Saurjya(Sarj) Khandai
Aurora,Illinois
Summary
Accomplished, innovative, and results-driven Technology & IT Sr. Project/Program Manager, equipped with extensive experience and proven expertise in overseeing and delivering large-scale, enterprise-wide, highly complex projects and programs within scope, quality, time, and budget constraints.
Overview
22
22
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior Program Manager, PMO (Resource Management)
NiSource
02.2024 - Current
- Leading PMO resource management team for $160mil transformation-driven IT program
- NiSource is converting company’s work management and field operation functions to new digital technologies by integrating three different systems: Salesforce Field Service, SAP Integrated field resource planning and Lemur Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping into one program
- Managing resource planning, allocation, and actual expenditure using Service Now
- Ensuring project expenditures are tracked appropriately against award terms and conditions
- Providing direct support and leadership to project staff on financial, operational, and compliance
- Ensuring financial integrity of grantee invoicing process by working closely with the Sponsors and management team
- Managing and executing vendor related processes, including on-boarding, invoicing, and related reporting
- Supporting day to day Stakeholder & Vendor relationships and Vendor Governance / Cost and Risk Controls.
- Facilitated stakeholder communication, leading to improved alignment between business objectives and program goals.
- Managed cross-functional teams to deliver high-quality products within scope and budget constraints.
Senior Program Manager Conversion/Integration (Merger & Acquisition)
BMO Harris
04.2023 - 11.2024
- Successfully led the conversion of 650K+ Bank of the West credit card accounts to BMO system
- As Credit Card Integration & conversion lead, accountable for providing leadership and end to end oversight of BMO Personal &Business Banking U.S/BOTW work package integration for Go Live Day1 Conversion events and activities
- Primary point of contact for executives, P&BB US project managers, technology partners and business leads
- Partnered with workstream leaders to develop Conversion Day1 minute by minute Playbook Tasks for Mocks, Dress Rehearsal and Go Live events
- Led and managed Credit Card conversion activities including TSYS & Master Card
- As a Central Command Center member, worked with cross-function teams to integrate acquired entities and assets efficiently with minimal disruption
- Planned and managed the execution of Playbook tasks with clear activities, milestones, checkpoints and owners for all the events.
Senior IT Change/Release/Deployment Manager
Walgreens Boots Alliance
09.2021 - 03.2023
- Led overall release management for a $40M major IT program for Walgreens
- Was responsible for managing SW releases, and deployments of next generation of core Pharmacy fulfillment and supply chain systems, at nine robot powered central prescription micro-fulfillment centers (11 additional sites in progress)
- Led a team to plan, manage, deploy, and monitor (hyper care) new SW releases and patch release/bug fixes on various fulfillment centers
- Took strategic initiative to develop release/deployment process to manage IT deliveries
- Created readiness, deployment checklists, playbooks
- Developed and implemented Change Management Process for the new program in collaboration with multiple internal and vendors work streams members to improve workflow processes
- Chairing Change Management Board (CAB) and Go-No-Go meetings for the releases to ensure performance standards meet goals and objectives of the program
- Build and manage partner relationships by sharing information cross-functionally and interacting with direct reports, peers, senior management, and vendors
- Ensured vendors deliver against agreed upon SLAs and overall service delivery of operational activities
- Conducted/led Root Cause Analysis (RCA)s to identify and resolve systemic issues to prevent them from repeating
- Manage problems and issues proactively, including timely resolution
- Developed and mentored team members through on-boarding, open communication, and training.
Senior IT Program Manager
Schneider National
03.2021 - 10.2021
- Managed a budget of over $5 mil for multiple IT projects related to Logistics and Security with internal & external dependencies
- Created the project plans, used Agile as well SAFe process to manage scrum teams (on and offshore), tools such as Rally for application development and Clarity for cost management, budget, forecasting
- Was responsible for project related problem solving to remove roadblocks, meeting/delivering the projects against budgetary goals and objectives
- Interacted with cross-functional stakeholders and external vendor to drive IT and business alignment
- Managed 3rd party vendors and their SOWs
- Monitored deliveries based on the SOWs
- Drove overall program and workstreams accountability by implementing delivery reporting metrics.
Senior Project Manager, Data Management
McDonald’s
01.2019 - 01.2020
- Led Scrum teams of onsite and offshore members to develop cloud-based data analytics application including its customer adaptation in support of actual sales and sales forecasting for McDonald, Chicago
- Ensured proper coordination of tasks that included data ingestion and data transformation using Talend as ETL tool
- Coached and trained onsite and offshore teams on project management best practices and Agile/Scrum
- Stood up Project Management Office (PMO) Center of Excellence (CoE) for project governance and introduced PM policies and procedures which optimized PM activities, while boosting productivity in workplace.
Delivery Leader
Nokia
01.2018 - 01.2019
- Led IT digital transformation project of a near real time reporting tool for product deployment issues with budget of $12M
- Provided functional design guidance in developing dashboards and reports using Power BI
- Promoted use of DevOps principle, continuous integration, and delivery (CI/CD) methods for development of the tool
- Initiated the following initiatives that led to positive business impacts: Successful integration of diverse set of data from multiple source systems, such as Oracle and homegrown enterprise resource planning (ERP) in collaboration with the Analytics Development Team; and Defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for process improvement that led to over $1M in annual savings.
