Sr. Vice President - Operations

Posted on: 2006-01-10

Kim McAuliffe, [email protected] KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS  Integration of Transfer Agency Services: Built plan and mobilized 1,200 people in transfer agency toward new vision to merge operations/servicing with sister company offices in Houston and Denver. Developed project plans, led initiative to streamline communications, and merge company cultures. Realigned policy and procedures, created new customer forms, and reconstructed business continuity plan. Aligned salaries, incentive plans and career paths. Held responsibility for direct shareholder operation of transfer agency. Trained associates on changing products, procedures, and responsibilities. Developed leadership team across sites, resulting in a positive business climate which achieved expected business results nine months after integration.  Implemented Hiring Profile and Process: Analyzed and changed hiring process. Designed extensive hiring model, including changing percentage of sourcing from colleges to existing service experienced candidates, in depth interviewing, touring, observations and aptitude testing. Focused hiring and base training in two primary hiring areas of processing and client services. Reduced turnover by 30%. Retained another 10% of staff by transferring to other internal departments.  Professional Development Program: Created and led a team of cross-functional managers to create a career development program. The program included skill building with compensation increases, encouraged and suggested movement within and between departments, and consistent tools to evaluate performance and promotion readiness. Program resulted in increased associate tenure, knowledge, and job satisfaction plus department appreciation internally for one another. Additionally, promotions for management positions were based on performance and knowledge from several departments which improved customer service and developed decision making capabilities.  Leadership Growth Initiatives: Created and facilitated voluntary forums for supervisor through officer levels to hear speakers and share experiences with counterparts. Drew 90% attendance for quarterly forums. Designed and facilitated year-long program based on principles in John Maxwell’s book 17 Laws of Teamwork for cross-site team. Implemented formal leadership program to develop leaders who were prepared to replace those who leave or retire, maintain business continuity, preserve knowledge and bolster morale. Provided special work opportunities and programs to support professional growth and enhance skills, talents and organization commitment. Developed leadership competencies and behavioral indicators for clear expectations.  Resource Utilization Program: Directed team of cross-functional department managers to develop strategy and plan to better predict spikes where additional resources were needed, hierarchy of service levels and critical functions for global management of servicing flows. Created training plan and schedule on cross-department skill sets. Met service expectations, reduced overtime costs and burnout, and increased knowledge.  360-Degree Interaction Feedback Tool: Built 360-degree feedback tool into work environment to develop awareness of how individuals are perceived by different groups they may interact with. The feedback survey provided specific examples of interactions, strengths and weaknesses. An integral coaching tool for growth, especially at leadership levels, giving participants an anonymous source to submit constructive feedback about coworkers and leadership. Became a constant source of growth and positive recognition for being team player and good leader.  Business Forms: Completely redesigned and consolidated over 100 cumbersome forms into 55 customer friendly forms. Revamped form design process. Implemented PDF formatted forms out to website for online forms access. Held accountability for forms management, maintenance and approval.  Internal Customer Service: Led cross-functional team of supervisors to analyze data, gather facts and write scope document to engage and hold accountable all associates in the transfer agency for servicing one another. Designed service level agreements, premier customer service classes, cross-training, and interaction activities between departments to improve relations.  Incentive Plan: Created and led team of managers to research and design a performance based compensation plan. The plan rewarded individual and team success and included base pay plus incentives for all transfer agency personnel. Based incentives on performance and awarded quarterly. Improved productivity, accuracy, and reporting, and increased retention in transfer agency from one year of service to four years of service.  Workforce Development: Created a “Respect in the Workplace” program, consisting of an initial class for all associates on diversity and professionalism, a monthly team session around behavioral issues, and support for supervisors to teach and discuss current topics. This proactive program defined workplace expectations and held all accountable, resulting in fewer HR issues.  Alternative Work Schedules: Implemented several solutions to adjust to changing market needs. Expanded schedules and added part-time resources. Added second site in Austin where equipment had to be bought and installed, resources trained and aligned with Houston team. Sourced part-time college students from local universities to work evenings and high volume periods. Built business plan to fully expand to 24/7 servicing agent. Built and piloted telecommuting program within transfer agency. Researched options of workspace in suburbs for “mom” workforce and on-campus offices for students to work between classes.  Balanced Scorecard: Researched and implemented reporting tool to provide global indication of business trends and opportunities to improve. Built global scorecard for transfer agency, measuring and communicating vision, strategy and customer satisfaction. Developed and trained management on cascaded scorecards for each division which enabled a consistent picture of strategic destination.  Created Division and Team Level Mission Statements: Directed leadership team to create division statement based on values leadership team wanted to display and expectations of how to support customers. Led teams to create their own mission to support corporate and division mission. Teams presented missions to division. Resulted in everyone understanding their role and critical place in the organization's success.  Reengineering: Examined existing procedures and recommended reengineering processes and resources to meet increased work demands instead of continually hiring new staff. Developed model and started reengineering areas in most need. Re-mapped processes, reduced costs, enhanced efficiency and designed efficient processes. Taught and guided others to challenge the status quo, continually reengineering processes through many resources.  