Disaster Recovery Coordinatory

Frances O'Malley
604 Harmony Lane
Pleasantville, CA 94588
(925) 555-1234

CRISIS & EMERGENCY • BUSINESS CONTINUITY • DISASTER MANAGEMENT
SECRETARY, BUSINESS CONTINUITY INSTITUTE VICTORIAN FORUMS
MEMBER, ALLFINANCE BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY FORUM

Multifaceted skills base, a diverse career background, and advanced business and management studies, underpin a distinctive leadership style that unites and refocuses teams towards common goals. Career has been characterized by a strong customer service focus, and enhanced through seven-years supervising in high-pressure environments. Understanding of underpinning guidelines and strategies for business continuity includes identifying and assessing methods for mitigating risk, and managing incidents effectively through entrenched rapid response procedures and processes. A proactive, open and honest communicator; stimulated by fresh challenges. Track record for consistently winning the loyalty of staff, delivering projects to deadline, and boosting productivity and departmental effectiveness.

Professional strengths include:
Ÿ Identifying/Mitigating Risk
Ÿ Statistical Reporting
Ÿ Business Impact Analysis
Ÿ Policy and Procedure Compliance
Ÿ Resource Allocations
Ÿ RFP Development
Ÿ Business Continuity Planning
Ÿ Project Management
Ÿ Disaster Recovery
Ÿ Strategic Planning
Ÿ Solutions Development and Documentation
Ÿ Risk Procedure Evaluation and Development
Ÿ Program Development
Ÿ Critical Problem Solving
Ÿ Team Leadership & Training
Ÿ Risk Management
Ÿ Million-dollar Budget Administration
Ÿ Financial Analysis
Ÿ Equipment Purchases
Ÿ Vendor Negotiations
Ÿ Incident Management

Selected Contributions / Highlights

Recipient, “Strategic Operations Award” for intense 6-month project that successfully consolidated three disaster recovery sites—each with individual processes, into one cohesive operation.
Devised the first testing plan that transformed makeshift processes into a formal set of procedures that underpinned the new disaster recovery strategy.
Instigated standardized technical recovery and supporting management plans company-wide. Produced templates, a review cycle and naming standards.
Primary disaster recovery specialist, approached to consult on internal projects up to $50K with disaster recovery considerations. Collaborated with project managers to deliver expected outcomes, plan project timelines, devise post-test reviews, and oversee implementation.
Established complete set of management reporting mechanisms including testing result charts, expense reports and summaries, updated status reports for individual teams, and business impact.
Managed a $4.5 million budget and up to 50-staff concurrently on a series of projects impacting 10,000 employees nationally.

Employment Snapshot

INSURANCE AUSTRALIA GROUP (IAG)/CGU INSURANCE
2000–Present
IT Services Continuity Coordinator
2003–Present
Disaster Recovery Coordinator
2000–2003
PA to Service Delivery Manager
2000

CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON, London UK
1999
Open Learning Center Administrator

ALL SEASONS RESORTS, Melbourne
1993–1998
Front Office Manager/Acting Duty Manager
1997-1998
Receptionist Shift Leader/Receptionist/Food & Beverage Attendant
1993-1997

Experience Narrative

INSURANCE AUSTRALIA GROUP (IAG)/CGU INSURANCE
2000–Present
Engagement Summary:
Drive disaster recovery planning and protocols nationwide, investigating the organization’s capacity to identify risks, effectively protect technology asset investments, and ensure the recovery and continuity of critical systems in the event of a disaster. Project-manage strategy, procedures, and testing to assess business impact, and preside over awareness programs to enlist management commitment to ongoing system enhancements. Acquisition of CGU Insurance by IAG in 2003, prompted an organizational restructure, and appointment to a new, yet similar role with increased accountabilities and authority.
Summary: Confronted upon appointment to the Disaster Recovery Coordinator’s role in November 2000 to a division with negligible documentation, ad hoc processes, a lack of formal standards, and scant disaster recovery plans primarily focused on the mainframe platform. With no testing conducted for 12-months, immediate action was critical to lessen risk and protect assets. Immediately established regular meetings with managers to elevate awareness of the importance of disaster recovery and the potential impact and cost of data loss to operations, and devised the first testing plan that transformed makeshift processes into a formal set of procedures that underpinned the new disaster recovery strategy.

