Hariharasudhan Shanmugam
Summary
I am an experienced business leader with 23 years experience in heading enterprise level program management office , Quality Management, systems engineering focusing on software engineering for larger scale of portfolio & Programs and have lead programs in banking, Retail,Insurance and Energy sector & ecommerce.
Overview
23
23
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Head of Enterprise Program Management Office
Academy Sports + Outdoors
02.2019 - Current
- Responsible for heading EPMO & VMO(Vendor Management Office) to deliver the best in class service for the best fast growing company.
- Liaison between business and IT to deliver the long rang plan for the company.
- Hands on Program management for key business systems programs including, program governance, risk management, change management, technical requirement definition and portfolio management.
- Sole responsible for managing $100 to $125 Million budget per year.
- Building and maintaining business & IT initiative roadmap and prioritizing them to bring the value out of each initiatives.
- Partner and vendor selection / management.
- Define and manage quality stage gates for release to production.
- Continuous improvement and change transformation implementer using PMP methodologies.
- Demonstrated respect, friendliness and willingness to help wherever needed.
- Organized and detail-oriented with a strong work ethic.
- Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.
- Proved successful working within tight deadlines and a fast-paced environment.
- Used critical thinking to break down problems, evaluate solutions and make decisions.
- Acted as a team leader in group projects, delegating tasks and providing feedback.
- Delivered services to customer locations within specific timeframes.
- Provided professional services and support in a dynamic work environment.
- Participated in team projects, demonstrating an ability to work collaboratively and effectively.
- Exercised leadership capabilities by successfully motivating and inspiring others.
- Resolved problems, improved operations and provided exceptional service.
- Worked flexible hours across night, weekend, and holiday shifts.
- Skilled at working independently and collaboratively in a team environment.
- Demonstrated strong organizational and time management skills while managing multiple projects.
- Used strong analytical and problem-solving skills to develop effective solutions for challenging situations.
- Demonstrated leadership skills in managing projects from concept to completion.
- Developed and maintained courteous and effective working relationships.
- Developed strong communication and organizational skills through working on group projects.
- Cultivated interpersonal skills by building positive relationships with others.
- Demonstrated creativity and resourcefulness through the development of innovative solutions.
- Delivered huge transformation initiatives for Academy Sports + Outdoor, namely Manhattan Active Warehouse management system,Customer data platform, Oracle Financials, Payment Gateway, Ecommerce remodeling, RFID rollout, Launched Private bank credit card etc.
- Managed the Entire SQA department for the company which includes Functional, Automation, Performance and Security team
- Single point of contact for C level executives from IT and business
- Implemented T-CoE (Functional, Automation, Performance) for the company and transformed the team to next-gen level
Up-skilled the SQA resources to SDET level resources in 10 months
duration - Managing 20 direct reports and 150+ external resources
- Developed the KPI capturing tool for the company and generated the key metrics out of the tool to report to exec team
- Performed the tool and testing practice maturity assessment for the company
- Setup the standard process and governance across the teams.
SR. PROGRAM MANAGER
City Of San Antonio
12.2018 - 02.2019
- Cross team program management for architecture, development, product management, validation and business development.
- Defined clear targets and objectives and communicated to other team members.
- Assisted in organizing and overseeing assignments to drive operational excellence.
- Successfully managed budgets and allocated resources to maximize productivity and profitability.
- Performed program research and analyzed data collection to develop cost estimates and budgets.
- Networked in local community to identify business opportunities.
- Mentored junior staff members, contributing to their professional growth and fostering a positive work environment.
- Facilitated stakeholder communication, leading to improved alignment between business objectives and program goals.
- Ensured compliance with industry regulations and organizational policies throughout the program lifecycle, mitigating potential risks or liabilities for the company.
- Developed detailed plans based on broad guidance and direction.
- Led process improvement initiatives by conducting thorough analyses of existing workflows, identifying bottlenecks and redundancies that hindered progress toward established targets.
