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Paul R. Oakes

 

PROFILE

A business and technology leader with a passion for driving impact through high-performing teams and individuals.  A trusted business advisor and strategic technology executive with a track record of initiating, sponsoring and leading technology-enabled transformation initiatives in companies across diverse industries.

  • Business / IT Alignment

  • Collaborative, Analytic Problem Solving

  • Portfolio Management

  • Written & Verbal Communications

  • IT Project Execution

  • People & Team Development

  • Emerging Technologies & Trends

  • Budget & Resource Management

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

McKINSEY & COMPANY, New York, NY
Director, IT Strategy and Portfolio Management (2004 – 2014)

Conceived and created the Portfolio Management Office and Portfolio Manager career path in the context of a new McKinsey IT organization and governance model.  Recruited and developed a strong team of Portfolio Managers who worked in partnership with McKinsey business and functional leaders to identify, justify and execute technology initiatives in support of their business priorities.

  • Shifted over 35 percent of discretionary spend into strategic priorities

  • Inspired and oversaw transition from proprietary built solutions to clean package implementation in non-strategic areas across multiple functional areas

  • Initiated, built business support for and executed two strategic initiatives to replace McKinsey’s global Finance and Accounting systems and Human Resource systems with a common global ERP package.  Delivered both large projects on time and on budget with very high business satisfaction.

  • Led the transition from a highly US-centric IT function to an off-shored and outsourced model for application development, maintenance, support and operations.

  • Created a program to bring external voices to push McKinsey leadership thinking, identify and drive new technology experiments resulting in a high “success ratio” including projects that returned savings of over 500 percent of the initial technology investment

 
Associate Principal, Chicago, IL (2000 – 2004)

Consultant, Stamford, CT (1995 – 1999)

Created significant business value for clients through more effective application and management of technology in financial services, energy, consumer packaged goods, telecommunications, airline, and other industries.

Primary author of McKinsey’s IT strategy and operations improvement methodology.

A thought leader in the small team that started and grew McKinsey’s global Business Technology Office (BTO), the leading IT advisory service assisting clients in digitizing their business, developing high-impact IT strategy and improving the performance of IT organizations. 

Example client work includes:

  • Ran the Program Management Office for two consecutive post-merger IT integration programs for a global energy company.  Reduced the combined IT spend by more than 30 percent ($500 million a year) and accelerated cost savings from the planned 8 quarters to 5.  When the company purchased a second large energy company, ran the Program Management Office that integrated the systems and rationalized 50 percent of the acquired company’s IT spend (nearly $200 million per year).

  • Led a transformation initiative to fundamentally restructure a global airline to improve effectiveness and responsiveness to the business.  Helped business leaders gain a new understanding of their role in leveraging technology for competitive advantage and more effectively partner with IT in the successful delivery of technology initiatives.

 

 

IBM CORPORATION, Armonk, NY
IBM Consulting Group, Principal, Atlanta (1990 – 1995)

Taught Information Systems Investment Strategies at the IBM Advanced Business Institute.  Evolved our client offerings into a service offering as part of the team that formed and launched the IBM Consulting Group, IBM’s professional services offerings in senior management consulting.

  • Part of the team that defined the organization structure, goals, objectives, approach to market and knowledge management approach.

  • Defined the approach to IT Organization performance assessment

  • One of two Principals that started and grew the Southeast US practice in Atlanta, growing it to over $100 million in revenue over 5 years

 
Marketing Manager, Memphis  (1987 – 1990)

Managed the sales and services for a portfolio of IBM customers in excess of $55 million in annual sales.  Led a team of 10 marketing representatives selling the full line of IBM products and services to businesses ranging from small regional companies to large, global companies and public sector clients in the “Mid-South” region of the United States.

  • Consistently recognized for balanced achievement of all marketing and sales objectives; including invitations to IBM’s 100% Club and “President’s Club” recognizing top performing sales leaders

  • Sustained a consistent performance of successful competitive wins in critical large systems and storage systems sales opportunities

 

Large Systems Competitive Marketing Support, Kansas City (1985 – 1987)

Supported competitive marketing and sales opportunities for large systems and storage systems across the Mid-America region.

  • Sustained a very high win rate for competitive sales situations

  • Recognized for creating and running a world-class program of large and storage systems customer briefing

  • Managed the use of IBM’s corporate jets in the Mid-Atlantic region

 

Large Account Marketing Representative, Wichita  (1981 – 1985)

Helped identify, understand and solve critical business problems and create impact through innovative uses of technology in industries including manufacturing, transportation, health, utilities and the public sector.  Primary customers were a large, luxury private jet manufacturer, a large telecommunication company, a public sector University and State and Local Government organizations in the area.

 

KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, Manhattan, KS

Application Programmer, Evapo-Transporation Laboratory  (1977 – 1980)

Built, modified and supported a leading-edge program that modeled the use of water in three crops; wheat, corn and barley.  Worked with a professor and graduate students in the field to take measurements of crops’ growth characteristics and use of water and the development and validation of mathematical models that would simulate those crops’ use of water.  Supported adaptation of the model in Africa and South America for these and other crops.

 

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS  (August 1977 – December 1980)

Completed all required studies a year ahead of schedule with a 3.7 GPA while working as a programmer and taking supplemental advanced courses in humanities and science.

 

 

 

 

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