Contributions & Results:
IT Services Continuity Coordinator
2003–Present
· Led the most complex and inclusive system recovery tests in CGU’s history. Tested 10 applications across 5 platforms over 2-weeks presiding over the project from pre-planning to post-review.
· Instigated standardized technical recovery and supporting management plans company-wide. Produced templates, a review cycle and naming standards.
· Devised a comprehensive Management Recovery Plan in the event of catastrophic data center loss. Plan documents strategies from disaster declaration through implementation of recovery site.
· Minimized risk by creating solution templates that captured business requests, infrastructure design and the implementation plan;—an initiative ensuring document consistency throughout the business.
· Key contact point for business continuity issues; work closely with diverse business units nationally. As IT Liaison, contributed to third-party business impact analysis workshops providing input on methods to best address issues impeding the development of individual business continuity plans.
· Developed application matrix for capturing all IAG system and application information nationally.
· Devised application recovery priority spreadsheet for at-a-glance review of applications assigned to each business unit.
· Conceived and documented business approval/sign off strategy that detailed projects and testing. Initiative was immediately adopted on four in-progress projects.

Disaster Recovery Coordinator
2000–2003
· Accomplished zero failure rates on 9 consecutive disaster recovery tests, all of which demonstrated strong and significant process improvements.
· Recipient, “Strategic Operations Award” for intense 6-month project that successfully consolidated three disaster recovery sites—each with individual processes, into one cohesive operation. Initiative positioned the business to effectively embrace future infrastructure developments and cover all business critical functions. Developed an RFP, presided over vendor evaluation, interviews, and selection processes, and managed transition to new facility. Cited by Head of IBM Business Continuity & Recovery Services as “the only company to attempt such a complex recovery so successfully.”
· Established complete set of management reporting mechanisms including testing result charts, expense reports and summaries, updated status reports for individual teams, and business impact.
· Primary disaster recovery specialist, approached to consult on internal projects with disaster recovery considerations. Collaborated with project managers to deliver expected outcomes, plan project timelines, devise post-test reviews, and oversee implementation. Projects ranged from $400-$50K.
· Coordinated teams across Sydney and Melbourne during bi-yearly disaster recovery testing.
· Reduced recovery timeframes to 48-hours by eliminating non-critical files as part of the backup process. Initiative also served to cut the costs of off-site storage.
· Spearheaded the first full-scale backup strategy review across all platforms in the company’s history.

PA to Service Delivery Manager
2000
Short-term role secured upon return from overseas trip. Supported senior manager, shouldered routine HR and administrative processes, itinerary planning, stationery requisitions and venue bookings.
· Established “tracking” calendar for staff that became standard for staff availability monitoring.
· Saved countless hours in staff training by devising the first “Administration Procedures Manual” a blueprint for standard tasks.
· Appointed Project Administrator for major desktop rollout project. Managed all project communications, assessed training vendors, spearheaded staff education nationally, and contributed to implementation in Hobart and Brisbane as the IT customer liaison specialist.

CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON, London UK
1999
Open Learning Center Administrator
Temporary assignment on working holiday in London.

ALL SEASONS RESORTS, Melbourne
1993–1998
Front Office Manager/Acting Duty Manager
1997-1998
Receptionist Shift Leader/Receptionist/Food & Beverage Attendant
1993-1997
Designed front office area and established processes and protocols prior to the launch of the [then] new Grand Hotel—many of which remain in force today. Managed departmental budget including wage costing; tallied revenues/expenses at conclusion of shifts, evaluated performances, and hired/fired staff. Instituted the first orientation-training program for new inductees, and executed successful cross training and succession planning structures for established staff.

Technology Summary

Team Track (Change Management) • USD (Incident & Problem Management)
Microsoft Office XP (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Access)
Lotus Notes; Microsoft Project; Windows 9x/NT; LANs/WANs, Visio
ABC Flowcharter, Adobe Photoshop

Education & Training

Bachelor of Business (Management)
Victoria University, Melbourne

Graduate Certificate in Disaster Management
Swinburne University of Technology (commenced 2003)
Certificate 1 in First Aid

Recent training includes Business Continuity Planning Seminar, Incident Management & Request Tools, IT Infrastructure Library Training, and Customer Service Excellence. Attended the “Survive Conference” for Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery; workshops in risk assessment, business impact analysis, and disaster recovery strategies; trained in MS Visio.
PRWRA
Gayle M. Howard -getinterviews@topmargin.com - Top Margin - http://www.topmargin.com