Tristan Keith CHARLES
Higganum,CT
Summary
Accomplished business professional with in-depth experience consistently rising through ranks, offering history of success coordinating and monitoring operations across various departments. Effective leader and problem-solver dedicated to streamlining operations to promote organizational efficiency. Highly committed with hardworking mentality to maintain quality of services and products.
Overview
16
16
years of professional experience
Work History
Associate Manager, Operational Strategy and Design
Best Buy Health, Best Buy Enterprise
Minneapolis, MN
06.2021 - Current
- Responsible for working cross functionally to develop and implement new businesses that deliver the customer experience and the financial goals in the channel that works best for our customers
- Support Digital & Technology business partners in efforts to design, implement and enhance existing tools and processes
- Apply relevant policies, procedures, standards, regulations, and laws to evaluate risk in a business opportunity
- Facilitate internal and external partnerships, evaluating opportunities, managing cross functional partnerships, and recommendations to execute on business opportunities to minimize risk and optimize growth
- Creating new approaches for what is possible and working with partners to advance the new opportunities
- Provide operational support of products & service offerings
- Determine the detailed customer experience or process design
- Tracking and monitoring bugs or issues
- Researching markets and collecting inputs from teams for markets
- Manage operational relationships and adjust operational product offerings based on learnings and results
- Lead discussion on key learnings from reviewing employee, customer and trial performance data
- Continue to refine and adjust product and managed services offerings based on data and learnings from partnership
- Support Digital and Technology on efforts to implement or enhance support systems such as CRM, Claims processing/billing, call center technology or other infrastructure or data initiatives
- Manage and execute on providing the best multichannel customer experience for the new business initiative to ensure strong customer adoption
- Leverage internal processes and rhythms to maximize partnerships and results.
- Applied understanding of project management and principals and deep technical knowledge to translate design ideas into complete operational workflows.
- Incorporated design changes based on feedback from project teams.
Regional Contract Manager
UnitedHealth Group
Hartford, CT
05.2020 - 06.2021
- Review/apply relevant policies, procedures, standards, regulations, and laws to evaluate risk in a business opportunity
- Identify and engage with appropriate internal partners (e.g., Finance, business units) to discuss, assess and evaluate risk
- Evaluate and make recommendations to ensure compliance with corporate terms and conditions as it relates to the document or proposed transactions being evaluated
- Leading the contracting life-cycle including drafting, negotiation
- Communicate risks and explain contract language and terminology (e.g., limits of liability, indemnifications, audits, etc.) appropriately for a given audience
- Adhere to applicable internal standards/guidelines related to legal contracts/proposals/documents when creating or revising documents (e.g., delegation of authority, business-specific requirements)
- Review contract language to ensure consistency/eliminate conflicts (e.g., in terminology/language)
- Draft/update standard language for contract templates
- Draft non-standard contract language based on negotiations
- Defend the company's position and rationale on contract terms
- Meet with appropriate areas (e.g., internal/external parties, vendors, outside counsel) to discuss and negotiate non-standard terms
- Identify contract negotiation issues that require escalation and engage legal counsel as appropriate
- Management of an assigned book of business.
- Mitigated business risks by analyzing contracts' potential impacts and avoiding unfavorable terms.
Contract Negotiator, Lead Analyst
Cigna, US Commercial
Bloomfield, CT
02.2016 - 05.2020
- Interacting with Legal, Sales, Contract, , Underwriting, and other various matrix partners in the coordination of negotiating contracts to collectively come to a sound contractual arrangement that puts Cigna in the best light with the least amount of financial risk
- Collaboration with internal partners to complete negotiations and documents accurately and timely
- Reviews and analyzes documents for new and existing business to insure negotiated language is appropriately applied to the contract
- Adequately track open items and works to resolve those open items and complete the negotiations in a timely manner
- Adequately obtain all necessary business approval for contract language changes and ensures proper documentation of those approvals
- Handling of multiple products, Regional accounts, National accounts, and Marketplace Exchanges
- Intensive use of SalesForce.com to manage book of business, pull metric data, and create/export reports
- Proactively develop internal and external relationships that leverage Operations expertise, improve current processes, and assess value added and non-value added tasks
- Responding timely and thoroughly to requests for information from business partners
- Taking ownership for work and accountability for work assigned and completed
- Exercising sound business judgment when communicating with business partners
- Planning, writing, and electronically deliver client specific documents and/or communication
- Assisting with enterprise-wide special projects and building strong effective relationships with enterprise-wide matrix partners
- Demonstrate approachability and openness with regard to delivering consistent client service
- Taking personal accountability for contributions to organizational results, successfully complete all required training and take responsibility for continuous learning and development
- Embracing a high-performance culture through teamwork, personal development, accountability, and involvement in special projects.