Director PMO, Release / Deployment Management
Nokia
01.2016 - 01.2018
- Strategically directed PMO organization and global team who were leading end-to-end software development life cycle (SDLC) projects and global deployment of company’s flagship product
- Led Steering Committee for development, integration, and implementation of large-scale, complex SW releases
- Improved the predictability of project/program outcomes by leading the process standardization to effectively manage risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies (RAID), scope changes and quality by defining, implementing, and continuously improving Release/Portfolio Management framework and structure
- Effectively managed the stakeholder’s relationship and executive leadership communications
- Provided timely, accurate status report, performance analysis, escalation of risk/issues and recommendations
- Demonstrated adeptness in leading software development efforts using Agile methodology; creating Scrum teams; mentoring team leads; and communicating program progress to stakeholders through sprint burndown reports, iteration burndown reports, and velocity target updates
- Effectively directed and mentored team members, including performance evaluation, provision of constructive feedback
- Spearheaded successful completion of programs and projects, as well as mitigation of risks in alignment with scope, schedule, and annual budget of approximately $20M, CapEx and OpEx
- Implemented new portfolio/program governance process to support impactful and actionable reporting
- Provided functional guidance in design of project metrics, dashboards and reporting mechanisms to facilitate decision-making.
- Enhanced team collaboration through regular communication, goal setting, and performance evaluations.
Senior Manager, Service / Product Support Management
Nokia (Formerly Alcatel-Lucent)
01.2013 - 01.2016
- Developed the new Program and Product Support Management Team which included recruiting five new members, defining role and responsibility of the team, and facilitating training and mentoring new project managers
- As the first line of escalation for the program, managed escalations from global customers by providing timely resolutions
- Built and maintained strategic relationships with key vendors, such as Sun, Oracle and Red Hat, along with administration of vendor contracts
- Expertly handled service level agreement (SLA) and established new, modified change management process that resulted to 30% operational efficiency improvement of delivery cycle to resolve customer issues.
Manager, R&D Project Management
Nokia (Formerly Alcatel-Lucent)
01.2011 - 01.2013
- Oversaw overall E2E performance and successful delivery of global cross-functional program in accordance with statement of works (SOWs) for $12M with 25+ team members, including 8 direct reports from China, France, India, and the U S
- Drove organizational change by coaching and guiding program team’s journey toward Agile integration and adoption
- Chaired Agile/Scrum meetings for sprint planning, daily standups, sprint check-in, sprint review, and retrospective.
Senior Development Project Manager
Nokia (Formerly Lucent Tech)
01.2003 - 01.2011
- Steered efforts in establishing software and hardware new product introduction (NPI), including compliance testing
- Spearheaded overall decision review gates that involved overseeing at-risk program, optimizing quality and schedule of SW deliverable, and providing solutions to client within 12 months instead of 18 months; thus attaining $55M in revenue over five years.
Education
Executive data Science -
The John Hopkins University
Master of Science in Industrial Engineering -
Northern Illinois University
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering -
Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology
Skills
- Project & Program Management
- Release Management
- Deployment/Delivery Management
- Conversion, Integration Management
- Project / Program Governance
- Change Management
- Cross-functional team Management
- Vendor Management
- Scope Management
- Development Processes: SDLC Decision Review (Stage Gate) Waterfall Agile Scrum Kanban SAFe DevOps
- Tools: MS Office Suite MS Project Google Apps ServiceNow Clarity PPM Rally JIRA Confluence
Websites
Certification
- Project Management Professional (PMP)
- Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
- Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL V4) Foundation
- SAFe Agilist
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (AWS CCP)
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB)
Timeline
Senior Program Manager, PMO (Resource Management)
NiSource
02.2024 - Current
Senior Program Manager Conversion/Integration (Merger & Acquisition)
BMO Harris
04.2023 - 11.2024
Senior IT Change/Release/Deployment Manager
Walgreens Boots Alliance
09.2021 - 03.2023
Senior IT Program Manager
Schneider National
03.2021 - 10.2021
Senior Project Manager, Data Management
McDonald’s
01.2019 - 01.2020
Delivery Leader
Nokia
01.2018 - 01.2019
Director PMO, Release / Deployment Management
Nokia
01.2016 - 01.2018
Senior Manager, Service / Product Support Management
Nokia (Formerly Alcatel-Lucent)
01.2013 - 01.2016
Manager, R&D Project Management
Nokia (Formerly Alcatel-Lucent)
01.2011 - 01.2013
Senior Development Project Manager
Nokia (Formerly Lucent Tech)
01.2003 - 01.2011
Executive data Science -
The John Hopkins University
Master of Science in Industrial Engineering -
Northern Illinois University
Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering -
Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology
Similar Profiles
Kurt SangsterKurt Sangster
Director Major Projects at NiSourceDirector Major Projects at NiSource
Kimberly BrownKimberly Brown
Operations Supervisor at NiSourceOperations Supervisor at NiSource
Alyssa LeNoirAlyssa LeNoir
IVR Product Owner at NisourceIVR Product Owner at Nisource
Kane BellKane Bell
Leader Technical Training-Welding at NiSourceLeader Technical Training-Welding at NiSource
Omar LopezOmar Lopez
Insurance Broker at West Suburban AssuranceInsurance Broker at West Suburban Assurance