Geeta Acharya
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since February 25, 2019
Geeta is a veteran senior project manager and technology delivery lead who's experienced in both Agile and Waterfall development methodologies. She specializes in delivering technologies and transforming business processes in financial services. Geeta has leveraged strong communication and problem-solving skills to successfully manage complex and large technology projects that deliver business value.
Project Highlights
Work Experience
Agile Project Manager
Syndigo
- Managed two projects to migrate product data and user accounts from legacy content management platforms to a state-of-the-art content experience hub on a unified cloud platform.
- Created and maintained detailed work scheduled and milestones in Smartsheet.
- Managed the development and testing tasks via Jira sprints as well as Kanban.
- Identified project issues and risks and developed resolutions/mitigation plans.
- Managed stakeholders—communicating project progress, issues, and risks across all levels of the organization including senior management.
- Hosted scrum ceremonies and coached product owners in agile methodologies and the scrum framework.
Technology Delivery Lead
New York Life
- Acted as the primary contact for all of the technology needs related to the line of business for Eagle Strategies.
- Managed and mentored delivery teams to adopt and improve performance in the scaled agile framework (SaFe).
- Formulated the strategic direction, provided thought leadership, and engaged technology and business experts to ensure delivery business value.
- Fostered and managed vendor relationships.
- Presented a technology-oriented point of view, made recommendations, and gave high-level estimates for strategic projects to senior business leaders.
Master Practitioner
North Highland
- Managed projects to remediate self-identified audit issues within credit risk management at Bank of America. These projects included technology improvements as well as business process transformation.
- Oversaw technology projects to greatly improve regulatory functions (CCAR, FRTB) at Bank of America.
- Supervised the delivery of a workflow system to streamline due diligence process for client collateral within commercial lending at Bank of America.
Project Manager
JP Morgan Chase
- Delivered a detailed implementation plan in accordance with Basel II requirements to remediate weaknesses in the reporting and data aggregation processes across wholesale credit risk.
Product Support
AlphaCare
- Configured and customized Care Compass, a newly acquired technology platform to manage clients and service providers of this managed care startup.
- Designed and developed new workflows and automated processes based on all functional areas including call center, care providers, claims administrators, and senior management.
- Developed custom reports using SQL.
Project Manager
Morgan Stanley
- Managed the implementation of a strategic platform for finance called Structured Notes. The goal was to provide a complete and accurate balance sheet and reports to the business.
- Developed and managed a program to establish a well-controlled, front-to-back environment for processing Structured Notes transactions.
- Engaged numerous business lines globally across functional areas and technology to design and deliver technology solutions and establish business process controls and structures to meet regulatory requirements for the Structured Notes product.
- Supervised the development of a central database for Structured Notes transactions and all related hedging and funding trades across all lines of business such as equities, fixed income, commodities, derivatives, and FX.
- Created the development schedules.
- Supervised the development and testing teams.
- Identified risks, developed mitigation plans, and managed stakeholders.
Project Manager
Newedge (Societte Generale)
- Led a cross-functional team to successfully deliver an end-to-end technology solution which included phase 3 (a back office trades processing and accounting system), Geneva (a portfolio management system), and Intelimatch (a reconciliation tool).
- Managed vendor relationships.
- Created a development schedule and supervised the technology team in integrating the vendor systems with existing platforms.
- Worked with business resources to identify and implement improved customer reporting.
- Worked with vendors and business resources to create and conduct training workshops.
Testing Lead
Freddie Mac
- Led a team engaged to validate the functionality of a new trades processing/accounting platform called Summit.
- Developed test plans and tools for capturing, tracking, and reporting test results and metrics.
- Built automated tools in Microsoft Access/SQL to verify all of the data conversion from legacy systems and test the interfaces between the front-end of the Black Rock system and the data warehouse and G/L.
- Trained the client testing team (8-10 members) in the Summit functionality.
Project Manager
Citigroup
- Led a team of IBM consultants to develop IT solutions to support the CDO business and related asset classes.
- Partnered with business areas and senior technology resources to develop a technology strategy and high-level system architecture.
- Supervised the development team to deliver a reporting platform.
PMO Lead
JP Morgan Chase
- Developed detailed delivery plans for phase 2 of a global initiative to implement a credit derivatives platform called Murex.
- Coordinated with project managers across six work streams to develop detailed project plans, a program level plan, program level costs, and a governance structure.
Senior Manager
Price Waterhouse Coopers | IBM
- Led a team of consultants to roll-out a platform to support the retail sales force at a discount brokerage firm.
- Developed and proposed solutions to re-engineer an account opening system at a retail brokerage firm.
