Leighton Vincent
Lutz,FL
Summary
IT professional specializing in DevOps, Release, and Change Management. Developed streamlined CI/CD pipelines and automated release processes, fostering global team collaboration. Achievements include significant operational efficiency improvements and successful alignment of technical initiatives with business goals.
Overview
1
1
Certification
25
25
years of professional experience
Work History
DevOps Release and Change Manager
Markel Corporation
02.2023 - 09.2025
- Designed and implemented a Release and Change Management process to integrate SailPoint with IAM Applications using a SAFe framework using two week Agile Sprints, driving automated releases and change tooling to emphasize seamless progression from development to production.
- Directed the Executive Control Board for IAM change approvals using ServiceNow while actively participating in the global CAB review, highlighting distributed team coordination and decision-making skills.
- Managed the design and execution of a DevOps automated CI/CD pipeline for SailPoint and SOX applications, underscoring a commitment to scalable and secure software deployments.
- Implemented processes utilizing Azure DevOps, ServiceNow and integrated quality tools such as Functionalize, SonarQube, and Fortify to enforce release automation and infrastructure integrity.
- Collaborated with Scrum Masters, Development, and QA teams to ensure on-schedule deliveries during planned release cycles, demonstrating technical leadership and mentoring approaches.
- Worked directly with QA teams to review test plans and cases to ensure requirements were met, along with completion of defect and test analysis for risk and change assessment before production deployments.
- Oversaw SOX-compliant change procedures and provided clear communication to stakeholders, ensuring process rigor and consistent adherence to compliance standards.
- Enhanced release practices by incorporating feedback and lessons learned through quarterly RCA reviews, aligning with strategic planning and continuous process improvement.
DevOps Release Manager
Accenture
11.2021 - 12.2022
- Coordinated release management activities by scheduling, communicating, and delivering changes through established deployment plans and checklists for all non-production and production environments to effectively mitigate operational risks.
- Facilitated and managed CCB meetings providing robust technical guidance for Go/No-Go decisions and reinforcing distributed engineering support.
- Utilized tools including Git, Jira, Confluence and ServiceNow to rigorously track changes from development through production, fostering process transparency and continuous integration.
- Managed release processes working with SAFe processes using Copado to implement a streamline CI/CD process with full automation and quality guardrails from development to productions.
- Used AI release deployment strategies to help automate, manage and optimize the process for a more improved and seamless workflow to environments for multiple development teams using two-week Agile sprints.
Lead, DevOps & Release Engineer
Outsystems
03.2021 - 08.2021
- Developed the plan to integrate all products into a CI/CD automation process using ServiceNow, Xebia Labs, Jira, Gitlab, SonarCloud, etc.
- Responsible for aligning a release calendar across all product lines to help ensure rapid deployments with next generation container development.
- Develop and manage the release management lifecycle, including the scheduling, coordination, and management of releases to production across the enterprise for multiple applications.
- Implemented a Release and Change Management process to integrate applications using Agile Sprints for delivery from development through testing to production.
- Implemented an IT weekly review of release status for all products, including the introduction of new dashboards and reports for risks, metrics and quality.
Sr Manager, DevOps & Release Automation
Wellcare
Tampa, USA
11.2014 - 10.2020
- Managed the DevOps Automation, Release Management, Change Management and CMBD teams, including managers who oversaw these teams.
- Managed the DevOps engineers building OpenShift, Azure and Rancher Cloud platforms for container application development using tools like GitHub, Jenkins, Jira, Confluence, Artifactory, Conjur, Slack, etc.
- Responsible for bringing the company to 90% automation for all software deployments across IT, including 'no-touch' Continuous Integration and Delivery to QA environments (using tools like Fortify, SonarQube, JNnit, Nunit, Tosca, LoadRunner among others).
- Responsible for a multi-year DevOps Initiative implementing Automated Deployments (CARA), Data Virtualization (Delphix), Test Data Management (CA TDM) and Server Virtualization.
- Worked with teams for Machine Learning (ML) deployments and monitoring, along with deployments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications through multiple pipelines and models.
- Responsible for Release Engineers and DevOps Admins are responsible for automation, continuous integration and delivery, code quality and related DevOps tools management in public and private cloud environments.
- Manage the Change Management and CMDB teams using ServiceNow and following ITIL best practice processes for the delivery of 40+k changes annually.
- Managed a team of Environment Engineers who are responsible for the scheduling, patching, procurement and release planning of all Non-Production and Production environments.
- Responsible for the monthly Major and Minor Releases, consisting of a 12 hour maintenance window impacting all LOB's and IT, along with all facilities and data centers.
- Wellcare is a health insurance company that provides managed care services.
