Carl L. Gerber, Jr.

Senior-Level Information Technology Leader

Strategic Planning / Technology Roadmap / Performance Improvement Initiatives

Career Highlights

• Launched Tween Brands' Data Warehouse Program. Created internal capability to deliver business performance insights (e.g., catalog/promotion effectiveness, market basket analysis, consumer buying patterns) that ultimately changed Company’s strategy. Created multi-year business intelligence roadmap and obtained executive buy-in through one-on-one discussions and steering committee meetings. Senior Manager, Data Warehouse - Tween Brands

• Instituted first master data management program & dramatically improved data warehouse. Launched master data management program that included data stewardship and data quality initiatives to enable digital product development process changes and created enterprise-wide data architecture that improved product data quality in ERP, web catalog, data warehouse, and product development systems. Director, Global Data Warehouse - McGraw-Hill

• Turned Around failing eCommerce project to sell auto insurance on Internet. Organized response team, analyzed performance bottlenecks, and built plan to scale-up technical infrastructure of eCommerce project. Resolved performance problems, gained executive confidence and moved strategic initiative forward on schedule. Eight-state rollout proceeded as planned. Site met performance expectations for 2 years until decommissioned. Assistant Vice President, IT Strategy & Architecture - American Financial Group

• Managed software product development and global deployment, established disciplined software development and release methodology, and created in-house e-mail system for important global technology project. Streamlined development process from version-of-the-day to planned release based on customer requirements approach for system ultimately utilized by 6,000 employees at 31 locations in 11 countries. Systems Analyst - Procter & Gamble

• Led $5 million program to create and deploy executive information system for USAF 4-star general and command staff. Implemented automated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and office productivity for command staff. Deployed all technical infrastructure, including local area networks, mid-range Unix servers, and desktop computers. Managed all software development and integration. Awarded Air Force Commendation Medal. Captain, Communications & Computer Officer - United States Air Force

Career Chronicle

Tween Brands, Inc. (www.tweenbrands.com) – New Albany, OH

Specialty fashion retailer with 2 brands, 850+ stores and annual revenues exceeding $1 billion.

Senior Manager, Data Warehouse (2006 – 2008) – Columbus, OH

Directed strategic planning, development, and operations for business intelligence, data warehouse, master data management, and enterprise data integration used by CFOs, CMO, Marketing Director, Brand Presidents, VP of Stores, and key business analysts in Merchandising, Allocations, Planning, Sourcing and Finance. Led data integration for eCommerce sales and customer marketing data interchange with 3rd parties; managed budget creation, submission, capital, and expense tracking; administered $1.8 million budget. Served as Chair, Data Warehouse Steering Committee and Member, Software Enhancement Committee.

Led business intelligence/data warehouse program, provided data integration leadership for $5 million new merchandise system, and supplied interactive reports for $3 million Oracle financials project.

• Helped senior management evaluate new promotions and change corporate business strategy in response to revenue reductions by providing insights, marketing campaign analyses, and performance reports regarding major shifts in consumer buying patterns to Chief Marketing Officer and Brand CFOs.

• Increased revenue per page, catalog cost savings and helped prepare store managers for critical back-to-school season by providing catalog effectiveness analysis that dispelled myths regarding catalog layouts.

• Furthered company's initiative to sell Justice Brand clothing on Internet by leading team that provided data integration support.

• Highlighted vendor's data quality issues and provided historical sales information by heading team that provided data integration services for 3rd-party customer marketing database.

• Played instrumental role in helping brand CFOs create new financial forecasting models in response to changing economy by providing accurate and up-to-date sales performance information and by increasing analytics’ use for business decision making.

• Cleared enhancement and bug fix requests backlog; improved testing environment, and made hundreds of beneficial changes (98%+ success rate vs. previous 60%) shortly after coming onboard by implementing change, configuration, release, and problem management ITIL processes.

• Established Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) as company’s highest quality data resource and EDW team as timely insight provider by consistently delivering data quality improvements and resolving numerous disparities between multiple reports.

• Increased maturity for data-based business decisions and improved data quality by socializing data governance/stewardship with key business executives. Created and gained buy-in for multi-year data warehouse roadmap.

• Decreased redundant sales data interfaces 20% and increased data quality and timeliness by delivering a new data integration strategy.  Strategy recognized as an industry best practice by The Data Warehouse Institute and presented as a case study at their Executive MDM conference.

• Led team that improved system response/query time 20% on key financial interactive reports.

• Headed team that created data warehouse end-user training content and personally created executive presentations used to socialize data warehouse functionality and roadmap.

McGraw-Hill Education (www.mheducation.com) - New York City, NY

Leading global provider of educational materials, information, and solutions for Pre-K through 12th grade, higher education, and professional markets with $2.5+ billion annual revenues. Operates 6 independent brands/divisions.

Director, Global Data Warehouse (2005 – 2006) – Columbus, OH

Challenged to create, gain buy-in, and obtained funding for multi-year data warehouse roadmap to improve business data ownership, stewardship, and data quality. Maintained strategic planning, development, and operations responsibility for business intelligence, data warehouse, master data management, and enterprise data integration activities.

Oversaw data warehouse service delivery (e.g., daily operations, enhancement/maintenance) and 2nd-generation data warehouse program. Administered $8 million budget. Enterprise Architecture Committee, subject matter expert.

• Saved $3 million by creating team that eliminated expensive data warehouse project consultants and avoided cost overruns. Projected run rate, plotted alternatives, and obtained CIO’s approval for intervention.

• Built/trained team of 28 employees (NJ, Toronto, Columbus) and consultants (Columbus, India).

• Increased maturity for making data-based business decisions by socializing business intelligence concepts with business executives and brand business analysts.