Contracts Senior Associate
Cigna
Bloomfield, CT
11.2013 - 02.2016
- Reviewing and analyzing implementation material for new and existing business
- Handling multiple products as well as National and highly complex accounts
- Drafting contractual agreements for Administrative Services Only (ASO) & Performance Guarantees
- Management of “Book of Business” on SalesForce.com
- Analyzing benefits to ensure they are in compliance with legislation
- Creates, writes, and electronically deliver client specific communications
- Identifying process improvements
- Participating in product development/implementation process improvements
- Worked closely matrix partners to facilitate the completion of contracts.
Sr. Annuity Operations Representative III – Team Leader
MetLife Complex Financial & Annuity Claims
Bloomfield, CT
05.2010 - 10.2013
- Investigation of claim inquiries and assessing the rightful recipients of claim proceeds based on compliance and product guidelines
- Performed as liaison between clients, brokers, agents, third party administrators & attorneys regarding annuity options and discrepancy requests for all annuity policies
- Appointed as the Team Lead and Subject Matter Expert (SME) responsible for advising procedural information with Content
- Conducted monthly unit quality audits to ensure associates are meeting metric goals
- Management and creating a service delivery strategy based on all Annuity functions
- Handled complex tax reporting inquires, making updates and adjustments when necessary to a client's 1099R & 1099 INT information
- Appointed as a system SME, analyzing and completing necessary system adjustments to solve discrepancies
- Drafted complex correspondence detailing vital information to various clients and interested third-parties
- Participated in multiple Audit exercises with internal and external auditors to ensure compliant work processes
- Conducted careful financial and covenant analysis of proposed transactions and portfolio companies
- Wrote procedures for internal and external auditing purposes
- Executing qualified direct transfers & rollovers, Non-Qualified 1035 Exchanges and transferring them to successor carriers/companies and other internal MetLife franchises
- Frequently collaborated with Relationship Managers to advise on correct good order requirement procedures for 401K Corporate and Tax Sheltered Annuity plans
- Reconciliation & of outstanding funds on suspense cash item report, creating/updating accounting entries.
Annuity Operations Representative
MetLife Transfer Of Assets
Bloomfield, CT
05.2008 - 05.2010
- Appointed as the Team Lead, Trainer & Mentor, being responsible for training new-hires and maintaining team core competency through FINRA, SEC, and, compliant guidelines
- Calculations of Pre-TEFRA & Post-TEFRA cost basis amounts for Non-Qualified plans
- Also responsible for reviewing calculations from other teammates for quality assurance before forwarding the information to another carrier
- Absorbed licensing duties including agent appointments, commission assignments, and “Broker Dealer of Record” updates
- Managed vested and non-vested amounts of employer funded group annuities prior to transfer
- Maintaining thorough literacy for use of financial processing systems
Additional Experience
Twelve Years In The Service Industry.
06.2005 - 11.2017
- Prior roles involved Operations Management, General Management, and Bartending
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Business/Media Communications
University of Hartford
Skills
MS Office Suite (Including OneNote)
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Claim Processing / Billing Experience
- SQL
- SalesForce CRM
- Verbal and Written Communication
- Problem Anticipation and Resolution
- Originality and Creativity
- Business Leadership
- Program Optimization
- Policies and procedures
- Contract Management
- Negotiation
- Improvement initiatives
- Coaching and mentoring
- Strategic planning
Accomplishments
Best Buy Health
- Developed a contracting life cycle blueprint in which New Business and Partner Engagement teams adhered to.
- Implemented a State of Ohio specific background screening process for claim and call center employees in Novi Michigan,
- Contributed to the development of the company’s proprietary CRM by advising and implement health specific requirements.
UnitedHealth
- Received multiple “Bravo” awards for completing research projects vital to the department
Cigna
- Received peer and managerial recognition for proposing process improvements through the Cigna “Sprout Challenge” program
- Participation with the ULEAD Leadership Development mentoring program as a mentor
- Attained co-leadership of Underwriting Operations Team Building Committee
- Involvement in the interview and hiring process of Contract Senior Associate positions
- Involvement in college campus recruitment for Underwriting Operations and ULTRA Program.
MetLife
- Received the “Most Outstanding Service Award” for exemplary performance throughout the 2011 Service year
- Received multiple “Shining Star” awards for the resolution of complex service issues
- Conducted presentations & led a segment of the Customer Centricity Initiative to improve customer experience
- Led multiple procedural implementations throughout all of MetLife's Annuity Operations.
Timeline
Associate Manager, Operational Strategy and Design
Best Buy Health, Best Buy Enterprise
06.2021 - Current
Regional Contract Manager
UnitedHealth Group
05.2020 - 06.2021
Contract Negotiator, Lead Analyst
Cigna, US Commercial
02.2016 - 05.2020
Contracts Senior Associate
Cigna
11.2013 - 02.2016
Sr. Annuity Operations Representative III – Team Leader
MetLife Complex Financial & Annuity Claims
05.2010 - 10.2013
Annuity Operations Representative
MetLife Transfer Of Assets
05.2008 - 05.2010
Additional Experience
Twelve Years In The Service Industry.
06.2005 - 11.2017
Bachelor of Arts - Business/Media Communications
University of Hartford