Robert Ghavidel

• Technology Leadership: Leads Technology Architects, overseeing tech decisions, governance, and strategy across Data and Analytics Infrastructure (data movement, data at rest, data management, AI and reporting), Enterprise Application Services (document, process, and content management), brand portfolio (marketing, analytics, communication, social feedback), and Member Digital Platforms (mobile, web, digital experience, member profiles).
• Relationship Management: Built trusting relationships with portfolio leaders, transforming challenging dynamics into collaborative ones.
• Cloud Review Process Improvement: Implemented a new approach, reducing cycle time by 82% while managing risk with 14+ enterprise partners.
• Operational Efficiency: Leveraged AI to enhance technical decision-making by identifying high-impact opportunities. Fed detailed requirements and current process maps into an AI-driven analytics tool, training it on historical data to evaluate proposals for cost, feasibility, and strategic alignment. The AI formulated solution recommendations, accelerating opportunity identification by 50% and improving project success rates by 20%. Collaborated with teams to refine AI-generated insights, ensuring actionable and aligned outcomes.
• Operational Efficiency: Standardized reporting periods and added metadata in Tech Decisions processes, improving user experience and cutting report production time by 91%.
• Automation Initiatives: Spearheaded automation of tech decision processes and reporting, further reducing report cycle time by 91% and enhancing user experience.
• Contract & Portfolio Management: Mapped contract management to Tech portfolio applications, reducing waste and increasing efficiency.
• Team Engagement: Maintained high engagement scores for direct reports, averaging over 85% satisfaction annually.
  Financial Management: Successfully met all financial targets during tenure.

• Leadership: Directed 80+ engineers as the leader of USAA Data Platform teams, managing enterprise-wide data platform capabilities.
• Budget Management: Oversaw a $13M investment to advance technology and deliver capabilities for USAA's data cloud journey.
  Capability Delivery: Led efforts to implement priority capabilities, ensuring compliance in sensitive data management, metadata capture, and information quality.
• Cloud Transition: Developed a strategy to phase out legacy Netezza appliances, transitioning to Snowflake cloud technology, collaborating with Enterprise, Bank, and P&C teams.
• Problem Solving: Assessed technical challenges and devised proactive solutions to ensure smooth transitions.
• Resource Optimization: Managed resource allocation to maximize utilization and minimize overhead costs.
• Hiring: Led recruitment for technical roles, attracting top talent through targeted strategies.
• Process Improvement: Championed continuous improvement, optimizing processes across departments.

• Infrastructure Oversight: Managed Tech Data Services and Reporting/Analytics Infrastructure, supporting 14K+ users with a $4M operating budget and $10M+ investment budget.
• Team Leadership: Led a 15-person Data Services team, providing tools and infrastructure for enhanced enterprise data movement and management.
• Real-Time Processing: Introduced real-time data processing and data pipeline support for batch processing, embedding related practices.
• Platform Delivery: Oversaw engineers delivering platforms for data delivery, management, and governance across the enterprise.
• Budget Decisions: Acted as the primary decision-maker for tech spending, establishing guidelines to minimize waste and unnecessary upgrades.

• Project Management: Partnered with clients to define specs and scope for technical architecture projects, overseeing $15M in investments for data domain improvements, designs, and integrations.
• Big Data Strategy: Led the implementation of USAA's Big Data strategy, setting architecture, vision, and technology standards for data management, movement, storage, and analytics.
• Technology Decisions: Made key decisions on enterprise data technologies for analytics, focusing on data management and persistence.
• Innovation Leadership: Developed strategies to adopt big data technologies, establishing standards and securing a patent (No. 8,997,248) for big data security at USAA.
  Tool Evaluation: Directed technology evaluations, selecting tools tailored to project needs.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Managed expectations through consistent communication and project updates.
  Mentorship: Guided junior team members, supporting their growth in tackling technical challenges.
• Culture of Innovation: Fostered innovation by encouraging experimentation to improve warehouse efficiency.
  Documentation: Prepared functional and technical documentation for projects.

• Program Management: Led BI and Data Warehouse teams, maturing the program with a $2M-$18M budget, growing it from $400K to $3M, and expanding the team from 4 to 15 engineers, supporting 500 consumers.
• SEC Reporting: Developed capabilities for SEC reports during the company's public transition.
  Leadership: Enhanced team productivity and morale through strong leadership.
• Operational Standards: Implemented policies, procedures, and standards to streamline operations.
  Stakeholder Relations: Built strong client and stakeholder relationships, fostering long-term partnerships.
• Collaboration: Worked with cross-departmental peers to drive organizational success.
• Performance Targets: Consistently met or exceeded senior leadership's annual goals.
• Project Oversight: Managed large-scale projects, introducing new systems, tools, and processes to meet objectives.

I held various technical positions, including Senior Technical Consultant, Senior Analyst, and Database Conversion Programmer, in the Oil & Gas and Retail Energy industries.

• Roles: Held positions as Senior Technical Consultant, Senior Analyst, and Database Conversion Programmer.
  Data-Driven Decisions: Implemented processes to enhance project success rates through data-driven insights.
• System Migration: Supported legacy system migrations to modern platforms with minimal disruption.
  Data Warehouse Optimization: Improved performance via efficient ETL processes and data cleansing.
• Data Validation: Added validation procedures to catch ETL errors early, ensuring data accuracy.
• ETL Revamp: Updated ETL processes for faster execution while maintaining data quality.
  Troubleshooting: Resolved complex issues in data retrieval, performance, and stability, minimizing downtime.
• Efficiency Gains: Streamlined ETL processes for faster data ingestion and better system efficiency.
• Data Modeling: Designed models for complex analytical needs.
  Architecture Design: Created optimized architectures for various database technologies.
• Data Mapping: Mapped data between source systems and warehouses.