Lise has more than 30 years experience as an executive in the services and not for profit industries leading large back operations and delivering large strategic projects both in Canada and in Europe.
Your business strategy drives the products and services that set you apart from your competition. As a result, your core product will change to meet your clients' demands. A management consultant will help you understand how to make these changes, analyze options and support a well reasoned decision to proceed. Lise has supported a number of successful strategic initiatives that include acquisitions, outsourcing non-core services, automating processes and introducing new products or services.
Operations teams are accountable to the client and the businesses that support them, to deliver the best possible service at the best possible price. Products and services within a business are constantly changing and the support team must ensure they can meet these changes while continuing to deliver to an acceptable service standard. Lise has experience leading operations that are constantly changing and improving to exceed client expectations. Lise has led the introduction of service standards, activity based cost management and continuous change using Lean Six Sigma. Lise has also coached and developed strong teams and leaders who specialize in delivery.
Projects succeed when there is strong support from the business sponsor and skilled leadership helping manage them. Lise led a number of large projects that delivered transformational change. She understands how change affects teams. A Key objective to any project is ensuring that the result meets the business need and that it is implemented in a way that ensures a smooth transition. A representative sample of projects include:
Program Executive – Platform Transformation
Completed the design and initiation phase of a multi-year $150 million dollar program to replace the technology platform for a major line of business at a financial institution. Program initiation phase included evaluating and selecting vendor partners, negotiating a long term service contract, designing the program organization and onboarding the team, and determining the business requirements. A number of methodologies were introduced as part of the program including agile development, a business implementation framework to ensure business acceptance and a robust change management framework.
Program Executive – Basel II
Provided executive leadership of a $250 million program to implement process and technology changes necessary to comply with a new set of Capital Adequacy rules for financial institutions globally. The Scope of the program included interpreting the impact and change required by the new rules, data cleansing and management, new credit adjudication models and processes, introduction of operational risk practices and new liquidity and market risk assessment models. The program applied globally and included managing relationships with the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions in Canada as well as other National Financial Regulators in Europe, Asia and North America. The program structure was a federated approach with project teams in each country, line of business and functional unit within the financial institution and an enterprise program office which ultimately reported to the Board of Directors
Program Executive – European Expansion
A major wealth management organization wished to expand their market to Europe and Asia and set up teams from their North American operations to acquire and integrate an operation that would support both the European and Asian base. The scope of the assignment was to acquire a series of small local stock broker firms in the UK and Europe and integrate these into an operation that would provide online and telephone self-service stock broker services. For each acquisition due diligence was conducted for each target company and a purchase and sale negotiation. Operations were integrated into the existing base firm and a client conversion was executed. In addition, two joint ventures were completed that established an online European service and a “white label” operation that provided outsourcing services.
Provided executive support and subject expertise as part of a team tasked with investigating markets in Europe and Asia. Conducted due diligence and participated in the negotiation to acquire broker firms in Hong Kong and Great Britain and provided advisory support to Hong Kong, Japan and India. In each country an initial broker firm was identified and purchased. Technology solutions were sourced and business processes designed. A product suite was developed that was based both on a North American model and local preferences and teams were resourced and trained. Community Based Projects: Project to open a retail operation Objective of the project is to open a retail warehouse operation to fund a not for profit's core programs. The team supporting this initiative is largely volunteer based and includes experience with construction and operating a retail outlet. Provision of project management expertise ensured that all aspects of the project were considered and that a critical timeline was recognized.
Introduce Cloud Based Solutions
This is a primarily volunteer based organization with little to no technology support available and the team is distributed. Designed technology roadmap that will address the evolving needs of the organization grows. Sourced and implemented cloud based (SaaS) solutions to support team collaboration and document storage, payroll processing, bulk emailing, volunteer management, donor management and accounting. Supported a core team of staff and volunteers in transitioning to the new tools.
Event Co-Chair The initial role on the committee was project manager, providing planning and support for logistics. This evolved to a co-chair position, supporting the logistics aspects of the event as well as spokeperson for the evening gala. A framework for the event was developed and is now in use that provides the structure for every aspect of the event including a project plan and event show flow, competition and auction logistics, a budget tracking process and recognition of gift in kind revenue contribution.
