Leslie Ciriaco
Rancho Santa Margarita,CA
Summary
Accomplished transformation delivery executive with over two decades of transformative leadership within financial services (investment management, life insurance, and pet insurance sectors). Distinguished for spearheading strategic/transformation initiatives, organizational change management, and product innovation at Capital Group Companies, Pacific Life, and Nationwide Pet. Strong leader and problem-solver dedicated to streamlining operations to decrease costs and promote organizational efficiency. Recognized as a visionary leader adept at navigating complex industry landscapes, identifying emerging trends, and positioning organizations for sustainable profitability, growth, and competitive advantage.
Overview
17
17
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Director of Business Delivery
Nationwide Pet
2022.12 - Current
- Strategic Portfolio Leadership: Steered Nationwide Pet's key strategic initiatives, excelling in business governance, prioritization, and alignment in partnership with IT. Focused on driving profitability and addressing compliance risk exposure through strategic decision-making and project execution.
- Operational Excellence & Innovation: Established first Pet Business Intake Process and embedded culture of rigorous business requirements, significantly boosting delivery efficiency and operational agility.
- Framework Development & Scalability: Created and implemented robust GTM business delivery framework with digital rollout of Pet's marquee product as landmark achievement, ensuring operational stability and scalability.
- Leadership & Talent Optimization: Led dynamic team of 13 Product Owners, Managers, and Business Consultants, focusing on performance management, strategic talent acquisition, and development to align capabilities with business goals and strategic priorities.
- Strategic Advisory & Collaborative Governance: Championed collaborative efforts and acted as strategic advisor to Nationwide Pet's senior leadership, ensuring initiatives were meticulously aligned with Nationwide Pet's strategic objectives and market positioning.
- Brand Development & Talent Attraction: Pioneered 'Operational Excellence' brand, achieving widespread recognition for strategic contributions and becoming focal point for talent development through strategic change management, engagement, and visibility efforts.
Senior Consultant/Product Manager
Nationwide Pet
2020.07 - 2022.12
- Digital Capability Leadership: Directed Nationwide Pet's CRM, Product Recommendation Engine, and API digital capabilities, orchestrating technological advancements and operational efficiencies.
- Cross-Functional Team Leadership: Led three multi-disciplinary and cross-divisional product teams, delivering exceptional value to both internal and external customers within $1.2 million product portfolio, catering primarily to Nationwide Pet Sales and Service business units.
- Strategic Prioritization & Roadmap Development: Spearheaded prioritization decisions, demand management, and strategic roadmap development for product portfolio investments, collaborating closely with executive business and technology sponsors/stakeholders across Nationwide Pet.
- Success Metrics & Strategic Alignment: Focused on aligning strategic objectives with operational goals, defining and delivering on success metrics to ensure targeted outcomes and business impact.
- Vendor Partnership & Industry Advisory: Engaged with key vendor partners for delivery of platform capabilities (e.g., Salesforce, Five9), providing expertise and consult on industry trends and competitor movements, enhancing Nationwide Pet's competitive edge.
Organizational Change Management Lead
Pacific Life
2019.08 - 2020.07
- Strategic Change Leadership & Delivery: Spearheaded organizational change management strategies and executed comprehensive business readiness plans for pivotal enterprise-wide and Life Division strategic initiatives, including Enterprise CRM/Salesforce Transformation Program, Enterprise Procurement Transformation Program, and Broad Market Integration Health Assessment.
- Change Capability Enhancement: Provided strategic consulting and advisory services to bolster enterprise and divisional change capabilities. Developed innovative change management practices and created scalable approaches and tools to standardize and elevate organizational change delivery across Pacific Life.
- Community of Practice Development: Played key role founding and nurturing Pacific Life's first Enterprise Change Management Community of Practice as principal contributor and advisor, fostering collaborative platform for internal change practitioners to share experiences and advance organizational change delivery capabilities.
- Industry Engagement & Thought Leadership: Actively engaged in industry conferences to gather and disseminated cutting-edge insights and practices in change management. Engagement underscored Pacific Life's position at forefront of change management methodologies and solidified reputation as executive thought leader in organizational transformation.
Project Portfolio Manager - Distribution
Pacific Life
2017.08 - 2019.08
- Strategic Framework Development: Pioneered comprehensive business management, capability discovery, demand management, and delivery frameworks for Life Division's Sales & Marketing business capabilities, serving as lead domain portfolio manager under Chief Distribution Officer's directive.
- Discovery and Strategic Alignment: Led exhaustive discovery efforts to analyze distribution channel and operating model needs, aligning initiatives with strategic objectives and defining clear success metrics for focused business transformation and growth.
- Industry Insights and Competitive Positioning: Played critical role in advising on industry and competitor trends, leveraging these insights to inform strategic direction and bolster competitive positioning.
- Strategic Business Case Leadership: Spearheaded development of strategic business cases and matured business capability roadmaps, managing demand prioritization for crucial distribution channel initiatives to optimize strategic impact and resource allocation.
- Business Delivery Excellence: Demonstrated leadership in delivery of organizational, process, and technology solutions, covering strategic projects and ongoing activities, while championing business readiness and effective change management.
- Value Realization and Impact Measurement: Drove completion and benefits analysis of projects, creating frameworks for success evaluation and value capture from strategic initiatives.
- Strategic Distribution Leadership Consulting Provided strategic consulting for Vice President of Financial Adviser Network (FAN) Distribution Channel, developing Wirehouse Channel Field Wholesaler Activity Model, and facilitating strategic planning with national sales leadership.
