Julie Abernathy
Operational Excellence Leader
Little Rock,AR
Summary
Driver of successful OpEx initiatives for over 20 years by leading teams focused on the optimizing business operational processes and their technology solutions.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
Work History
Director of Data Analytics and Compliance
Goodwill Industries Of Arkansas
12.2022 - Current
- Leadership of Data Analytics, Business Systems, Compliance, and Business Process Management teams to optimize the delivery of performance insights and and strategic programs across the organization.
- Modeled and demonstrated story-telling through data and communicated clearly with Executive leaders.
- Led and affected change in matrixed work environment.
- Understood business requirements and KPIs, created analytical hypotheses and identified solutions.
- Managed risk and compliance practices and developed data strategies that mitigated risk.
- Mapped current business and operational processes and recommended areas for improvement.
- Directed large, complex database systems and architectures and used structured and unstructured data with diverse analytics methodologies and approaches.
- Created workflow diagrams and Gantt charts to clearly demonstrate processes and timelines.
- Collaborated with Operational Process owners and Mission Program leadership to respond to questions and concerns regarding CARF Survey Readiness project details.
- Researched and compiled tailored monthly analytics and reports for senior management with PowerBI.
- Developed performance metrics derived from raw company data to track improvements in organizational efficiency.
- Provided operational user support for high-volume financial institution in fast-paced 24-hour work environment.
- Established online configuration knowledge base to support functionality by developing robust system application overview.
- Overhauled the Quality And Compliance Review Process to launch the use of defined Quality Standards, by conducting internal process evaluations, scored using weighted alignment to the strategic plan and implemented the practice of holding internal and operational calibration sessions.
- Implemented long-term growth initiatives by developing a roadmap for Digital Insights and Reporting Visualization strategies.
Senior Manager, IT PMO
Exeter Finance, LLC
06.2016 - 06.2017
- And Business Analysis – Enterprise PMO, Led large-scale software application efforts to transform Loan Servicing, e-Commerce, Collections, Accounting, and Treasury processes from manual to digital
- Facilitated discovery and design thinking sessions with business stakeholders to deliver the most appropriate business solutions, using either Waterfall or Agile depending on the complexity, scope, and/or required timeline of the enhancements
- Leveraged SQL to pull required data to analyze and determine the impact of a change, how to identify a functional requirement, or to make decisions on root-cause
- Planned and created Business and Functional Requirements Documents, User Stories, UI wireframes, Use Case Scenarios, and Test Cases for User Acceptance Testing sessions
- Product delivery included requirements for a customer account fulfillment portal, enhancements to Shaw Collections and Shaw Retail class modules, digitized payment processing and account maintenance processes with a GUI for workflow routing along with various Accounting and Treasury efforts pertaining to readiness for public offering and loan-level portfolio reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Updated system information, making appropriate changes to documentation.
Director of Business Process Excellence
Conn’s HomePlus
06.2017 - 06.2019
- Business Systems and Process Excellence, Key process owner of Business Systems and Process Excellence teams supporting the enterprise Credit Operations, including, Loan Servicing, Collections, Retail Point-of-Sale and e- Commerce applications
- Delivery ownership held for all technology platform implementations, strategic program executions, and process engineering efforts
- Key accomplishments for Conn’s under my leadership included:
- Redesign of the front-end Point-of-Sale Transaction systems and sequencing reducing contract defects by 80% over 12 months with a program change Epic of multiple iterations
- Improvements in the way deliveries, contracts and transaction functions interact and re-built the process to ensure accurate product billing for incomplete orders
- Process engineering of all loan modifications, payment processing, and collections hardship programs to promote automation of decisioning and back-end fulfillment
- The procurement, selection and architecture of new Loan Servicing and Customer Care systems; converting antiquated platforms and multiple data sources into a real-time, Cloud-based, SaaS platform for transaction processing and CRM for customer journey optimization
- Delivered a paperless Document Management protocol and redesigned customer Letter fulfillment processes, taking a manual desktop process to an automated digitized workflow process.
Senior Operations Manager, Records Management
Capital One Auto Finance
06.2016 - 06.2017
- Influenced the success of a 50+ FTE Records Management and Loan Servicing fulfillment team
- Led department improvement projects, risk mitigation efforts and owned business continuity plans, risk test plans, CFPB exam requests, and Federal Reserve collateral pledging attestations
- Co-developed organizational employee development and recognition programs
- Championed efforts towards a new digital records management and electronic fulfillment organization; notably deployed the use of software for Returned Mail analytics and implemented OCR software to route scanned documents to imaging queues
- Redesigned department productivity monitoring and reporting across all teams; key metrics were consistent with capacity plan, using a Completion Rate based on multiple SLA’s as a KPI
- Owned process documentation and the maintenance of artifacts such as SIPOC, FMEA, RACI, Control Plans, and Process Maps
- Utilized various root-cause analysis and decision making tools.
Process Improvement Manager
Ally Financial
04.2009 - 05.2015
- Led large-scale, cross-functional Lean Six Sigma initiatives, managing project teams as a Certified Black Belt
- Facilitated improvement, implementation and redesign efforts for an overall servicing organization of up to 1200 FTE across four U.S
- Sites and two off-shore vendor groups
- Supported IT or compliance readiness implementations where process excellence solutions related to business systems were being implemented - wrote user stories, supported sprint grooming sessions, and provided user testing oversight for Agile iterations, and for Waterfall projects, created business requirements and facilitated UAT prior to deployment and control phase monitoring
- Developed process controls where needed; influenced executive leadership with recommendations on areas of opportunities and coached on the use of process excellence tools to manage the operation.
Education
Bachelor of Business Administration - Economics
University of Central Arkansas
Skills
- Quality and Reliability Objectives
- Standards Determination
- Customer Satisfaction
- Program Improvements
- Workflow Development
- Statistical Data Analysis
- Quality Control Procedures
- Organizational Systems
- Troubleshooting and Testing
- Process Management
- Personnel Utilization Improvement
- Verbal and Writing Communication
- Corrective Actions
- Project Team Collaboration
- Safety Protocols
- Performance Goals
- Operational Efficiency
- Project Deadlines
- Field Surveys
- Production Specifications
- Six Sigma Methodologies
- Process and Performance Improvement
- Strategic Vision
- Systems Analysis
- Prevention Programs
- Project Scope Evaluation
- Value Stream Mapping
- Site Evaluations
Affiliations
LinkedIn
CompIT
Microsoft Community of Practice
American Society of Quality (ASQ)
Process Excellence Network (PEX)
Timeline
Director of Data Analytics and Compliance
Goodwill Industries Of Arkansas
12.2022 - Current
Director of Business Process Excellence
Conn’s HomePlus
06.2017 - 06.2019
Senior Manager, IT PMO
Exeter Finance, LLC
06.2016 - 06.2017
Senior Operations Manager, Records Management
Capital One Auto Finance
06.2016 - 06.2017
Process Improvement Manager
Ally Financial
04.2009 - 05.2015
Bachelor of Business Administration - Economics
University of Central Arkansas
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