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Just the other day, I was asked what I love doing. After a moment of reflection, I responded with: “I love building products that change business by applying technology”. 10 words that sum it up!
Recent: WernerCo, Emerson Industries—Strategic Consulting 2014 Previous: American Utility Management— Chief Information Officer 2011—2013 Rand McNally — Chief Technology Officer / SVP Operations 1998—2009
Education: MBA—Global Business / Hotchkiss Scholar / Co-Valedictorian 2010—2013
Creativity and passion are my trademark and I have been able to accomplish some very exciting initiatives in very short timeframes by being creative and passionate and by leading.
I love working with people — building and mentoring great teams that run world-class operations and provide the best customer service. Period. This is my legacy. Strategy is the extremely vital first step, but there also is art in execution. Keep reading... I promise the rest of your experience here will be informative and maybe even… fun!
Company History: (more detail below) Small - American Utility Management, SCIGON Solutions Midsize - Rand McNally, Arby’s Restaurants Large - Taco Bell Corp, WernerCo, Emerson, Prudential Insurance
Industry Experience: (more detail below) Multifamily Residential Billing | Energy Consulting | Energy Benchmarking Retail—Traditional Brick | B2B | B2C | Online commerce | POS systems Mobile—App development | Directions | Navigation High Volume Websites—More than 1/2 billion pages/year volumes Consumer Electronics Quick Service Restaurant—POS | Labor Scheduling | Restaurant Systems Business Intelligence—Applying BI technologies across these industries Technology Contract Negotiations (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, IBI, and more….) Trucking—GPS, Routing, Mileage Print—dare I say
Years of learning have proved that it is important to: · Be transparent. Make sure the team knows the whole picture. · Know the priorities. Make sure the organization understands the priorities. Having the entire organization know the “top 3” priorities allows for partnership and most importantly… · Focus. If the team is informed, knows the priorities, they can focus on the win. · Enjoy your work and have fun! Teams that are aware of what is going on, know what they are working on is important and deliver measureable results can and do get more enjoyment from their job. This increases ownership and productivity. · Be open-minded. Every opportunity is an occasion to gain experience and learn.
June 2013: MBA — Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Hotchkiss Scholar Recipient & Co-Valedictorian — 4.0 GPA
Levins Enterprises Chicago, IL Levins Enterprises (www.LevinsEnterprises.com) provides strategic consulting services to some of the most recognizable brands in the world including WernerCo (Werner Ladders) and Emerson Industries. Most recent engagements involve global call center strategy, global networks connecting offices in the US with plants in Australia, Vietnam and the UK and website strategies utilizing content management and AWS to distribute websites globally.
American Utility Management Chicago, IL American Utility Management (AUM) (www.aum-inc.com), founded in 1994 provides comprehensive utility management and energy services for the multifamily industry, utilizing proprietary technology and innovation to drive cost savings. Our blog: info.aum-inc.com/blog 2011 to 2013 - Chief Information Officer and Nice Guy Accountable and responsible for all platforms and innovation. Chartered with introducing new methods and innovations to enable AUM to scale efficiently while experiencing tremendous growth. In just twenty-four months, established a strategy and completed the following initiatives: - Design and implementation of a new data room with cloud computing support - Creation of industry-first peer benchmarking platform - Implementation of industry-first customer-facing business intelligence platform - Redesign of company website with focus on SEO and Content Management - Implementation of Agile development process and new development framework
Recognized with MHN 2012 / 2014 Technology Award
SCIGON Solutions Chicago, IL Ken signed on with SCIGON Solutions in July 2009 as their Business Development Officer. This was a good time for Ken to enhance his experience developing new business selling staffing, web 2.0 development and Software Quality Assurance services.
