BEN J. THOMPSON, JR.

or

OBJECTIVE

To obtain a senior management position in a technological organization, in the areas of project management, product development, marketing and sales support. The ideal role will provide me with an opportunity to integrally contribute to the overall health of the company; earning advancement through my skills and talents as a leader, team player, coupled with dedication and hard work.

TECHNOLOGY

I am well versed in the following: Intranet and Internet (Web) content and development, Mobile messaging and content, eCommerce solutions and operations, application design and development, International development and deployment, departmental accounting, HTML, DHTML, Java, ASP, Visual Studio, Macromedia Development Suite (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks etc.), database/data warehouse management, web utilities, plug in and browser compatibility, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, custom applications built to maximize legacy business processes efficiency, Content Management Applications, Advertising applications, Database Marketing Research software (i.e. Claritas), video production, editing and encoding tools (i.e. Avid, Anystream etc.), graphic design software (i.e., Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat), all desktop applications, the entire Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

2008 – Present

Big Rig Interactive/Division of DMI Music

Pasadena, CA

Division Head/GM and Senior Project Manager

• Division developed sites for clients such as Delta Airlines, Hostess, Disney, Rhapsody, Gibson Guitar, Madagascar 2, and Throttle Entertainment

• Responsible for the division’s overall product and development roadmap.

• Managed the Development, Creative and QA teams

• Managed the development of products and services such as online viral games, SEO, viral marketing consultation, mobile games, content and delivery, online video asset management, social network application development and sales

• Supported all other division’s online presence while managing revenue generating external client projects

• Streamlined the internal workflow and structure

• Responsible for all P&L

2008-2008

Iventa/Division of Commerce Planet

El Segundo, CA

Senior Project Manager

• eCommerce software company that develops and maintains primarily music bands online merchandising and presence

• Responsible for all client communication, requirements gathering and overall development and delivery

• Managed online stores for bands such as The Grateful Dead and Metallica

• Managed the development and QA teams

• Aided the sales process by helping the client identify exactly what was required and what was cost effective

• Created and approved all documentation, technical, creative and functional specifications

2007 – 2008

Teleflip.com Inc.

Santa Monica, CA

Director of Project Management

• Company featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Popular Science (2007 Best of What’s New – Cellphone email for the rest of us), ABC News and Red Herring (Top 100 North America) just to name a few of the many accolades.

• Responsible for all aspects of the user interface/web site, system development and upgrades.

• Managed the Web Development, Back End and Testing/QA teams (total team of 10)

• Created and maintained all documentation, technical and functional specifications, business requirements as well as the entire project lifecycle.

• Supported all international opportunities (primarily Latin America and Europe)

• Major stakeholder in the development of a mobile text messaging based Mobile Advertising Engine

• Developed Test Scripts and QA guidelines

• Interacted with Senior Management and Marketing on a daily basis to make sure the site operated in alignment with the goals set forth by management.

• Led the development of the Canadian platform from inception to launch

• Worked closely with all retail partners (mobile phone carriers)

• Led the development of the unified emergency messaging platform offered at over 20 universities

2007 – 2007

Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) – Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online (Contract)

Anaheim, CA – Orlando FL

Web Project Manager/Producer – Online Ticket Stores (Consultant)

• Maintained and responsible for all aspects of Disneyland.com/Disneyworld.com online ticket product and gift card product sales with revenues in excess of $110,000,000.00 annually (+$100,000.00 daily revenue)

• Supported multi-lingual online ticket stores (English, Spanish and Japanese)

• Managed a team of over 16 Web Developers, Graphic Artists, Information Architects, Translators and Copywriters (both internal and contractor headcount)

• Interacted with various Business Unit Stakeholders throughout the Parks and Resorts Group as well as The Walt Disney Internet Group to achieve superlative Guest/Customer experience/satisfaction

• Provided 24/7 support for all online ticket and gift card operations

• Maintained accurate and real time transaction and ticket mix reporting via Hitbox and SearchIgnite

• Managed projects for all online ticketing initiatives across the Walt Disney Internet Group footprint

• Successfully launched many revenue increasing niche sites, features and enhancements including Disneyland’s eTicket/Print@Home , Disneyland.com’s Japanese Ticket Store

• Managed online ticketing relationships with large scale online ticketing partners: AAA, Costco, Vonn’s, US Military, 2nd and 3rd party vendors, as well as, over 100 Corporate Consignment Partners

• Marketing – downtime revenue increasing initiatives, while maintaining style guide/design specifications

• Managed Mission Critical eCommerce Systems Upgrades, enhancements, middleware projects

• User Acceptance, QA, Change Control/Process Management and Regression Testing as well as all related versioned documentation

• Cost management, budget control P&L

• Integrated anti fraud and loss prevention measures

2005 – 2006

Nexicon Inc. (Contract)

Albuquerque, NM – Los Angeles, CA – Washington D.C. – Bergen, Norway

Project Director (Consultant)
• Manage a team of seven Software Engineers (worldwide) developing confidential and proprietary internet monitoring software protecting Intellectual Property (Movies, Music, Software, Games, Financial Data and Books)

•Created Project Management, Quality Control and Testing Policies within the framework of the coding platform

•Supervised internal and external QA Teams and interface design and usability

•Responsible for multiple large scale developments and deployments simultaneously.

