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Ahmad Sinno is the founder and president of Cedar Consulting www.cedarcon.com. Cedar
Consulting assists clients plan and execute IT strategies that are aligned
to their business strategy. Ahmad is a proven results oriented
executive with over 23 years of experience at management consulting and
technology companies. Ahmad is experienced in successfully leading
large and cross-functional teams through effective communication, empowerment
and collaboration. He is an advocate of leveraging technology and
business process improvements to maximize efficiency and achieve business
objectives. He is recognized for his ability to think strategically
and act tactically.
Prior to founding Cedar Consulting, Ahmad worked
for Accenture where he delivered large system integration initiatives
to clients in the Financial Services, High Tech and State Government
industries. He also teamed
up with strategy teams to develop value propositions and transition plans
for new business concepts that leveraged emerging technologies such as
internet banking, B2B, B2C and G2C. Prior to Accenture, Ahmad worked
at CompuServe where he ultimately became responsible for the complete
development lifecycle of four software applications.
Specific areas of expertise:
- Strategic IT Planning and Enablement
- Business Process Reengineering
- Strategic Program Management
- IT Architecture and Application Development
Selected experiences and
consulting engagements:
- Assisted regional CIOs to execute a global IT
strategy assessment and planning to enhance IT's readiness and ability
to deliver the new business strategy. Led the global technology team in the US and
EMEA that assessed the health of IT applications, alignment of the
IT projects to the business strategy, the solution and service delivery
and B2B capabilities. Result: Over $12 million in identified
savings and a more focused and efficient IT organization.
- Developed a comprehensive IT strategy that is
aligned to the emerging business strategy of client. IT strategy reduced IT budget by
20% and to redirect another 30% towards strategic initiatives. Played
the role of acting CIO until a full-time CIO was identified and hired.
- Assisted executives at a client company to develop
the assets, tools and business plan for a new strategic service offering
- Collaboration Strategy Assessment (CSA). The service assesses the maturity
of an enterprise’s collaboration strategy within the enterprise
and with its business partners and customers. The four areas
of focus are: Value chain business strategy, enterprise culture, business
process management and information technology.
- Assisted client develop an internet strategy. Directed
the application development and the operations teams that were responsible
for developing and operating the web site that enabled a state agency
staff to manage the employment and job environment in the state of
Ohio.
- Assisted a state agency define and implement the
processes to evaluate and support the successful delivery of the
Statewide Information Technology budget recommendations for FY08/09. Assisted
the state to identify opportunities to save millions of dollars where
various agencies could collaborate to implement common technologies
and capabilities.
- Assisted the executive team at a client to identify
the business and technical requirements for an Enterprise Content
Management (ECM) solution and to identify the short list of potential
vendors. The
objective of the ECM solution is to enable client to effectively and
efficiently manage the plethora of physical and electronic content
that they generate annually. The anticipated results are improved
compliance, competency, communication and consistency in dealing with
content.
- Worked with the executive team at client to develop
their web presence strategy. Gathered business and technical requirements and conducted
a gap analysis. Responsible for the complete development and
release lifecycle for the new web site.
- For a technology client, executed an Application
Rationalization assessment of IT applications. Recommended
decommission of 24 applications, migration of 12 applications to
a common platform and consolidation of 13 applications into 3.
- Program managed the number one strategic initiative
to transform the company’s products and services. The core team consisted
of the global top individuals across all functional areas. Responsibilities
included leading the team through a comprehensive business integration
effort with a direct focus on the enterprise readiness team; managing
the development of the functional areas plans; and developing execution
plans.
- Enhanced the Proof of Concept (POC) business process
to reduce the cost and improve the reliability of building and delivering
POCs to prospects. Target business process introduced an appropriate
level of controls and checkpoints to enhance pre-sale’s ability
to control and manage the scope of POCs. This resulted in impactful
POCs at a lower cost, enabling the pre-sale organization to demonstrate
maturity and gain the confidence of prospects and the support of executive
management.
- Led the technical and process teams that collaborated
with the strategy teams of Accenture and the bank to develop a B2B
ePayment strategy. The
ePayment strategy would extend the bank’s ePayment capabilities
to eMarketplaces and financial institutions. Led the RFP process
and the evaluation of 3rd party B2B vendor products.
- Managed overall client relationship with a dot.com. Played
a substantial role on an executive team that developed the value proposition
and business plan for a potential alliance. Directed a team of
12 professionals that delivered dot.com custom solutions to clients. Directed
another team that developed a professional services methodology and
best practices to introduce necessary discipline in tracking costs
and delivering quality solutions to customers.
- Led
a team that evaluated current technical Internet banking capabilities;
developed RFP and evaluated 3rd party vendor products that could be
leveraged to replace home grown internet banking technology. Co-lead
the team that developed the migration and business integration plans from
the current environment to the target environment.
Selected education
and training:
- MBA – The Ohio State University with a focus
on Marketing and Finance
- BS Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Architecting
business change
- Delivering client value
- Building market focused organizations
- Leading and managing
cross functional teams
- Managing through power and influence
- Creative people
management
- The manager as a coach
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