Paul Gale
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Jericho, VT, United States
Toptal member since April 27, 2020
Paul is a passionate PMI and scrum-certified project management professional. He leads dispersed global teams working on innovative cloud-based SaaS solutions at companies such as IBM and National Life Group. Paul’s passions are building high-performing teams, strong partnerships, and disciplined agile and waterfall project management practices in imperfect, real-world situations. He joined Toptal to work on leading edge solutions with the best and brightest clients.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Analytics
- Conflict Resolution
- Digital
- Jira
- SaaS
- Team Building
- Vendor Management
- Workflow Tools
Work Experience
Senior Project Manager | Scrum Master
National Life Group
- Managed multimillion-dollar financial services projects staffed by global multi-company teams.
- Implemented a new underwriting system involving eight companies, ten integrations, and four workstreams. This system increased applications processed without human touch by 400% and decreased time-to-issue by 50%.
- Managed business partnerships and contracts with iPipeline, Munich Re-Insurance Automation Solutions, LexisNexis, Medical Information Bureau (MIB), Milliman, Moody’s, and ExamOne.
- Executed 30 on budget and schedule, high-quality production releases per year.
Project Manager
IBM
- Managed parallel international semi-conductor chip design teams in commercial, aerospace, and defense industries.
- Led projects from concept (contracts, charter, and planning) through closure (lessons learned and hardware validation).
- Turned around a troubled project—restoring it early-to-market product introduction and securing a future $80-million contract.
- Negotiated challenging customer requests while maintaining project cost goals and customer satisfaction.
- Instilled disciplined schedule and budget processes.
Project Manager
IBM
- Integrated 200,000 circuit models from 50 global development teams into a 2GB design kit containing over 100 customer deliverables.
- Developed flexible release processes, enabling maximum development time and just-in-time delivery.
- Coordinated a large scale, worldwide, consistent, and high-quality distribution of customer deliverables, reducing customer returns by 5%.
- Implemented continuous process improvements, increasing team productivity 8% over two years.
Project Manager
IBM
- Led a team that developed a sophisticated computer-aided design system for designing semiconductor computer chips.
- Placed and wired millions of circuits on computer chips the size of the end of your pinky finger.
- Ran a noise and timing analysis across the entire chip.
- Performed a logical and physical verification of each circuit.
Project History
Insurance Automated Underwriting System
This system increased the percentage of applications processed without human touch by 400% and decreased time-to-issue by 50%. The executive sponsor named this the most successful project in recent company history.
I managed 35 people from eight companies that involved ten integrations and four workstreams. The people were on four continents in six time zones. The project was run with a hybrid methodology consisting of some waterfall and agile workstreams.
Fraud Prevention Services
Led the scrum team that automated identity verification throughout a large insurance company.
I led the team that developed cloud-based web microservices and data analytics to provide consistent verification of customer identities and bank accounts throughout all of the departments of an insurance company (including new business, claims, call centers, and sales centers).
Automated the Insurance Application Process
Led the team that worked with a SaaS vendor to build out the online digital applying process reducing manual followups to get more customer information.
The insurance industry is regulated so when I led this project I had to involve legal, compliance, audit stakeholders, and state insurance departments to create a pleasing online application experience for customers. I then fed the application data into downstream administrative systems.
Education
Master's Degree in Computer Engineering
University of Vermont - Burlington, VT, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering
University of Maine - Orono, ME, USA
Certifications
Professional Scrum Master
Scrum.org
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Skills
Tools
Jira, Confluence, Skype for Business, Skype, Zoom, Slack
Paradigms
Waterfall Development, Continuous Integration (CI), Agile Project Management, Change Management
Industry Expertise
Financial Services
Platforms
SharePoint
Other
Workflow Tools, Team Building, Vendor Management, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Budgeting, Staffing, Risk Management, Issue Management, Reporting, Conflict Resolution, Project Management, SaaS, Continuous Development (CD), Digital, Project Management Professional (PMP), PSM-1, Certified Scrum Professional, IT Project Management, Technical Project Management, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex Meetings Server, AWS Cloud Computing Services, Fraud Prevention, Analytics, Security, Data Migration, Communication, Project Rescue
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