Sara Scott

Sara scott

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location of Sara ScottColumbus, Ohio Metropolitan Area
Phone number of Sara Scott+91 xxxx xxxxx
Followers of Sara Scott2000 followers
  • Timeline

    Current Company
    Apr 2006 - now

    Chief of Staff / Technical Director, Staff Operations

    Nationwide
    Columbus, Ohio Area
  • About me

    Technical Director, Staff Operations | Chief of Staff | Career Speaker

  • Education

    • The ohio state university fisher college of business

      1995 - 1999
      Bachelor of science human resources

      Activities and Societies: Tau Beta Sigma

  • Experience

    • Nationwide

      Apr 2006 - now

      • Provided outstanding delivery and support to Nationwide Financial Technology (NFT) and Marketing & Enterprise Growth Solutions (MEGS) organizations, Technology, CTOC, and the Board of Directors. • Adaptability & relationship management: Demonstrated strong organizational agility by closely partnered with NFT Chief Technology Officer (CTO), BSA Leaders, Staff Operations Directors, NF Leadership Team peers, Human Resources, Finance, Security & Infrastructure, Enterprise Data Office, Communications, Meeting Services, AV Support, and Corporate Real Estate.• Lean Leader Academy Graduate: Completed a 9-month program in partnership with the Ohio State University, focusing on Lean process improvements and leadership concepts. Successfully executed a Lean project on Life Commissions, reducing defect lead time by over 20% through process improvements.• Operational Excellence: Managed key operational metrics for the NFT and MEGS organizations through a Virtual Management System (VMS) and by conducting Operational and Risk Review meetings. • Delivery: Led key strategic effort of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) role standardization to mature and expand the role for our organization to continue focus on reliability, availability, resiliency, and monitoring. Created a local SRE Guild for collaboration and innovation. Currently closing monitoring gaps on critical applications. • Public Speaking: Emcee for TechX which is an internal two-day conference for over 4,000 Technology associates.• Recognition: Received Inspiration Award from Nationwide’s Women’s Associate Resource Group and the Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion for actively mentoring 26 associates in a year.• Highly praised for developing and delivering numerous training sessions on Self Assessments, Resume Writing, Story Telling, Development Planning, and Being Your Best in a Hybrid World. Leveraged Leadercast content for day-long executive strategic learning sessions. Show less Distributed Platform – Agency Infrastructure, Application Hosting Teams, Capacity Planners/Data Analytics• Successfully led three teams which included Agency Infrastructure, Application Hosting and Capacity Planners. • Agency Infrastructure Team supports the Citrix and 300+ server environment supporting over 12,000 Exclusive Agents selling and servicing policies. Vendor management included Microsoft and Citrix. Successfully stood up legacy environment in Azure Cloud experiment. • Application Hosting Team supported server administration and 25 third party applications for a variety of Business Units at Nationwide. Applications included: Optim, DB2 Connect, WebMethods, Oracle Forms, Cognos, CollectOne, SAS, Citrix, and Informatica. • Capacity Planner/Data Analytics Team focused on data analytics, historical burn, and forecasts for Storage and Servers (Windows, ESX, Virtual Servers). Created innovative one page product views for executives and Senior Leadership. Currently focused on creating new reporting for burn down for on prem infrastructure with Cloud implementations.• Partnered closely with IRM, Forensics, Internal Audit and IAM to mitigate and reduce risk, improve security measures, and reduce vulnerabilities• Collaborated with Document Solutions to migrate the RightFax support. Partnered closely with IRM and had a cost avoidance of over $1 million to build a PCI compliant environment after contacted all generic ID to assess the type of documents flowing through the application• ITDE on the successful Agency Stabilization Project which resulted in increased stability and availability for the top 25 Agency Applications with recognition from Executive Leadership. • Reduced expenses by focusing on process improvements, automation, contract negotiations, licenses and decommissioning of infrastructure with over $347,000 in tracked savings for 2018. Show less Mainframe and Power Operations – Mainframe Storage, Performance and Hardware Teams• Participated in all aspects of mainframe outages which included identifying issues, P0 calls, facilitating resolution, providing communications, problem and known error identification, root cause analysis, and process improvements. • Active Leader in Lean Wave 3 which improved numerous processes such as work and service transition, cross skilling, work intake, zMR processes. Resulted in an organizational realignment and an efficiency of ~20%. Wrote weekly Lean communications to keep associates actively informed and engaged in the project. Designed Huddle Board for stand up meetings. Created Skill Matrix Dashboard to identify top technical skill gaps and training opportunities for the department. Prepared other departments for Lean journey. • Spoke at additional Lean Boot camps for I&O, NF IPS, and Underwriting as a Lean Subject Matter Expert. • Project involvement: zMR, BronzePlex, CMA, Disaster Recovery, GDPS Hyperswap, IDAA, Virtual Tape Library, z13 install, ITE/ATE Swing, and Storage Refresh. • Created initiative to combine Mainframe Storage SAN environment with Distributed SAN environment with expected savings of over $2 million. • Focused on