Julie Gandhi
Chicago,IL
Summary
An accomplished, customer centric leader, who is results-driven with a forward-thinking approach centered on the company's success and competitive growth. With a successful record of delivering distinguished strategies, increasing operational efficiencies, leveraging technology, building cross-functional relationships, and proudly driving business development and excellence amongst staff. My reputation as a goal oriented leader with expertise in operations as well as client leadership and strategic planning can be seen throughout my career history.
Overview
22
22
years of professional experience
Work History
Vice President - Head of Research Advisory
Merkle
04.2022 - Current
- Initiated strategy to drive company growth and increase market share and profitability
- Established the Research Advisory team, onshore and offshore, supporting Quantitative, Qualitative, UX, BX services. Hired, trained and scaled teams to support global enterprise customers
- Monitored key business risks and established mitigation procedures
- Spearhead and led enterprise operations to create sales enablement strategies to support Tech giants (Google, Amazon, Meta)
- Scaled the Research Advisory revenue from from $500k to $10M in year 4
- Managed customer success teams to track and manage renewals for $40M in recurring revenue thus transforming the culture to focus on retention in addition to expansion and new business
- Collaborated growth & operations teams to define repeatable processes for identifying and tracking renewable products and events
- Defined and implemented customer heath matrix and customer churn risk and assessment to provide the business with more insight into customer needs to ensure long term retention
- Drove corporate social responsibility programs that created positive social impact while delivering tangible business benefits, such as enhanced brand reputation and employee morale
- Streamlined operations to maximize business efficiency and profits
- Cultivated company-wide culture of innovation and collaboration
- Clarified roles, responsibilities and expectations of staff
- Built high-performance teams through effective recruitment practices focused on competency alignment coupled with ongoing performance management processes
Vice President - Client Services
Ugam Solutions
09.2019 - 01.2022
- Managed a Global Program Management team including offices in India, UK and U.S that managed over 2000 projects annually
- Responsible for effective and successful delivery onshore project management team, and 250 offshore execution team
- Managed a $12M Services P&L, exceeding the annual margin target
- Direct operational and transition management to ensure efficacy and success.
- Develop and implement strategies to drive business growth and operational excellence
- Coordinate with cross-functional teams to ensure uniform implementation of company strategies
- Analyze market trends to identify areas of improvement and establish risk mitigation and control strategies
- Influenced product and company strategy and improvement by providing customer feedback and market trends and customer feedback received through implementation and account management activities
- Delivered strong financial performance despite challenging economic conditions by executing prudent risk management strategies throughout all aspects of business operations
- Hired and managed employees to maximize productivity while training staff on best practices and protocols
- Collaborated with senior management to develop strategic initiatives and long term goals
- Developed new revenue streams by identifying growth opportunities and forging strategic partnerships with key industry players
Assistant Vice President
Ugam Solutions
03.2009 - 03.2019
- Successfully led strategic clients to meet & exceed budgets.
- Lead new sales partnership that generated opportunities and delivered $3m in sales growth
- Optimized resource allocation by assigning tasks based on skill sets, availability, and project priorities
- Implemented data-driven decision-making processes, leading to more informed strategic choices and improved overall performance metrics
- Communicated with leadership teams to assist with administrative initiatives and decisions and attended weekly meetings to support policy changes
- Established and directed successful programs focused on platforms such as Qualtrics, Dimensions, ConfirmIt, Askia, Tableau
- Reduced budgetary expenditures by effectively negotiating contracts for more advantageous terms.
- Developed long-term strategies for business growth, resulting in increased revenue and market share over a five-year period.
