James Argilagos
Dacula,GA
Summary
Experienced and visionary technology leader with 25+ years of global leadership, adept at spearheading teams to execute complex cross-functional program. Strategic and collaborative thinker known for fostering alignment and forging partnerships across diverse stakeholders. Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into tangible results, with a track record of navigating ambiguity through robust governance practices to meet business objectives. Passionate about influencing decision-making.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Manager, Business Strategy, Operations & Agile Maturity
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Lawrenceville, GA
01.2020 - 04.2024
- Lead a globally distributed team of eight people, focused on Agile ways of working & maturity, strategic portfolio programs, stakeholder demand management, business operations, and financial health
- Led the design and implementation of a new agile delivery framework for an organization of 200 people, resulting in a 20% increase in team efficiency and a 15% reduction in complexity
- Established Agile PMO practices, including Demand Management, Agile centers of excellence, Monthly Business Reviews, and a Team of teams executive readouts streamlining business requirements and enabling leadership to make data-driven decisions
- Managed the organization's budget, consistently keeping spending within +/-1% of the committed quarterly budget, even amidst leadership changes and other challenges
- Developed a working funding model for special projects supporting Cisco's Hybrid worker initiative
- Coordinated cross-departmental projects to ensure timely and successful completion.
- Streamlined communication channels, improving information flow and decision-making speed.
Chief of Staff & Program Manager
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Remote, Lawrenceville, GA
06.2018 - 12.2019
- Oversaw the strategic & portfolio planning, business operations, finances, and tasks for our organization’s executive leader
- Led the strategic planning cycles with architects and senior leaders, delivering fiscal year planning with new portfolios and programs, and tracking OKR with key performance indicators
- Led our commercial excellence initiative to optimize our vendor and location strategy transitioning over 50% of our contingent workforce back to their vendor offices globally
- Supported the governance of the digital workplace transformation virtual PMO team, ensuring projects were delivered, changes were managed, and the budget was within +/- 1% of the target
- Developing business and technical architectures for the Employee Experience and digital workplace-related IT Systems
- Partnering with Technical Architecture, Security, Engineering, and Sales to evaluate and implement solutions and capabilities to transform Team collaboration, Meeting Experience, and Content Collaboration.
Collaboration Program Manager
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Lawrenceville, GA
06.2015 - 06.2018
- Facilitated quarterly strategic engagements with Business/IT executive leadership to strengthen the relationship with business stakeholders
- Led the learning strategy and campaign to adopt SAFe Agile practices across the organization
- Spearheaded a cross-functional virtual team to deliver timely and insightful service and business reviews to the CIO and senior leaders, ensuring continued alignment to strategy; planned benefits, and outcomes.
- Created presentations outlining proposed solutions for addressing challenges encountered during program execution.
- Participated actively in brainstorming sessions focused on improving existing processes or creating innovative approaches for delivering services more efficiently.
Collaboration Service Manager
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Hybrid, Lawrenceville, GA
06.2009 - 06.2015
- Managed the end-to-end Webex Collaboration IT service for over 100,000 users, delivering conferencing service offerings (Webex Conferencing, Video conferencing)
- Ensured service health and continuous improvement based on incidents and feedback and provided consistent service management throughout the lifecycle
- During the manager's absence, assumed the role of leading the team and driving team strategy, roadmap priorities, and deliverables
- Amidst organizational changes, led a successful major release of WebEx, which included various security enhancements; In parallel, assisted new team members with defining and learning roles within the service lifecycle
- Developed strong cross-functional partnerships within IT and Business Units on roadmap strategies resulting in delivering enhanced collaborative experiences to our users regardless of device and/or platform.
Education
BS: Business Information Sciences -
Georgia Gwinnett College
Skills
- People Leadership
- Cross-functional team management
- Team Leadership
- Strategic Thinking
- Critical Problem Solving
- Agile Program Management
- Lean Portfolio Management
- Agile Ways of Working
- Digital Workplace & Employee Experience
- Design Thinking
- ITIL Service Management
- Service Delivery
- Strategy Management
- Relationship Management
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Organizational Transformation
- Business Operations
- Business Finance
- Workforce Management
- Operational Metrics
- Webex Collaboration
- Generative AI
- Machine Learning
- Software Development Life Cycle
- Microsoft 365
- PowerBI
- Power Automate
- MS SharePoint
Professional Development
- IT Senior Management Forum – Management Academy (2022 – 2023)
- Next Generation Leadership (2021 – 2022)
- ITIL 4 Leader: Digital & IT Strategy (2022)
- Design Thinking for Results (2021)
- Aligning Work with Strategy (2021)
- Executive Leadership Council (2019)
- Cisco Aspiring Leaders Cohort (2016)
- SAFe Agilist 6.0
- SAFe Portfolio Manager
- SAFe Program Manager
Timeline
Manager, Business Strategy, Operations & Agile Maturity
Cisco Systems, Inc.
01.2020 - 04.2024
Chief of Staff & Program Manager
Cisco Systems, Inc.
06.2018 - 12.2019
Collaboration Program Manager
Cisco Systems, Inc.
06.2015 - 06.2018
Collaboration Service Manager
Cisco Systems, Inc.
06.2009 - 06.2015
BS: Business Information Sciences -
Georgia Gwinnett College