2005 - 2005
City of Hope Cancer Research Center (Contract)

Duarte, California
Web Consultant

•Responsible for migrating all static web content (8000 pages +) into a custom designed Microsoft Content Management System

• Consulted the Communications Department in Content Management Solutions, page layout, standardization, content flow, Editorial Policies and overall user interface usability

2000 – 2004
Road Runner – Time Warner Cable Milwaukee Division
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Online Editor – Director of Broadband Content
•Responsible for all Time Warner Cable web properties and interactive applications, including the division marketing site, intranet, vendor extranet, subscriber portal site, and the commercial services site. These sites were either built from conception to launch or completely rebuilt

•Created the Vendor Extranet to streamline: communications, invoicing, project management/lifecycles, cost controls and Requests for Proposal(s) (RFP) with over 50 outside vendors

•Redesigned the Staff Intranet to always display the most current content, easier navigation and usability, search features, documents portal (printable pdfs of every internal form, policy and procedures and workflow), the most current contact information (linked to HR database), interactive forms to speed customer issue resolution with issue routing features and general office forms. This virtually eliminated over 50% of the paperwork for day to day operation (Purchase Orders, Time Off Requests, Scheduling, Report dissemination; overall a very very efficient workflow versus inter-office mail

•Oversaw interactive application design (ie. Streaming Audio and Video), deployment and management of eCommerce solutions, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) solutions, online customer service applications, and internal escalation workflow applications.

•Implemented Online Customer Service Knowledgebase to help customers solve issues without calling Customer Service or scheduling a Service Call (both very costly). The Kbase contained diagrams and easy to understand instructions for over 300 of the most commonly reported issues, problems and questions. These answers also had a user a user feedback feature to help make the answers more easy to understand and relevant

•Managed staff of 5 employees.
•Managed departmental administrative functions and the financial budget.
•Under my management, the Online Services department received several accolades, most notable, The Time Warner Cable National Customer Service Best Practice Award and The Wisconsin Cable and Telecommunications Association Online Customer Service Award.
•Upon implementation of programs under my administration, my department surpassed over 2,000+ online orders every week. We also reduced incoming call volume to Customer Service by 27%, resulting in savings of over $1,200,000.00 in less than one year.

2000 – 2000
KnightRidder.com - Stlouismetro.com/Bnd.com
St. Louis, Missouri - Belleville, Illinois
Site Director
•Created from conception to launch, managed and edited a medium market newspaper web site and a major market local portal site.

•Integrated multiple existing legacy systems to feed content to the web site slashing costs by not needing to purchase and migrate new web ready systems (Classified, Editorial and Circulation)
•Responsible for placing all online classified and banner advertising and placement.
•Created effective online campaigns for Special Sections, Editorial Features, Circulation and Advertising.

•Created templates/mock ups of possible design schemes using Microsoft Visio and Illustrator to show prototypes of the finished design for over 5 site redesigns.
•Reported and managed syndicated content from multiple news wires and various sources.
•Designed and oversaw web site usability.

•Traffic Metrics Analysis to aid Web and Editorial staff in content layout, content popularity analysis and efficiencies
•Managed staff of 5 employees.
•Was a founding staff member for KnightRidder.com, youngest Site Director at the age of 23.
•The site I oversaw was one of three (within the Knight Ridder Real Cities Network) that was profitable within the company. This was also the first portal site to operate outside of the market while actively selling in the market. We came in below budget and ahead of goal revenues wise.

Belleville, Illinois
Summer Intern
Internship Summary: As an intern, I was charged with learning the entire business of operating a newspaper from Circulation to Sales and Marketing. I automated the entire process of soliciting and tracking sponsorships from local businesses for the newspaper sponsored “Newspapers in Education” program, setting up databases to track advertising revenue vs. inches advertised and competitive inches advertised, customer service and route creation. I also had a major role in converting all routes from carrier owned to carrier contracted.

EDUCATION
1994 – 1998, 2004-2005 University of Southern California Los Angeles, California
BA: Philosophy (Pending) Minor: Russian
1991 - 1994 St. Louis University High School (Boys College Prepatory) St. Louis, MO

ACHIEVEMENTS
Newspaper Association of America National New Media Leader
National High School Slavic Honor Society, 1994
Member, Moscow School #23/St. Louis University High Student Exchange, 1993-1994
Junior Achievement, Road Runner Club Director, Inroads Intern 1994-1998

ORGANIZATIONS
Newspaper Association of America: New Media Federation
University of Southern California Men’s Track Team, 1994-1995
University of Southern California Men’s Rugby Team, 1994-1996
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.
Eagle Scout 1994, Boy Scouts of America – Milwaukee Council Committee Member

REFERENCES FURNISHED UPON REQUEST