Continuous Improvement in 2016, realized savings of over $725,000 through ESP changes and Mainframe Performance opportunities. • Decreased EUDT on the Mainframe platform 90% (10 million) from 2015 through requiring additional quality checks for changes, additional planning for changes and projects, and moving changes to least impactful times. • Nominated and won I&O Quarterly Star Award in 2015 for Mainframe Performance Continuous Improvement idea that saved Nationwide over $6 million in CPU reduction. Show less Enterprise Command Center (ECC) – Mainframe Infrastructure • Managed the ECC Mainframe Infrastructure team who provides 1st level problem determination and resolution for all facets of the mainframe system. • Worked closely with technical teams including: MQ, Scheduling/Automation, Storage/Performance, Storage, DB2/IMS, and CICS. Increased level of collaboration and feedback to seek opportunities for improvement. • Highly engaged People Leader with Team Engagement Score of 4.89 which was the highest score in the ECC. Active mentor to Managers and Directors on ways to increase their engagement. • Led and facilitated Associate Advisory Group for I&O CIO. Sponsored and attended events like Yam Jams, I&O Picnics and I&O All Associate meetings. • Participated on Eat, Greet, and Learn team to plan EGL sessions and obtained speakers from across Nationwide. • Proactively mitigated audit issues for the ECC through partnered with IT Audit, IRM, DB2, and NBP teams to clean up the access. • Facilitated and reviewed mainframe changes weekly with SME, Lead and Mainframe Lead and Manager to identify risks to the environment. • Drove and influenced a Continuous Improvement culture within Production Assurance by implementing the “CI Idea Factory” which consisted of visualization in 3 locations and bi-monthly Agile based stand up meetings with leadership. • Participated in Stakeholder calls with executives, outage calls and technical bridge calls to facilitate communication and resolution of outages 24/7. • Implemented and matured Problem Management initiative. Team identified numerous reoccurring technical incidents and escalated to mainframe teams in Problem Management module of Service Center. • Creatively ran 2013 United Way campaign as the Production Assurance United Way Lieutenant. Show less Personal Lines SQA – EC Property Testing Team • Manager, IT Analysis over the Exclusive Channel Property Platform mainframe testing efforts for applications including FPS, FOP, FUS and AOA. Project included rate, regulatory and compliance, PIRL, Precision, Cal EQ, FPS Services, EASE, Promise, Home Financial, and SVOC. • FPS was the only application area within Personal Lines to exceed each of the Production Defect Goals in 2011 and 2012. Achieved an 11% Reduction in Total Defect Detection and a 32% Reduction in Customer Detection. Realized a 65% reduction in defect backlog and ended the year with only 1 defect not scheduled for correction. • Continuous improvement idea implemented to reduce print costs and turning off daily error testing print (MRPO) through automation which had ran daily for 38 years. • Had the highest engagement scores in Personal Lines with an Overall Engagement score of 4.63.• Stood up the first Personal Lines Agile line in FPS with partnership from the ADC and moved the team from waterfall to Agile methodology. • Created innovative hiring approach called Student Contractor Program and saved department over $350,000 in 2011 with ongoing equivalent savings in 2012. Made strong partnership relationships with Supply Management, DeVry University and The Ohio State University. • Created Risk Based Prioritization approach and implemented across Personal Lines. • Developed skills in: Exploratory Testing, Fitnesse, Cucumber, Ruby on Rails, XML, SOAP, and Services through training, learning sessions, meetings and self study. Show less IT Service Desk – Enterprise Service Desk• Managed the Enterprise IT Service Desk with an $5.6 million operating budget). Particularly responsible for the Nationwide Financial account including Nationwide Financial Application Engineering Support, Imaging and Workflow, Nationwide Financial Sales and Service, Nationwide Financial Network (Provident), Pensions, iMedia, Nationwide Retirement Solutions, Individual Protection, and Nationwide Bank. • Praised frequently for being highly accountable and responsible for thorough research, analysis, and resolution of issues and escalations for users, business units and support teams in a timely basis.• Supported catastrophe response for hurricanes, wildfires and other highly visible events. • Active participant in High Performing Team initiatives and activities. Updated all Service Desk job descriptions. Created and delivered a successful Career Development Open House for the IT Service Desk. Representatives included: Learning and Development, Talent Acquisition, Nationwide Library, Service Desk Alumni, Career Resource Center and training vendors. • Exceeded or met all Service Level Agreements. Consistently improved first time final through training efforts and adding, updating and retiring outdated knowledge in HP Service Center. • Built a telecommunications team to support all lines of business within Nationwide Insurance. Supported wireless products including air cards, cell phones, Blackberries, and other various devices. Show less

      • Chief of Staff / Technical Director, Staff Operations

        Dec 2019 - now
      • Manager, Infrastructure Engineering

        Nov 2016 - Dec 2019
      • Manager, Infrastructure Engineering

        Jun 2015 - Nov 2016
      • Manager, IT Operations

        Apr 2013 - Jun 2015
      • Manager, IT Analysis

        Oct 2010 - Apr 2013
      • Manager, IT Operations

        Apr 2006 - Oct 2010
  • Licenses & Certifications