Lori Wheeless

Dynamic Senior Vice President at Ontrak Health, adept in strategic vision and operational management. Spearheaded digital workplace initiatives, enhancing employee productivity and achieving HITRUST r2 certification. Proven leader in cross-functional collaboration and budget forecasting, driving impactful change and fostering high-performing teams to deliver cost-effective solutions.

Certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

• Senior Vice President, Digital Services Operations, Ontrak Health, Henderson, NV, 01/01/21, Present, Responsible for shaping and executing the company’s digital workplace strategy to enhance employee experience, productivity, and technology enablement across the enterprise., Partnered with executive leadership to modernize workplace tools, streamline support services, and align digital capabilities with evolving business needs., Led cross-functional teams, managed strategic vendors, and oversaw governance and budgeting for workplace technology investments., Collaborated with the C-Suite and other senior leaders to define and drive the vision and strategy for digital workplace initiatives and the overall employee experience., Developed and maintained the corporate digital workplace architecture and technology roadmap, ensuring alignment with business requirements and future needs., Established and refined the Digital Services Operations team (defining roles and responsibilities) and implemented a talent strategy, including recruiting, coaching, and developing staff to meet evolving business demands., Managed strategic vendor relationships for digital technologies and oversaw the annual operating and capital budget to ensure it supports IT and company objectives., Led IT governance efforts, enforced technology standards and implemented disaster recovery/business continuity plans to ensure reliable operations., Worked closely with the security team to achieve HITRUST r2 certification consistently during my tenure., Championed new digital workplace technologies by sponsoring key projects, driving user enablement campaigns, and measuring program impact to continuously improve employee productivity., Oversaw end-user support and service delivery including our MSP, internal end user support, and Infrastructure, continuously improving processes and performance to enhance the employee experience., Serve on IT planning and policy committees and work with other teams (HR, IT, business units) to integrate digital workplace standards and initiatives across the organization.
• Assistant Vice President, Digital Services, The New York Foundling, New York, NY, 01/01/17, 12/31/21, Head the creation and launch of the Process and Workplace Innovation strategy at the enterprise level., Direct team performance during technology innovation and update of 100+ locations., Oversee the transition project to move from older network file shares to MS Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive., Perform digital process mining to identify bottlenecks and gain insight into existing workflow using Celonis and apply six sigma principles to enhance internal processes., Evaluate and overhaul current support strategy through collaborations with MSPs to provide IT support services., Lowered time to resolve tickets by 40%, improved first call resolution rates by 30% through Help Desk process improvements., Launched ServiceNow via rapid deployment within one month, as well as ongoing improvements for the following applications: Incident Management, Service Level Management, Service Catalog and Portal, Virtual Agent, Asset Management, Performance Analytics, Project and Portfolio Management, Agile Development, Password Reset, and Contract Management, and integrations with Teams, Nexthink, and LogicMonitor., Improved the efficiency of internal processes by introducing troubleshooting playbooks and a knowledge base framework for common service catalog items., Established an innovative vendor management framework to cultivate and maintain relationships with vendor partnerships including onboarding and offboarding across five MSPs., Led a $1.2M asset refresh project to replace 700 computers during the pandemic including Windows 10 migration., Implemented self-service IT request capabilities via a service portal and online Virtual Agent, including Microsoft Teams integration., Oversaw numerous IT infrastructure changes such as shifting servers to Azure, the introduction of new SaaS applications, replacement of on-premises applications with cloud solutions, network enhancements, and Auto-Pilot, Windows Virtual Desktops, and Azure Arc rollout., Launched Nexthink, delivering Level Zero support to end users and Engage campaigns for messaging, user sentiment collection, and Digital Experience Score., Partnered with new vCISO in the review, remediation and recommendations of security enhancements and setup of new technology., Improved the efficiency of the existing IT workflow process across incident/service requests and delivered leadership and end-user training on the new Help Desk portal.
• Director, Business Analysts, The Boon Group, Austin, TX, 01/01/15, 12/31/17, Established and oversaw the PMO as a company-wide strategic organization., Evaluated existing procedures, recommended updates, and mobilized change across the organization while ensuring alignment with PM benefits and IT workflow processes., Spearheaded the adoption and integration of best practice project management and Agile concepts, key Business Analyst positions, business changes needed, and operational oversight/change management through any transitions., Monitored staff performance and facilitated professional development, planning, and PM activities for complex projects., Consistently delivered updates on IT activities, training for process changes, and overview of accomplishments, and upcoming initiatives., Led monthly Lessons Learned and project status IT Leadership meetings to discuss wins/losses and recommendations for process improvement, as well as escalations, new feature requests, and project status., Delivered presentations to leadership to ensure executive visibility into performance, health, and key risks and issues for projects within the program., Evaluated change requests to identify upstream/downstream impacts, confirm assessment and proper change/release management procedures are followed., Directed the introduction of a Project Management Office at a Third-Party Administrator including standardized PM processes and identification/prioritization of technology business initiatives., Introduced new project/feature request process utilizing an online form to capture key information (such as ROI) to support informed decision-making on project selection and prioritization., Identified patterns of failures, conducted root cause analysis, and recommended resolutions for future prevention., Established a Steering Committee including the Leadership Team to meet weekly and discuss high profile project status and prioritization through business case submissions.