- Managed cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality products within scope and budget constraints.
- Collaborated with development teams, internal customers, and product line management to verify delivery of desired quality requirements to distributors.
- Established team priorities, maintained schedules and monitored performance.
- Spearheaded change management efforts during organizational transitions, minimizing disruption while maintaining focus on key objectives.
- Reduced program costs through diligent budget management and identifying areas for cost savings.
- Championed continuous improvement initiatives within the organization, driving efficiency gains across all projects.
- Established performance goals for employees and provided feedback on methods for reaching those milestones.
- Resolved conflicts among team members to maintain a cohesive working environment focused on achieving shared goals.
- Managed Web team and Legacy applications (23 applications) teams
- Managed the team to deliver the best-in-class service for various government departments
- Migrated from Mainframe legacy applications to modern software
Supported the implementation and cutover activities for various strategic programs - Trained the team to adopt agile methodology project management activities
Played Scrum master role for the larger program
PORTFOLIO TEST DIRECTOR
AIG Insurance (Consulting Through Cognizant)
01.2018 - 12.2018
- Managed multiple testing projects and releases for one of the Business units called Life Insurance.
- Performed Transition manager role for AIG. Coordinating with incumbent vendor and new vendor for smooth transition.
- Coordinated with various stakeholders to perform the transition activities for the company like defining/executing the transition plan, facilitating KT sessions, ensuring effectiveness of KT using appropriate metrics.
- Appraised steering committee on delivery, issues, risks, escalation and P&L statuses.
- Planned for Transition, tracking & maintaining, driving best in class delivery and services to client, Identifying needed capabilities.
- Supported client in redefining operation processes for business units.
- Continually updated professional knowledge of industry trends and best practices in order to maintain a competitive edge in testing methodologies.
- Collaborated with development teams to establish effective defect resolution processes, reducing rework timeframes significantly.
- Streamlined release cycles via meticulous coordination of parallel testing efforts across multiple environments, thereby reducing time-to-market.
- Implemented risk-based testing strategies, prioritizing high-risk areas for focused attention and resource allocation.
- Demonstrated strong organizational and time management skills while managing multiple projects.
- Developed strong communication and organizational skills through working on group projects.
PORTFOLIO TEST MANAGER
Direct Energy (Consulting Through Cognizant)
06.2016 - 12.2017
- Single point of Testing contact for customer and building strong relationship with customers.
- Built eco-system of IT partners, appraising steering committee about delivery, issue, risk, escalation and P&L statuses.
- Managed overall relationship between Cognizant and Direct Energy. Responsible for overall Cognizant P&L including revenue, customer profitability and customer satisfaction across all existing and new Cognizant programs.
- End-to-End delivery responsibility in testing, leading & guiding the Cognizant team in building winning propositions working in collaboration with the Delivery and Testing COE Leaders both at Onsite and Offshore.
- Responsible for giving direction to Test Managers and implement the best practice across all the projects within the portfolio.
Enabled QA resources to QE by setting up appropriate trainings for the team. - Implemented transformation in key focus areas like automation testing using TestNG framework, Performance & Security testing for the entire portfolio.
- Participated in project in-take meetings with business and provided testing scope and high level cost estimate.
Implemented best practices to the account from ‘Cognizant Testing Center of Excellence (TCOE)' based on customer needs, like identifying the right automation framework for the portfolio and more. - Account planning & strategizing, driving & implementing best in class solutions by identifying the needed capabilities.
- Identifying long-term opportunities within customer engagement by defining and planning for solutions through collaboration with various Cognizant stakeholders
- Responsible for program delivery setup; Conducting periodic delivery review with client and Cognizant executive teams;
- Responsible for overseeing delivery and reviewing account/portfolio/program performance; Ensuring on time and within budget project delivery.
- Gathered data on integration issues and vulnerabilities, reported findings and recommended improvements.