Rand McNally & Company Chicago, IL The preeminent U.S. publisher of maps, atlases, and globes for travel, reference, commercial and education. 2009 to 2009 - CTO + Senior V.P. Operations 2001 to 2009 - Chief Technology Officer 2000 to 2001 - Vice President, Information SERVICES 1998 to 2001 - Director, Information SERVICES
Accountable for all technology, strategy, innovation, and product development for company's entire product offering across digital and printed media. Also responsible for strategy and operation of all company back-office and distribution systems. Accepted additional responsibility for supply chain and distribution to set new direction and strategy for procurement and distribution. Managed 150+ team members on, off and near shore.
Goals were to drive profitability in a declining print industry by driving out cost where it was not necessary and generate a new stream of revenue by delivering world-class digital products. Significant and exceptional negotiation skills. Over 11 years, there is a lot to talk about, please forgive me in advance!
Consumer and Commercial Products: While the company is known for its dominant printed products, (the Road Atlas and Thomas Guides, which are custom distributed to over 50,000 locations in North America) they also operated across all of the electronic mediums. All of these products were developed and enhanced by Ken and his teams. . · Online: (click to see the product) - www.randmcnally.com—delivering over 400 million pages per year - education.randmcnally.com– Codie award finalist and winner of many other awards - Rand McNally’s online store– 50,000 retail distribution points (everywhere) and online too! - CustomView Maps—awarded a patent for online map creation and presentation - Maps & Directions - named “best online maps” by Time.com (they own Mapquest)
· Wireless: #1 downloaded branded M&D app on at&t, Verizon and Sprint - StreetFinder Wireless - Rand McNally Navigator - Rand McNally Traffic
· Consumer Electronics:
· Media Based:
· Brick & Mortar Retail: - The company operated 50 company-owned retail stores located throughout the U.S.
Rand McNally operates in several industry categories which have provided a tremendous breadth of opportunities to gain cross-functional as well as cross-industry knowledge in:
Commercial Transportation: The company also develops and distributes software for the Trucking Industry. MileMaker and IntelliRoute represent the number one and number two mileage and routing products for the trucking industry. Used in 98 of the top 100 trucking companies in the country, MileMaker is responsible for moving most of the product shipped by truck in the U.S. The Rand McNally Intelliroute TND 500 was awarded the CES Best of Innovations award.
Education: Rand McNally is the leading brand-name provider of map related products to 60,000 schools throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company’s digital product, www.randmcnallyclassroom.com, has been repeatedly recognized for content, creativity, ease of use and design.
International: Chartered with creating startup Joint Venture with Chinese sister company. Developing GPS software for Chinese phones.
Not only have these digital products grown to represent a significant portion of the company’s current revenue stream, they have been recognized within their industry as among the best.
Selected Product Recognition: · Rand McNally Intelliroute TND 500 GPS: Winner of the “CES Best of Innovations” award for 2010. · Rand McNally Maps & Directions: “Best Directions” by Time Magazine. (They own MapQuest) · Rand McNally Classroom: Award of Excellence, Multimedia 5 star winner, Winner Graphics Design, LAMP finalist · Rand McNally Directions Kiosk: Finalist in Kiosk.com—1st product to market · CustomView Maps: Awarded Patent by the US Patent Office for online mapping processes. · StreetFinder Wireless: Number 1 downloaded branded maps/directions application on at&t, Sprint and Verizon
Back Office / Operations / Retail: The role at Rand McNally has offered the opportunity to expand responsibilities from pure back-office strategy and operations to the product development world. While enjoying product development and the excitement that comes with introducing new innovations and seeing the reaction it generates, there is also 20 years of experience — hard earned experience — working with great back-office teams and systems. Saved the company over $100 million by innovating and mentoring entire teams to think on their feet, be creative and most importantly, do so while being frugal. Experience in the following back office categories:
· Customer Relationship Management (CRM): My teams have worked with just about all of the major CRM applications (SaleForce.com, Siebel, Clientele, Act, and more...) and have been able to educate a sales organization to embrace the value of CRM. · Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): We have evaluated and are very familiar with the Oracle, JD Edwards, and Microsoft Dynamics suite among the many packages available out there for the AS/400, Unix and Windows operating systems. · Sales Force Automation: We had great success replacing an entire infrastructure while servicing over 50,000 customer locations around the US. · Inventory Planning and Forecasting: Experience with Logility systems. One of the fastest implementations in Logility’s experience. Facilitated managing inventory down by over 70%. Introduced LEAN distribution concepts to the company · Business Intelligence and Decision Support: Responsible for implementing BI systems for finance, operations and sales. Designed and implemented great systems that captured a level of granularity most companies would kill for. · Data Center Operations: Responsible for the build out and move from Rand McNally’s 9,000 sq ft. data center into a 1,200 sq. ft. lights out facility that reduced operating and staffing costs across the board. · Website Operations: Responsible for negotiating and running multiple website operations for a website handling hundreds of millions of hits annually. · Telecom and phone systems: Researched and replaced multiple phone systems for large and small operations over the years. Reduced telecom expenses significantly. · Supply Chain (Purchasing and Distribution): In the role as SVP of Operations, had the good fortune to work directly with our suppliers to bring innovation to the procurement process. Have been heavily involved with Supply Chain throughout career with Rand McNally having run the department two separate times. · There is more… but this is enough about Rand McNally. Now on to the other companies...