College Saving Plan: Partnered with sponsoring state and marketing, designing forms and service structure for product rollout. Resulted in State Farm Insurance requesting AIM's product to wrapper for sales force, a first partnership of this kind for State Farm. Built flow and division of work between back offices. Worked with common systems provider to build new account portal to automate resource intensive process. Recognized by State Farm and AIM as resource responsible for automating workflow to make financial model viable for partnering in product.  Business Continuity Plan: Formed team of managers throughout service center to coordinate plan of action across sites in the case of an emergency. Provided procedures, communication plans, and maintenance plan, mobilizing staff to recovery site, transitioning back to work as usual and after action reviews to improve future scenarios. Reviewed plan regularly to ensure preparedness. Completely revised plan upon conversion of systems and site transitions. Successfully implemented recovery activities, ensuring customers had seamless service and were unaware of business interruption by completing transactions in a timely manner with no impact to funds.  Conversion and Integration of Systems: Served as senior member and decision maker on each request for proposal regarding systems support. Oversaw successful conversion of 9,000,000 customer accounts to new transfer agency system. Integrated systems with sister company taking on additional 4,000,000 accounts. Held accountability for over 300 transaction processing representatives in two cities. Met service expectations and recovery from events in less than one year.  Forecasting Software: Benchmarked and researched tools in other industries to implement software that provided operations leading indicators for more solid predicting of volumes and market trends. Provided sourcing and training six to eight weeks ahead of predicted need, giving service areas trained resources as needed. Enabled managers to budget and meet service needs better. All other service areas were required to utilize this software to support resource requests based on division’s success. .  Imaging System: Implemented imaging system to automate paper transaction processing, work distribution, and electronic storage. Managed primary area responsible for implementation and design of systematic flow of work through system. Led cross-functional team to create plan and drive implementation. Automated work distribution, providing paperless environment with much more efficiency and timeliness. Modernized file retention and access.  Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) System: Researched available tools and platforms to automate transaction-processing fields. Overhauled all forms to new ICR format with barcode technology, built and piloted forms, tracked success rate of readability, and improved customer forms with each version of technology.  Business Plan Stories: Transformed task formatted business plan into story that shared the team’s goals and how to reach them. Incorporated pictures and motivational quotes. Resulted in annual initiative to share vision for forthcoming year. Associates and business partners could easily envision themselves as part of the plan and thus align their personal goals.  Transfer Agency Supervisor Guide: Organized team to write procedure manual so supervisory procedures would be consistently administered. Reduced coaching time, built confidence and credibility for leadership team and became model for creation of supervisor guide for company.  Legal Manual: Worked with legal counsel to gather and ensure appropriate regulations incorporated into manual of legal requirements. Provided management and legal team peace of mind that associates were applying consistent decision making to customer transactions. Associates gained autonomy and confidence in their processing. EXPERIENCE AIM, Houston, Texas Senior Vice President, 2000-2005 Held accountability for overseeing operations division across Houston and Denver sites. Directed up to 300 staff with ten direct reports. Responsible for business processes, efficiency and quality of associate work, and staff hiring, training, and development. Managed annual business plan, budget, forecasting of staff, vendor relations, and business recovery preparedness. Served as integral member of senior steering committee providing strategic and tactical planning for large transfer agency to ensure quality interactions with customers, employee satisfaction and operational effectiveness. Ensured adherence to compliance, industry and regulatory requirements and documented controls. Assured adherence to policy and procedures to achieve prescribed level of quality, customer service, productivity and accuracy. Acted in systems conversion and integration. Served as sponsor and advocate on cross-functional teams, including leadership philosophy, professional development program, internal customer service, rewards, quality and efficiency, business recovery, and resource utilization. Operations Vice President, Assistant Vice President and Operations Manager, 1991-2000 Managed direct transaction operations. Automated paperwork flow to imaging and work distribution system for transfer agency in Houston and Austin sites. Managed all transfer agency operations, including retirement, dealer services, and shareholder operations. Served as reengineering manager to reduce resource costs and improve efficiencies in operations areas. Internalized transfer agency operations. ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE Supervisor of Dealer Services, 1989-1990. Directed staff servicing brokerage transactions for AIM funds. Automated paper trading system to National Securities Clearing Corp. Wire Order Representative, 1988-1989. Serviced brokerage wire houses in trading AIM funds. Maintained shareholder and dealer files on transfer agency system. Acted in transfer agency systems conversion. TEXAS COMMERCE BANK, Houston, Texas, New Account Representative, 1986-1988. Set up new accounts, certificate of deposits, IRAs, safe deposit, and direct deposits. Performed all teller functions. FIRST CITY BANK, Houston, Texas, Teller, 1984-1986. Served as drive-in teller. PIER I IMPORTS, Houston, Texas, Clerk, 1977-1982. Held responsibility for retail sales and displays. EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON, Houston, Texas B.A., Business, Finance, 1986 CERTIFICATION Heartsaver CPR LICENSURE NASD Series 6, 63, and 26 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Business Process Improvement: Making Reengineering Work, 1995 Balanced Scorecard Collaborative: Building the Balanced Scorecard, 2001 The Leadership Mirror, 1997 Impact Leadership, 1998 Situational Leadership, 1998 DevelopMentor, 1997 Leadership conferences, 1998-2003 AFFILIATIONS National Investment Company Service Association, 1998-2005 COMPUTER SKILLS Microsoft Office, Visio, Project PERSONAL Enjoys reading, cooking, and traveling. Girl Scout Leader