- Identified areas for process improvement within the testing lifecycle, leading to reduced time-to-market for products.
- Reduced defects in production with thorough regression testing and identification of root causes.
- Analyzed historical testing results to isolate failure patterns for long-term investigation into possible development protocols improvements.
- Optimized software quality by overseeing comprehensive test plans and protocols.
- Completed in-depth usability testing on Windows, Android and iOS mobile devices.
- Cultivated strong working relationships with key project stakeholders, enabling seamless integration between teams during product roll-out initiatives.
PROGRAM TEST MANAGER
Capital One(Consulting Through Cognizant)
08.2010 - 06.2016
- Delivery partner in Testing, for a major part of Retail Banking division for Capital One Bank.
- Vendor management and contract SLA adherence.
- Driven organizational changes in implementing Agile transformation, Automation at the enterprise level.
- Facilitated trainings for teams on tools like Selenium, UFT, DevOps tools etc
- Responsible for end-to-end project/program delivery, planning, issues resolution, risk management, delivery excellence, resource planning and management.
- Account planning & strategizing, business development, penetration and implementation.
- Responsible for identifying & implementing best in class solutions for customer programs/projects.
- Accountable to implement agile model in various teams as part of the transformation initiatives.
- Accountable to Implement ATDD testing model and DevOps in the agile team.
- Delivered high-quality software releases through meticulous test case design, preparation, execution, and reporting efforts.
- Facilitated knowledge transfer sessions among team members to promote a shared understanding of program objectives and requirements.
- Developed validation master plans, process flow diagrams and standard operating procedures.
- Trained and guided onsite and offshore team members in quality assurance standards, policies and procedures.
- Streamlined processes through continuous improvement initiatives, reducing overall testing timeframes.
SR.TEST MANAGER
Lloyds Banking Group(Consulting Through Cognizant)
09.2007 - 07.2010
- Operational manager for multi site contact center solution for government services.
- Managed team for a ‘transformation program and acquisition' for the bank with HBOS.
- Responsible for strategizing, planning, estimating, implementing, and delivery of work products for the bank.
- Responsible for communicating the progress and Stakeholder management - handling Business and various technology teams including vendor teams.
- Meeting the strict deadlines on various milestones due to the highest visibility and the nature of the transformation program.
Responsible for creating the Release calendar and Outage window for the Business - Responsible for identifying the enterprise level changes which impacts the Multifamily applications and ensuring the required production systems are tested and monitored
- Enhanced software quality by designing and implementing comprehensive test strategies for various projects.
- Facilitated strong relationships with stakeholders by keeping them informed about project progress and addressing any concerns promptly.
- Mastered several software testing programs.
- Mentored junior test managers, sharing industry insights and best practices to foster a culture of continuous learning and professional growth.
- Coordinated with off-site staff to verify correct use of test procedures and confirm accurate reporting.
PROJECT LEAD
First Data
12.2003 - 08.2007
- Worked on VisionPLUS mainframe based application and performed project lead activities for core module like CMS, FAS, HSM & performed VISA and MasterCard Certification testing along with UAT testing.
- Performed VisionPLUS product development & system testing, lead UAT for major modules, VisionPLUS 2.5 to 8.38 conversion.
ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT
KANBAY SOFTWARE INDIA PVT. LTD,
01.2003 - 11.2003
- Worked on Vision Plus product conversion from Version 2.5 to 8.0 including CMS, FAS modules
- Worked on Vision plus development project
- Maintained database systems to track and analyze operational data.
- Responsible for System, Integration, UAT testing for the conversion project & gap analysis
- Designing, Reviewing, Preparing test plans, test scenarios and test cases, and implementing new software
- Responsible for performing Impact analysis across modules, businesses before deciding on a new solution
- Responsible for technology capability support to ensure meeting the aggressive goals
PROGRAMMER
LNT Infotech
10.2001 - 02.2003
- Worked on Mainframe Production support (Level 2) for Motorola & incident handling.