Triarc Restaurant Group (Arby’s Restaurant Group) Ft. Lauderdale, FL The franchisor of the Arby’s restaurant system (which consists of more than 3,600 restaurants worldwide) and owner/operator of approximately 1,100 of those restaurants located in the United States
1996 to 1997 - Vice President, Information Technology 1994 to 1996 - Director, Corporate Systems
Responsible for all back office and restaurant operational systems. Managed the successful $17 million implementation of all new Point of Sale and back office systems. This project involved the planning of a multi-month rollout involving IBM and multiple contractors working to install and train restaurant personnel. Integration and implementation of new back office and reporting systems were also within the scope of this project.
This project enabled Arby’s to modernize their systems and reporting, which facilitated a reduction in operating costs by over 25% and eventually led to the desired sale of the company restaurants to the largest franchisee in the system.
Taco Bell Corporation (Pepsico) Irvine, CA Taco Bell Corp., a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., (NYSE: YUM), is the nation's leading Mexican-style quick service restaurant chain. Yum! resulted from a spin-off by PepsiCo.
1992 to 1994 - Director, Information Technology 1990 to 1992 - Senior Analyst, Information Technology 1989 to 1990 - Supervisor, Call Center 1987 to 1989 - Systems Analyst
In his seven years with Taco Bell, Ken experienced what it feels like to grow from $1 billion in sales to over $4 billion in two years. At the time, Taco Bell was involved in the “K-minus” program which reduced the size of the kitchen, the “Value Menu” initiative (which introduced the industry-changing .59, .79, .99 Value Menu) and the reengineering of the management structure which removed an entire layer of management from the hierarchy. These programs required the development of real-time systems and reporting methods that enabled management to react quickly to changes in the business.
During Ken’s tenure at the company, Taco Bell acquired several brands such as “Chevys Mexican Restaurants” and “Hot-n-Now Hamburgers” and opened restaurants in Mexico and Russia. Responsible for planning the 60,000 hour project to enable internationalization and the integration of M&A activities into the corporate reporting processes. Selected additional projects:
· Managed new facility build for Taco Bell Accounting Services. Built new facility from scratch and established systems and connectivity with Irvine and Dallas data centers. · Team managed the move of Taco Bell’s mainframe computers from Irvine to Dallas consolidated data center (Pizza Hut and KFC also in same data center) and planning and management of conversion of over 40 mainframe systems to allow Taco Bell to begin M&A activities and expand internationally. · Planned redesign of all company systems to facilitate M&A as well as international growth. · Responsible for the design and implementation of Taco Bell Help Desk to support a new back-office computer system roll-out to over 4,500 restaurants nationwide. · Designed and implemented first decision support systems for the company. · Redesigned corporate restaurant planning system used to plan over $3 billion in revenue and costs.
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