VP, Application Development
JPMorgan Chase
Tampa, USA
06.2011 - 11.2014
- Managed a team of 30-50 .Net developers, Rules developers, Project Managers, Business Analyst and Release Engineers.
- Implemented multiple Professional Services projects, validating and providing approval on bids from multiple global consulting staffing firms, making up $10 million of the annual budget.
- Key contributor responsible in planning strategic efforts with Sr. Business and IT Executives (long-term product roadmaps, headcount planning, department/organization changes, product delivery timelines).
- Responsible for the support systems built on Microsoft .Net that were designed, tuned and scaled to provide real-time decision requests for all Chase mortgage loans; 75,000 requests per day and over 5,000 users with single second digit response times.
- Managed a team responsible for all Release and Configuration Management activities, spread across 12+ environments (Production and Non-Production).
- Responsible for the continuous improvement of quality, performance and stability; implementing monitoring, alerts and development improvements.
- Led Disaster Recovery and Resiliency efforts required to ensure system high availability, along with SWAT initiatives to improve system hygiene and capacity.
- Hands-on involvement with improvement initiatives and business projects, directly related with the Developers, DBA's, Project and Change Managers, Business Analysts and Quality Assurance engineers.
- JPMorgan Chase is a leading global financial services firm and investment bank.
Change Manager
PMSI
Tampa, USA
08.2010 - 06.2011
- Direct report to the CIO responsible for the review and approval of all software and infrastructure changes across the company by managing the CAB (Change Advisory Board).
- Managed a team of Release Managers responsible for deploying software changes to QA, UAT and Production environments.
- Responsible for creating and implemented new processes based on ITIL methodologies related to Release, Change and Configuration Management.
Project Management Office
Gentiva Health Services
Tampa, USA
10.2007 - 12.2009
- Managed the Change Management Board (CMB) for the company to review and approve all production software and infrastructure changes across multiple locations in the US.
IT Management Consultant
Payerpath, A Misys Company
Austin, USA
05.2007 - 12.2007
- Responsible for evaluating and performing gap analysis of software development tools to support the Quality Initiatives within the Payerpath organization.
- This included recommending appropriate tools for the development sites across US locations and in Bangalore, India.
- Oversaw the managing and review of vendor selection for QA test tools from Segue Software, Compuware, Mercury and IBM.
Director, Technical Process
CP Ships
Tampa, USA
04.2004 - 05.2007
- Directed the Project, Change and Release Management teams using ITIL methodologies to deliver projects worldwide on a weekly basis using BMC Remedy.
- Responsible for the Change Advisory Board to review and approve all changes across the application, network and infrastructure teams.
- Led a team to design and implement software development processes using ITIL methodologies, and configured BMC Remedy with workflows to follow these processes.
- Managed a team of configuration managers to implement and administer the Rational Tool Suite to begin an automated CI/CD process.
Change Manager
Certegy / FIS
St Petersburg, USA
04.2002 - 04.2004
Senior Configuration Manager
Eckerd Corporation
Largo, USA
06.2001 - 04.2002
Senior Configuration Manager
Verizon
Tampa, USA
04.2000 - 06.2001
SQA Engineer
Medical Manager
Alachua, USA
09.1996 - 04.2000
Bridge Crewmember
US Army
FT Polk, USA
08.1988 - 12.1991
Education
BS - Information Technology
University of Phoenix
Tampa, FL01-2008
Skills
- Release Management
- Quality Assurance
- Change Management
- Release Automation
- Cloud Development
- DevOps & CI/CD
- Project Management
- Site Reliability Engineering
- Software Development
- Process Improvement
Certification
ITIL Foundation v3 Certification
Timeline
DevOps Release and Change Manager
Markel Corporation
02.2023 - 09.2025
DevOps Release Manager
Accenture
11.2021 - 12.2022
Lead, DevOps & Release Engineer
Outsystems
03.2021 - 08.2021
Sr Manager, DevOps & Release Automation
Wellcare
11.2014 - 10.2020
VP, Application Development
JPMorgan Chase
06.2011 - 11.2014
Change Manager
PMSI
08.2010 - 06.2011
Project Management Office
Gentiva Health Services
10.2007 - 12.2009
IT Management Consultant
Payerpath, A Misys Company
05.2007 - 12.2007
Director, Technical Process
CP Ships
04.2004 - 05.2007
Change Manager
Certegy / FIS
04.2002 - 04.2004
Senior Configuration Manager
Eckerd Corporation
06.2001 - 04.2002
Senior Configuration Manager
Verizon
04.2000 - 06.2001
SQA Engineer
Medical Manager
09.1996 - 04.2000
Bridge Crewmember
US Army
08.1988 - 12.1991
BS - Information Technology
University of Phoenix