- Responsible for on-time results & incident handling for Motorola
Education
Master of Science - Computer Science
Madras University
Chennai India03.2004
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science And Programming
St. Joseph's Arts & Science College
Cuddalore, India06.2000
Skills
- Program Management
- SCRUM / Agile
- Engineering Management
- Account Management
- Vendor Management
- Service Delivery Management
- Release and configuration management
- Product Management
- Team building and mentoring
- Technical Pre Sales
- QA Management
Accomplishments
Program Management:
- Built a matured Enterprise level program management office to deliver key business initiatives within Academy Sports & Outdoor.
- Initiated and delivered a core business initiatives such as Warehouse management, Oracle Financial application,ecommerce initiatives for Academy Sports & Outdoor company.
- Heading the Enterprise PMO team & Vendor management office and delivering the company's long range plan.
- Built a Testing Center of Excellence for various company and matured the quality assurance engineering team
- Achieved huge transformation initiatives which led to contribute for company growth by completing Warehouse management migration, Oracle Financial replacement, payment gateway implementation and bank merger initiatives with accuracy and efficiency.
Staff Development:
- Developed a team of Technical Program Managers to become SCRUM Masters in an Agile delivery model.
- Supervised team of larger team across Enterprise PMO, IT PMO and Quality Assurance team staff members close to 200 staff members.
- Collaborated with team of 20 workstream team in the development of Warehouse management project.
- Resolved product issue through consumer testing.
Skills
Operating System:MVS/ESA, AS/400, Windows 95/NT, Linux
Hardware:IBM S/390, Pentium Workstations
Tools: TSO, ISPF, CICS, SPUFI, SDSF, ENDEVOR, ChangeMan, Xpeditor, FILE-AID, CA7, CA11 and File Manager. HP Quality Center(ALM), VISA Test Simulator (VTS), MasterCard Simulator (MAS), Link Simulator (Lexcel), Microsoft Office,Jenkins, GitHub,Udeploy,ServiceNow
Databases: VSAM, DB2, MySQL, Oracle 7
Languages: VS COBOL, JCL, REXX, PHP, C, Java, CICS
Products: VisionPLUS – (CMS, FAS, HSM, LTS), BASE24 ATM & POS – Tandem/BASE24, Fidelity (IM, ST, RM, HX, TX & IT), Peace CIS (Hansen product)
Automation: VB-Macros, DEV-OPS (CI/CD), Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
Reporting Tool: PowerBi
Project Management: Microsoft Project, JIRA
PPM Tool: Daptiv,Planview
Certification
Certified Scrum Master @ Scrum Alliance – Richmond VA, USA
Certified Manager for Software Testing (CMST) – Orlando FL, USA
Post Graduate Program in Data Science and Business Analytics @ University of Austin, TX
Timeline
Head of Enterprise Program Management Office
Academy Sports + Outdoors
02.2019 - Current
SR. PROGRAM MANAGER
City Of San Antonio
12.2018 - 02.2019
PORTFOLIO TEST DIRECTOR
AIG Insurance (Consulting Through Cognizant)
01.2018 - 12.2018
PORTFOLIO TEST MANAGER
Direct Energy (Consulting Through Cognizant)
06.2016 - 12.2017
PROGRAM TEST MANAGER
Capital One(Consulting Through Cognizant)
08.2010 - 06.2016
SR.TEST MANAGER
Lloyds Banking Group(Consulting Through Cognizant)
09.2007 - 07.2010
PROJECT LEAD
First Data
12.2003 - 08.2007
ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT
KANBAY SOFTWARE INDIA PVT. LTD,
01.2003 - 11.2003
PROGRAMMER
LNT Infotech
10.2001 - 02.2003
Master of Science - Computer Science
Madras University
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science And Programming
St. Joseph's Arts & Science College
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