• Gained confidence of 6 brand CFOs by increasing legacy data warehouse’s financial accuracy by $6 million, decreasing support response time, delivering long-awaited enhancement requests and clearing 1,000+ problem ticket backlog.

• Improved systems functionality and performance by introducing project/development methodology and streamlining design document artifacts originally created for ERP system.

• Brought data warehouse into Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and performed quarterly SOX audits.

• Contributed to company’s fundamental shift in producing and monetizing educational materials/content by organizing product master data across disparate systems.

• Introduced new business intelligence tools from Business Objects, new ETL tools from Informatica and new data governance tools from Global IDs.

• Played key role in International Standard Book Number conversion program (changing from 10 to 13 digit book codes) by ensuring data warehouse compliance and helping formulate overall remediation strategy.

American Financial Group (www.afginc.com) - Cincinnati, OH

Holding company of property casualty, annuities, and supplemental insurance companies as well as group of US classic luxury hotels. Generates $4.25 billion revenues.

Assistant Vice President, IT Strategy & Architecture (1999 – 2005)

Hand-picked to join newly created CIO group as enterprise architect. Customers included divisional and subsidiary CIOs, LOB presidents, program/project managers, and senior IT leaders. Performed numerous architecture and business risk assessments for proposed/approved technology projects; wrote technical white papers highlighting change, particularly new enterprise architecture process; facilitated enterprise architecture exception process; and worked closely with subsidiary CIOs on technology divestiture plans. Reported directly to Chief Enterprise Architect. Member, Architecture Review Committee.

• Helped spin off 4 auto insurance subsidiaries in IPO by performing data integration and business risk analysis for project to consolidate back office processing. Briefed subsidiary President and Marketing VP on the value of the newly consolidated and cleansed data.

• Enabled Direct-to-Consumer Auto Insurance on-time website launch and 8-state product rollout by reviving the failing project.  Organized SWAT team, identified the scalability problems, led testing of alternatives and gained executive buy-in to solution.

• Performed architectural and risk assessment for 2 major claims systems projects totaling $65 million.

• Enabled AFG to lower costs and increased business customer satisfaction by creating identity management strategy that unified security across multiple disparate IT systems.

• Reduced fines resulting from data errors by creating data quality process to cleanse data sent to regulators.

• Negotiated $10 million email outsourcing contract and $1.1 million Lotus Notes enterprise contract.

• Dramatically lowered operating costs by leveraging Enterprise Architecture processes to  streamline infrastructure and eliminate redundant technologies.

Director Telecommunications, Internet & Electronic Messaging (1995 - 1999)

Directed corporate website operations, managed $12 million enterprise telecommunications contract with service to 1,500 subscribers, 3 call centers and operated 3,500 user-distributed email system. Administered $6 million telecom, email & Internet operations budget.

• Led Y2k Telecom Program to ensure 117 field locations ready, had contingency plans, and avoided business disruption.

• Established web development staff, security standards and led 5 business units to adopt Internet.

• Developed and implemented state of the art email strategy. Improved communications with insurance agents by adding Internet access to mainframe email system. Led team to architect, deploy and operate 3,500-seat Lotus Notes groupware system across 20 locations.

• Boosted telecommunications capacity by upgrading number of carrier lines, adding 2nd long distance carrier to improve reliability, and avoiding capital PBX upgrade by identifying unused extensions. Created financial transparency by simplifying telecommunications chargeback policy.

Procter & Gamble (www.pg.com) - Cincinnati, OH

World's #1 household products maker with operations in 80 countries. Employs 138,000 with $76+ billion revenues.

Systems Analyst (1990 – 1995)

Worked in central IT organization with global responsibilities as software product manager for internally developed electronic collaboration system. Maintained full responsibility for customer satisfaction, features, software development, global deployment, and support. Managed 3 developers and 31 globally dispersed system administrators.

• Reduced supply chain process cycle time and improved price/promotion accuracy by establishing B2B connections with Wal-Mart, Kroger, K-Mart, and Safeway.

• Continuously improved delivery times by applying total quality management (TQM) and manufacturing statistical process controls (aka Six Sigma) to demonstrate service level agreement (SLA) conformance for worldwide email delivery.

• Conducted customer satisfaction and performance measurement for global, 65,000 user email system utilizing total quality management and statistical process control methodologies.

• Developed relationships with global IT leaders and onsite system administrators to deploy, support and maintain global, LAN-based collaboration and email system; played instrumental role on team that deployed email to new Chinese offices over new global network.

• Improved development process and product quality by introducing release management strategy, formalizing software product development, creating/executing deployment plan, and training globally based system administrators and end users.

United States Air Force - Langley AFB, Hampton, VA

Captain, Communications & Computer Officer (1985 – 1990)

Education

OHIO UNIVERSITY – Athens, OH

Bachelor of Business Administration (1985)

Affiliations

IT Leadership Academy, Florida Community College

Columbus Business Intelligence Roundtable, Co-Founder

CIO Solutions Gallery, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University

Management Information Systems Department Advisory Board, University of Dayton

Data Management Association (DAMA) Cincinnati & Columbus Chapters, Past President

Enterprise Architecture Forum, Computer Science & Engineering Department, The Ohio State University

Presentations

“Data Integration Hubs: Delivering Consistent Master & Transaction Data”, The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI)

Master Data Management Insight event, March 3, 2008.

“Why IT Architecture Matters”, Fisher College of Business, Executive MBA Program,

The Ohio State University, May 11, 2007.

“Using Enterprise Architecture to Tame a Complex Data Environment”, CIOhio Forum, November 9, 2006.

“Taming a Complex Data Landscape”, CDI-MDM Fall Summit, October 16, 2006.

“The Relationship Game & Influential Leadership”, CIO Solutions Gallery, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, December 1, 2004.