Matthew Ford
Argyle,USA
Summary
Strategic product and operational leader with experience building and scaling internal platforms, operational effectiveness teams, and business architecture capabilities within highly regulated financial and insurance organizations. Proven ability to bridge product, technology, and operations to drive measurable efficiency gains, reduce operational friction, and enable enterprise transformation. Demonstrates a strong ability to lead cross-functional teams, introduce structured improvement methodologies, and translate complex business problems into scalable, data-driven solutions.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
3
3
Certifications
Work History
Sr. Director of Operational Effectiveness
National Life Group
Addison, USA
11.2024 - Current
- Established and led National Life Group’s inaugural Six Sigma Operational Effectiveness team within Business Architecture.
- Built a new team of process engineers, implementing Six Sigma methodologies and standardizing processes organization-wide.
- Owned key business architecture functions, including process mapping and capability modeling.
- Introduced structured process engineering practices across the business, enhancing operational efficiency.
- Developed foundational business architecture practices to support strategic planning and transformation initiatives.
- Collaborated with Product, Technology, and Operations to align product development with operational processes.
Digital Product Manager
Capital One
Plano, USA
11.2021 - 11.2024
- Led development and execution of internal tools to enhance productivity and efficiency.
- Managed a team of 4 Product Managers overseeing a portfolio of 15 cloud-based applications.
- Drove product strategies aligned with Capital One’s technological vision, enhancing service delivery.
- Collaborated with stakeholders to define product roadmaps and prioritize features for seamless integration.
- Spearheaded creation of an internal product suite centralizing applications for improved access and user experience.
- Automated job rotational program processes, saving over 20,000 hours annually through innovative algorithms.
- Launched discussion platform reducing communication inefficiencies, resulting in over 12,000 hours saved since mid-2023.
- Led data exploration project decreasing average meeting durations by 13% within tech teams.
Director of Application Development
PHP Agency Inc.
Addison, USA
06.2017 - 11.2021
- Orchestrate strategic initiatives across enterprise; set objectives, develop management framework, and direct staff.
- Direct all training efforts: virtual training, demos, and training videos.
- End-to-end project management of the new agency system including; defining key features, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
- Currently working on the next iteration, delivering key features in 2 week sprints while cultivating a backlog to keep sprints moving without hiccups.
- Constantly perform needs analysis, define risks, priorities, and set deadlines for deliverables.
- Create ad-hoc reports for CEO, CFO, COO and department leaders.
- Establish update requirements to third-party proprietary systems and applications.
- Steer transition into a paperless daily business model.
- Worked in an Agile environment using a scrum methodology; leading a multimillion dollar project to install a new agency management system. Completed on time, within budget, and with minimal bugs.
- Brought development in-house by hiring development team and utilizing off-shore resources.
- Instilled the use of Scrum methodology for bringing development in-house and KANBAN board for tracking bugs.
- While building out and managing the data analytic team, I Implemented Power BI reporting to automate internal reporting.
- Held meetings with stakeholders to understand and solve problems through technology solutions.
- Developed product roadmap to help present the vision of application to Board of Directors.
- Instrumental in developing New Business automation process using carrier data feeds and saving over 50% of processing time through technology automation.
- Set up a new reporting structure with automated dashboards using Power BI.
- Teamed with third-party developers of the PHP App; wrote and designed new requirements for the App that now has over 50,000 downloads.
Operations Analyst
DTCC
Coppell, USA
05.2016 - 06.2017
- Provided clients with in-depth analysis of queries involving derivative trading and reports.
- Monitored and upheld performance standards.
- Leveraged a deep understanding of regulatory obligations for US, European, Asian and Canadian markets, while working with international client-base.
- Collaborated with global teams across products, connectivity, technology, and on-boarding.
- Submitted derivative trades to regulatory bodies.
- Senior leader in shaping logistics, developed schedules and VBA Macros for fed reporting data.
- Met daily with the Singapore team to ensure seamless 24 hour service.
- Worked with major banks to secure derivative trading.
- Reviewed excel files with derivative trade data covering over 1 million trades.
- Randomized shifts and assigned daily tasks with VBA.
- Ran internal reports to understand trade history, derive source of errors received by clients, and interpreted XML/CSV files.
- Used Salesforce to keep up with client queries.
Business/Data Analyst
NTT Data
Irving, USA
05.2015 - 05.2016
- Driving force behind the analysis and creation of reporting structures to track production.
- Established Business Requirements for reporting structure, instructed internal team, and ensured objectives were met by the deadline.
- Validated and enriched business information to determine if the working environment was high-risk.
- Controlled and monitored the analyst queue; distributed work to Analysts using client given tools.
- Created visually enhanced dashboard to present data.
- Presented updates and reports in meetings with the Project Management team.
- Quality tested and mapped out process for tools used to help loan auditor’s efficiency and quality.
- Identified outdated and incomplete workbooks in the allotted time.
- Used Access to house all the data provided by client given tool; SQL in Access to pull data needed into Excel; V-Lookups/pivot tables to pull data into the dashboard (to make the data auto update).
- Created VBA macros in Excel to adjust and interpret the data pulled from Access and a VBA tool in Excel to help record loans into SharePoint.
Education
Masters in Business Administration (MBA) - Finance
University of North Texas
Denton, TX12.2019
Bachelors - Finance, Economics
University of North Texas
Denton, TX05.2015
Skills
- Strategic planning and roadmapping
- Team leadership and collaboration
- Agile methodologies and Scrum
- Financial and data analysis
- Regulatory compliance and risk management
- User experience (UX) design
- Product management and resource allocation
- Database modeling and SQL proficiency
- Metrics tracking and reporting
- JIRA project management
- Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
- Salesforce CRM expertise
- Power BI data visualization
- Six Sigma methodologies
Certification
Professional Scrum Master Certification, Scrum.org, 07/01/20
Timeline
Sr. Director of Operational Effectiveness
National Life Group
11.2024 - Current
Digital Product Manager
Capital One
11.2021 - 11.2024
Director of Application Development
PHP Agency Inc.
06.2017 - 11.2021
Operations Analyst
DTCC
05.2016 - 06.2017
Business/Data Analyst
NTT Data
05.2015 - 05.2016
Masters in Business Administration (MBA) - Finance
University of North Texas
Bachelors - Finance, Economics
University of North Texas