Hello! I'm Farrah
Energetic, trusted, and detail-oriented senior manager and strategic solutions provider with outstanding program/portfolio management and conflict management skills. Hand-picked by executive team to turn around underperforming programs; accomplished leader known and respected for leading successful change in projects and building credibility with executive teams and staff. Solutions driver who bridges the gap between business and technology with expertise in managing complex programs and multiple concurrent projects. Directs PMO teams to develop high-quality programs that solve business problems and provide tangible results for enterprise-level financial systems and legacy workflow systems.
Farrah T Zargar,MBA
Director of Operations & Strategy
Address:
Bay Area, CA
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EXPERIENCE
QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY
Proven experience in managing multiple-functional teams across the organization in enterprise environments. Demonstrated consistent ability to deliver technical and leadership solutions while mitigating or removing obstacles and closing all gaps. Vast experience in software application design and development, delivery management, transitional management, and client relationship management. Extensive background managing large scale projects using waterfall and agile methodologies. Solid experience as PMO analyst for midrange and hosting projects. Specialization in PMO implementation and in observing IT management best practices, such as ITIL &PMBOK. Experience in providing technology solutions in various industry domains - banking, healthcare and life sciences.Aligned IT operational efficiencies with business operational goals to build and strengthen business processes and growth objectives.
2018-2019
Sr. Project/Porgram Manager
McKesson,ReallyHealth
Lead multi-functional across the organization, to delivered solutions to support integration projects for merger and acquisitions. As a Program and Project Manager, I successfully delivered McKesson/Relay health’s largest and most complex Cloud Application Development and Migration. I was also responsible for leading a project team in delivering a solution to the client by managing scope, cost analyses, schedule, and contractual deliverables, which included applying techniques for planning, tracking, and change control. I interfaced with all levels of executive leadership, business partners, technical engineers, trainers, support teams, information security, and others to successfully integrate acquired organization.
▪ Utilized the Stage Gate process and other existing tools to manage multiple development projects from project approval to customer delivery.​
â–ª Developed benchmarks for comparing projects and their cost.
â–ª Established a framework to outline the parameters of the cost analysis.
â–ª Compare cost and benefits using aggregate information.
â–ª Responsible for managing the integration of a project, so that project objectives are met by utilizing the right resources, in a timely and cost-effective manner.
â–ª Supported activities related to migration of One-cloud to Azure.
â–ª Supported activities related to migration of office (Network, security, Cisco network, Webex, VPN,etc)
â–ª Supported activities related to migration of office 365 migration, skype, MS Team, SharePoint, etc.
â–ª Supported activities related to migration of domain.
â–ª Supported activities related to migration of Salesforce (CRM).
â–ª Supported activities related to rebranding old URLs, API.
â–ª Worked with the Change Healthcare (new entity) support organization in transitioning new products/services, defining SLAs, and in developing continuous improvement plans.
â–ª Provided day to day direction to the project team and regular project status to the clients and management.
2016-2018
Senior IT Manager
Global Children's Rights
Implement and managed project for building an application to collect the data around beneficiaries, volunteers and funders.I worked and developed detailed program/project execution plan and manages all implementation processes including resource allocation, progress tracking, monitoring change control process, testing, documentation, training and on-time delivery within budget constraints to support.
â–ª As the Head of PMO, leaded IT Project Managers, Business Analysts and Quality Assurance Engineers to establish high performing project teams.
â–ª Supported SaaS projects and automated project workflow services.
â–ª Support Infrastructure and integration projects for new financial application.
â–ª Analyzed and resolved issues in application deployment activities.
â–ª Suggested and implemented workflows for operational efficiency.
â–ª Formulated and executed monitoring strategies for application services.
â–ª Worked with networking security team to gather requirements and design authentication and authorization services.
â–ª Generated and reported project status and updated to seniors.
2015-2016
Senior IT Manager/Program Manager
Hewlett Packard/ TCS
Program/Project-managed large-scale initiatives involving the transition of programs to new platforms and the merger of disparate systems from acquired new entity and existing group through a merger with aggressive deadlines.
â–ª Managed over 450 applications ran on both cloud and non-could platforms (ERP, Oracle, Tibco, Apache, Oracle fusion applications, etc)
â–ª Achieved seamless migrations and integrations that were transparent to client customers, accomplished with no unscheduled downtime and delivered by as much as $500K under budget.
2012-2015
Senior Program Manager
Kaiser Permanente/ TCS
Implemented $6 millions complex scalability project including enhancement on both HW and SW, data canter, Disaster recovery center, cloud, networking and security.
â–ª Defined and managed hardware upgrade to new claim legacy application.
â–ª Designed and successfully executed DB2 upgrade plan.
â–ª Assisted in upgrading all hardware and software to support new infrastructure.
â–ª Reduced operating cost of claim legacy application by 125% through replacement of old models.
â–ª Improved the consistency, recoverability and accessibility of data, and generating additional 1 million claims a day.
2012 -2013
Release Manager
Kaiser Permanente/ TCS
Responsible for managing end of service infrastructure and software remediation projects to upgrade the technology and to supported new versions of software and hardware for KPHC HealthConnect (Electronic Medical record) Application & supporting infrastructure.
â–ª Managed all phases of product qualification and problem report tracking, and effectively reduced new and legacy issues.
â–ª Recognized for creativity and teamwork in planning and executing projects.
â–ª Provided detailed documentation to corporate resulting in reduction resolution time.
â–ª Managed designated customer accounts for multifaceted engineering issues. Effectively worked onsite with customers on qualification, configuration, and repair.
2012-2012
Project Manager Principle Lead
Kaiser Permanente / CSC
Responsible for managing end of service infrastructure and software remediation projects to upgrade the technology and to supported new versions of software and hardware for KPHC HealthConnect (EMR) Application & supporting infrastructure, impacting over 8 different regions throughout the country and over 12M patients.
â–ª Served as a liaison between Business (Inbound Sales and Customer Care teams) and IT management, assuring adherence to the SDLC/ITIL methodologies.
â–ª Provided detailed documentation to corporate resulting in reduction resolution time.
Recognized for creativity and teamwork in planning and executing projects.
2005 - 2011
Project Manager
Business Image Management
Sole ownership of budget and P&L analysis of $3+ million annual line of business consisting of 7-10 simultaneous projects. Developed and implemented project scope baseline, cost baseline and project metrics.
â–ª Led design and multinational rollout of robust, scalable and secure enterprise resource planning (ERP) and point-of-sale (POS) systems for international clients.
â–ª Created and tracked financial model for business valuation, scenario preparation for strategic planning, cost of capital calculations for corporate finance projects, capital budgeting decisions and the allocation of corporate resources.
â–ª Completed projects up to two months ahead of schedule, as much as $1.2M under budget and to universal client acclaim.
â–ª Increased revenue by over 25% using a cross-functional team of financial, technical and business experts. who analyzed and discovered a leak in business operations while working on another project.
EDUCATION
2009-2010
Master's Degree
American University
AIU
MBA, Emphasized in Project Management
1997-2001
Bachelor's Degree
Tehran University
General Biology (Genetics)
SKILLS
JIRA & Waterfall Methodology
Microsoft Project
Power Point & Visio - Proficient
Cloud & SaaS Platforms: Oracle, Workday, Salesforce, AWS
HPALM, JIRA, Confluence, Clarity, SAP FI, BI software and metrics
RACI chart & KPI tracking