- Built and implemented solutions for process improvement within the fixed income and repo lines of the business at a global bank.
- Spearheaded a project to implement Summit (a derivatives trading system) for the treasury area at a commercial lending bank to support MBS, ABS, swaps, and futures transactions.
- Led a team of business analysts to gather requirements for a new loan servicing platform at a major mortgage institution.
Solution Specialist
Pershing Technology Group (Division of DLJ)
- Identified and recommended viable technology solutions to potentially enhance/replace the firm’s strategically crucial order management system.
- Gathered and documented business requirements from business and technology stakeholders.
- Conducted market and vendor analyses.
- Performed a cost-benefit analysis for in-house development vs. purchasing vendor platform.
- Delivered well-researched and detailed recommendations for replacing the legacy order management system to senior management.
- Managed a team of developers to deliver a real-time interface for mutual fund transactions from institutional clients.
Vice President | Systems Manager
Merrill Lynch
- Managed multiple IT teams sized (10-15) that were responsible for the development, maintenance, and support of trade order management, institutional client account allocation, and related systems used by institutional and retail equities and equity options businesses.
- Led the development of state-of-the-art technologies such as touch screens (UI), Unix, Sybase, and C++ that provided a real-time, distributed platform with interfaces to exchanges, clearing agencies, vendors, and external clients.
- Integrated an order management platform on client-server technology with a legacy transaction processing functionality on the mainframe to deliver straight-through processing.
Project History
New York Life | Technology Modernization
Supervised the project tech strategy that aimed to replace the legacy systems that supported the businesses at New York Life.
• Managed stakeholder relations, specifically with business leadership.
• Formulated strategic and tactical solutions with the goal of ultimately retiring legacy systems and automating processes such as client onboarding and reporting.
• Mentored scrum teams as well as teams working in the waterfall model in planning, problem-solving, progress reporting, testing, and collaboration.
• Managed relationships with vendors and worked closely with them to ensure the quality and timeliness of deliverables.
Morgan Stanley | Structured Notes Process Improvement
Led a project to establish a well-controlled, front-to-back environment for processing Structured Notes at Morgan Stanley.
• Developed and managed a program to establish a well-controlled, front-to-back environment in order to mitigate SOX significant deficiencies as well as to remediate self-identified audit issues.
• Engaged numerous business lines globally across functional areas including global product controllers, valuation review group, operations, treasury strategizing, and IT to design solutions for accurate P&L reporting.
• Developed a plan to deliver strategic and tactical solutions.
• Supervised an implementation with the goal of central governance, an optimal organizational structure of control functions, a consistent application of policies and procedures, and improved valuation models.
• Managed the delivery of a central database for Structured Notes transactions and all related hedging and funding trades across all lines of business such as equities, fixed income, commodities, derivatives, and FX.
Implementation of Back Office Systems
Led the implementation of two vendor systems to improve trade processing and accounting as well as customer reporting.
• Led a cross-functional team to successfully deliver an end-to-end technology solution, which included phase 3 (a back office trades processing and accounting system), Geneva (a portfolio management system), and Intelimatch (a reconciliation tool)
• Increased capacity to support larger transaction volumes.
• Enabled straight-through processing for equities and listed derivatives.
• Implemented capabilities to provide value-added services to a growing client base.
Morgan Stanley | Funding and Capital Allocation
Managed the delivery of a tech platform which improved the capital allocation process for Morgan Stanley's finance area.
• Performed all project management functions: planning, resource allocation, risk and issue management, progress reporting, stakeholder communications, development, testing, training, and deployment.
• Supervised activities across functional areas such as finance, operations, and technology.
• Established change control processes to manage scope and timeline.
• Defined the review and approval steps for each phase of the development life cycle.
• Developed the process for post-implementation and BAU support.
Syndigo | Legacy Product Migration to a Content Experience Hub
Managed cross-functional teams to migrated products and users from legacy platforms to a unified platform.
The role (agile PM) was to manage and guide the scope of work, including the development, testing, and acceptance. I was required to migrate all products and users from two legacy platforms to the content experience hub—a unified cloud platform.
Education
Master's Degree in Business Administration
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia, PA, USA
Certifications
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Professional Scrum Master Level I (PSM I)
Scrum.org
Certificate in Computer Programming
Baruch College
Skills
Tools
Jira, Rally, HP Quality Center (QC)
Paradigms
Agile, Scrum, Waterfall Development
Industry Expertise
Financial Services, Consumer Products
Platforms
Windows
Other
Project Management, Technical Project Management, Program Management, Business Analysis, Communication, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Smartsheet, eCommerce
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