- Customer Experience Strategy Leadership: Led Customer Experience (CX) Strategy Initiative for Life Insurance Division, designing and implementing detailed customer journey maps for key segments to highlight improvement areas for enhancing quality and satisfaction.
Product Owner, Sales & Marketing Operations
Pacific Life
2013.03 - 2017.08
- Demonstrated turnaround leadership by spearheading business analysis, requirements prioritization, and acceptance for mobile capabilities essential to enhancing operational efficiency and sales performance of Life Division field wholesalers.
- Owned and managed product backlog with keen focus on representing voice of the customer, facilitating development and delivery of significant product releases through effective collaboration with diverse business groups and cross-functional teams.
- Pioneered the development of business capability maps and technology roadmaps, establishing a strategic framework that guided the Sales & Marketing Operations team's efforts towards achieving Pacific Life's long-term objectives.
- Directed critical three-month initiative to deploy new Mobile CRM, Mobile Business Intelligence, and Mobile Productivity iPad capabilities for field wholesalers, significantly elevating their capacity to achieve sales targets.
- Reduced time-to-market by effectively coordinating resources, tasks, and timelines within the team.
- Led business readiness and field wholesaler adoption strategies, instituting metrics reporting for sales executive management to highlight initiatives' impact on sales effectiveness and production.
- Advised Senior Leadership on benefits of increased tool adoption and its advocacy, providing evidence of its positive impact on sales effectiveness and production through detailed analysis and metrics.
- Championed Policy Management project, developing and delivering competitive solutions for Planned Performance Tracking tool in collaboration with sales leadership, thereby reinforcing Pacific Life's competitive edge in marketplace.
Application Development Manager
Capital Group Companies
2010.10 - 2012.08
- Spearheaded dynamic turnaround as co-manager of application development team amidst critical period of Agile adoption and systemic re-architecture, significantly enhancing team performance and project delivery.
- Directed multifaceted team of seven business analysts and developers, leveraging role to instill culture of resilience, adaptability, and continuous improvement, pivotal in navigating through high-change environment.
- Orchestrated investment results application team's product backlog as Uber Product Owner across three Scrum teams, exemplifying leadership in moving projects from inception through to delivery and sustainment, effectively turning around project management processes.
- Championed the strategic vision for Manager Accounting & Results System product evolution, leading a comprehensive strategic re-architecture that aligned with future state visions and integrated key financial and managerial accounting processes, marking significant pivot towards innovative, scalable solutions.
- Drove application re-architecture strategy, implementing crucial improvements to business processes and data ownership decision-making, resulting in streamlined operations and enhanced data integrity.
- Acted as catalyst for Agile/Lean transformation, not only embedding agile principles and practices across teams and leadership levels but also partnering with third-party Agile coaches to ensure adoption of agile methodologies, thus steering organization towards more agile and responsive operational model.
- Provided technical leadership of development for three simultaneous application products.
Agile Product Owner
Capital Group Companies
2007.03 - 2010.10
- Spearheaded vision, scope, and strategy for legacy application re-architecture program, identifying key opportunities for business process re-engineering.
- Led creation, prioritization, and management of agile user stories, serving as Product Owner for ongoing application enhancements and testing.
- Delivered comprehensive solution for manager accounting processing amid transition of Global Portfolio Accounting commingled fund processing to JP Morgan.
- Addressed trade-date processing gaps and enhanced participant account and composite results calculations through innovative transactional solutions.
- Directed business analysis, testing, and successful delivery of monthly/quarterly benchmark and investment results reporting solutions, facilitating business process transitions.
- Orchestrated and delivered global business readiness and training programs across Global Results Analysis departments in Europe (Geneva and London), supporting seamless transition from local legacy systems to MARS over 3-month period.
Education
Master of Arts - Social Entrepreneurship & Change
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA05.2023
Bachelor of Arts - Economics
UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
Irvine, CA06.2002
Skills
- Turnaround Leadership
- Business Acumen
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Systems Thinker
- Building High Performing Teams
- Strategic Portfolio Governance
- Communication
- Adaptability
- Stakeholder Management
Websites
Certification
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), 2010
- Change Management (Prosci Methodology), 2018
Timeline
Director of Business Delivery
Nationwide Pet
2022.12 - Current
Senior Consultant/Product Manager
Nationwide Pet
2020.07 - 2022.12
Organizational Change Management Lead
Pacific Life
2019.08 - 2020.07
Project Portfolio Manager - Distribution
Pacific Life
2017.08 - 2019.08
Product Owner, Sales & Marketing Operations
Pacific Life
2013.03 - 2017.08
Application Development Manager
Capital Group Companies
2010.10 - 2012.08
Agile Product Owner
Capital Group Companies
2007.03 - 2010.10
Master of Arts - Social Entrepreneurship & Change
Pepperdine University
Bachelor of Arts - Economics
UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), 2010
- Change Management (Prosci Methodology), 2018
Similar Profiles
Tekyrah LockhartTekyrah Lockhart
Customer Service/Claim Service Representative at Nationwide PetCustomer Service/Claim Service Representative at Nationwide Pet
Gretchen SuggsGretchen Suggs
Member Care Representative / Pet Claims Analyst at Nationwide Pet InsuranceMember Care Representative / Pet Claims Analyst at Nationwide Pet Insurance
Rahul Reddy OrigantiRahul Reddy Origanti
Application Developer Specialist at Nationwide Pet InsuranceApplication Developer Specialist at Nationwide Pet Insurance