Global Director
Ipsos - Synovate
03.2008 - 03.2012
- Managed and led a team of 25 project managers onshore and 50 project managers offshore
- Exceeded management expectations by renegotiating vendor contracts that yielded $2M in savings
- Managed 3 different offshore vendors that supported $15M of business
- Spent 2 months in India yearly to effectively manage offshore teams
- Developed and implemented transformational program for staff
- Identified, documented and provided mitigation plans for program risks
- Ensured cross portfolio communication of program status, including providing weekly VP status updates
- Coordinated and facilitated weekly status meetings between IT and Business senior management
- Identified, documented and implemented program process needs including change, communications, testing, and environment management
- Developed and initiated projects, managed costs, and monitored performance
- Applied industry best practices to enhance the quality of deliverables while adhering to strict compliance standards
- Monitored project progress, identified risks and took corrective action as needed
- Negotiated and managed third-party contracts related to project deliverables
- Promoted a culture of continuous improvement by establishing performance metrics for regular evaluation and identifying areas for further enhancement
- Maintained open communication by presenting regular updates on project status to customers
- Developed and implemented project plans and budgets to ensure successful execution
- Reduced project delivery times by optimizing internal processes and removing bottlenecks in project workflow
- Developed comprehensive project plans with clearly defined objectives, milestones, timelines, and resource allocations for successful execution
- Contributed to revenue growth by delivering high-quality projects that exceeded client expectations and led to repeat business or referrals
- Coached team members for improved performance through constructive feedback, skill development opportunities, and ongoing support
Director of Online Data Collection
Ipsos - Synovate
01.2002 - 01.2011
- Managed strategic clients supporting Tech & Telecom, Healthcare, B2B, and Financial
- Created the first offshore program that increased profitability by 30%
- Implemented hubs in India to support programming and project management
- Led kick-off meetings, creating and maintaining a project plan, conducting project team meetings and Joint Application Mapping (JAM) sessions, coordinating the creation of the detailed documentation
- Managed client expectations, communications and address modifications to project scope including negotiating addenda to current contracts
- Cultivated a positive work environment that fostered employee engagement, increased retention rates, and boosted overall team morale.
- Cultivated and strengthened lasting client relationships using strong issue resolution and dynamic communication skills.
- Facilitated weekly project team meetings and attend monthly Steering Committee meetings to track project progress and recommend corrective actions
- Ensured client needs are tracked in the product road map, update client on product development and delivery timelines Assisted in implementing improved internal processes including a formal change management process.
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Business & Psychology
University of Illinois At Chicago
Chicago, ILSkills
- Strategic & Operational Leadership
- Customer Success & Stakeholder Management
- Offshore, Outsourcing Team Creation and Management
- Partnerships and Affiliations Management, Solution Innovator
- Market Research, Quantitative, Qualitative, UX & BX Team Development
- Procurement, Vendor Governance
- Resource Utilization, Employee engagement
- Process Improvements, Catalyst for Change and Growth
- Ability to quickly create and successfully lead strategic growth initiatives
- Expertise in Online Data Collection with different platforms, Qualtrics, ConfirmIt, Askia, Decipher, User Testing, Dscout
Accomplishments
- Customer Growth: Scaled the Market Research revenue from $10M to $60M in 10yrs
- Customer Success: Developed a metric to proactively track customer satisfaction, which improved customer retention from ~50% to over 85% in one year
- Research Advisory Team: Created an onshore & offshore Research Advisory Team, consisting of Quantitative, Qualitative Services and Custom Recruitment to support the top 10 global tech firms
- Implemented staff augmentation services: Grew a 1 person $300,000 contract to a team of 20 with a total annual contract value of $10M in 4 years
- Expanded global presence: Established a second US based office and managed UK based teams
- Process Improvement: Implemented project and resource management processes which led to 20% team utilization improvement
- Award for Leader of the Year 2022 & 2020, Award for Pushing Boundaries 2018 and Award for Values & Integrity 2015
Timeline
Vice President - Head of Research Advisory
Merkle
04.2022 - Current
Vice President - Client Services
Ugam Solutions
09.2019 - 01.2022
Assistant Vice President
Ugam Solutions
03.2009 - 03.2019
Global Director
Ipsos - Synovate
03.2008 - 03.2012
Director of Online Data Collection
Ipsos - Synovate
01.2002 - 01.2011
Bachelor of Arts - Business & Psychology
University of Illinois At Chicago