• Product Manager, The Boon Group, Austin, TX, 01/01/15, 12/31/16, Led the creation and delivery of a software focused on streamlining the configuration of new clients and building benefit plans to support Commercial, Government, and ASO business., Oversaw the performance of a team including software consultants and ensured alignment with functional and nonfunctional requirements., Delivered discussions/decisions and translated needs and pain points into features., Designed and released product strategy and definition, as well as design specifications., Met weekly with Leadership team to discuss progress and prioritization of file feed backlog., Successfully introduced new EDI software and an EDI team to create 80+ file feeds exchanging eligibility, claims, payroll deductions, and employer contribution data with clients, carriers, and partners., Confirmed that all priorities, deadlines, and expectations were met by prioritizing user stories, sprints, and releases., Launched an intranet space with templates, companion guides, policies and procedures, process flows, requirement questionnaires, and FAQs.
• Director, IT Services, FirstCare Health Plans, Austin, TX, 01/01/99, 12/31/15, Directed the creation and implementation of short-and long-term strategy of the IT department., Established an innovative standard new employee onboarding process for all IT staff and associated training guides., Oversaw the delivery of content specific to IT Services on corporate intranet., Acted as a key point of contact with a consulting firm brought in for corporate-wide process re-engineering and requirements gathering initiative., Determined a requirement for and created a centralized team of business analysts to continue re-engineering efforts post engagement., Designed and released new modules/applications for the ServiceNow system including an IT Budget Management module to integrate with GL to track expenses against budget and allow IT Leadership to request budget dollars, as well as a software upgrade testing application and dashboards to track real-time UAT results., Efficiently addressed exceptions and displayed IT activity through the building of internal IT queue management and external department dashboards., Established a company-wide training program for a new core system including strategy, rollout plan, communication and resource plan, documentation creation, and end-to-end management., Delivered full transparency for leadership through the implementation of departmental dashboards of all IT activity and monthly discussions regarding request status, prioritization of requests, and feedback.
• Director, Business Intelligence Services, FirstCare Health Plans, Austin, TX, 01/01/99, 12/31/15, Spearheaded corporate Business Intelligence strategy surrounding metrics, reporting, analysis, and data warehousing., Coordinated initiatives aimed at supporting IT operations and Core Administration/Claims System replacement project needs, while liaising with the business and directing the performance of the BI team., Directed collaborations with departments and C-level staff to identify departmental/corporate KPIs, source data, and business rules., Partnered with the BI Developer to design departmental dashboards delivering insight into performance and drill-down capabilities to determine areas of improvement., Oversaw the performance of the IT team during the receipt and maintenance of SAS70 (and later SSAE16) compliance accreditation, as well as the creation of corporate custom applications using the ServiceNow framework (Case Management, Provider Information Management System, Medicaid Retention, and the corporate Agile Project Management Solution)., Oversaw the vendor selection process of corporate Business Intelligence Application and maintained the vendor relationship and introduction of the software., Partnered with the CIO to launch the agile methodology and strategy corporate-wide. The project management methodology was adopted by enterprise Core Administration/Claims System replacement multi-year, multimillion-dollar project., Headed the execution of ServiceNow as the ITIL-based IT Service Management system.
• Director, Reporting and Development, FirstCare Health Plans, Austin, TX, 01/01/99, 12/31/15, Established the strategy of centralized reporting, design, and analysis needs corporate-wide., Oversaw the performance of analysts, prioritized requests, and liaised with the business to identify information needs., Collaborated with CFO to design standard reports, dashboards, and ad hoc requests enabling access to key information for decisions regarding disease management, financial projections, and utilization management., Created corporate Business Intelligence Team to support Healthcare reporting, analytics, data warehousing, and database management needs of the company., Developed department strategy, led recruiting efforts, developed policies and procedures, and directed the team of managers, analysts, developers, and administrators., Improved production efforts and staffing projections through strategic requirements gathering and monitoring the development of applications such as Claims Pend Queue application to control corporate claims inventory, enabling leadership to view, assign, and report pending claims.
• Manager, Reporting and Development/Senior Data Analyst, FirstCare Health Plans, Austin, TX, 01/01/99, 12/31/15
• Program Analyst / Staff Consultant, Orion Consulting, Cleveland, OH, 01/01/98, 12/31/99
• Research Analyst, Action Based Research, Cleveland, OH, 01/01/97, 12/31/99