.
- Introduced governance and workforce models across multiple platforms ensuring alignment of technology to business outcomes and value, with flexibility to pivot priorities to meet the needs of a highly dynamic corporate business.
- Championed adoption of emerging technologies, evaluating potential benefits and ROI for the organization.
- Lead via strategic, inclusive, and authentic principles. Co-created organizational Vision, Mission, Values, and Strategy aligned to business unit and company goals to foster a high-performing, highly engaged workforce. Develop ongoing action plans to improve employee engagement survey feedback resulting in consistently measuring above company averages for employee engagement and satisfaction.
- Introduced new ways of working via product development and agile methodologies, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), NPS surveys, data products, governance, and Human Centered Design principles, resulting in a lower cost to serve and an increase in NPS scores.
- Responsible for developing and managing yearly capital and expense budgets ranging from $10-50M, including business case development, ROI calculation, monthly plan to forecast tracking and variance control, and operational management.
- Hands-on experience managing SOX, SPI, PII, and PCI control processes both as an end user as well as designer and architect for implementing said processes and controls across the company landscape.
Senior Manager, Information Technology
Verizon, MCI
01.2003 - 01.2020
- Led multiple modernization and digital transformation programs and application development teams supporting diverse corporate functions including HR, Payroll, Supply Chain, Talent Acquisition, Data Security, Enterprise Architecture, Vendor Management, Network Operations, Retail, Commissions, B2B partners, Portfolio Management, Corporate Portal and mobile applications, and multiple business transformation offices.
- Delivered over $50M return on investment from cost avoidance and operational efficiencies.
- Championed innovation in the organization by staying current on emerging technologies and identifying potential applications for business efficiencies.
- Collaborated with executive leadership to align departmental goals with overall strategic objectives, maximizing ROI on technology investments.
- Enhanced system efficiency by streamlining IT processes and implementing automated solutions.
- Oversaw hardware and software procurement, ensuring the acquisition of reliable technologies that met organizational needs.
- Interacted and negotiated with vendors and contractors to secure products and services.
- Acquired by Verizon from MCI in 2005
IT Systems Analyst & Developer
MCI
01.1995 - 01.2003
- Promoted to Senior Manager 2003
Education
Masters of Organizational Leadership (MSOL) -
University of Colorado
BS Biology - Biology
University of Colorado
01.1994
Skills
- Digital Transformation
- Organization Leadership
- Technology Strategy
- Innovation Ecosystems
- Business Strategy & Stakeholder Management
- Human Centered Design
- Financial Management
- Risk and Compliance
- Vendor & Contract Management
Accomplishments
⚡ $150M+ operational savings and cost avoidance
Led multiple strategic transformational initiatives resulting in over $150M in operational savings and cost avoidance for the firm, contributing directly to bottom line increase.
💡 Industry Innovation and $2M Revenue Creation
Built the Corporate Innovation and Emerging Tech ecosystem and led multiple innovation programs resulting in $2M in revenue annually and winning the 2022 W3B industry award for enterprise transformation.
💡Corporate IT $5M Operational Transformation
Spearheaded strategy, planning and process solutions for corporate IT transformation of operating model, resulting in $5M reduction in cost to serve.
Timeline
Senior Director, Information Technology
Verizon
01.2020 - Current
Senior Manager, Information Technology
Verizon, MCI
01.2003 - 01.2020
IT Systems Analyst & Developer
MCI
01.1995 - 01.2003
Masters of Organizational Leadership (MSOL) -
University of Colorado
BS Biology - Biology
University of Colorado