Overview
After earning a Masters in Business Administration at Southern Methodist University, he moved on to hold technical and business management positions in the telecommunications industry including Executive Vice President of Sales/Marketing/Customer Service, Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Planning and Vice President of Engineering and Construction.
Walt joined EDS in 1994 as an IT management consultant and held the position of Strategic Technology Consulting Director, EDS Oil/Gas/Chemical Business Unit. During the late 1990s, he left to take the position of Director in the IT Management Consulting practice at Gartner Inc., then a Principal in the E-services practice at A T Kearney, before rejoining EDS. His management consulting focus has been in the telecommunications, health care, energy, chemical, retail and consumer packaged goods, government, and manufacturing industries.
Walt has had international assignments in Europe, Middle East and Central America.
He is an Open Group Distinguished Enterprise IT Architect and a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.
Business Expertise
- Industry experience - telecommunications, energy, chemical, retail and consumer packaged goods, government, and manufacturing industries
- International assignments - Europe, Middle East and Central America
- Business unit management experience - marketing, sales, business development, field service, customer service, consulting and engineering
- Business unit profit/loss management responsibility with annual operating budgets of $4M and annual capital budgets of $85M
- Business solutions portfolio structuring and budgeting
- Business case development
- Business strategy development and process modeling
- Client relationship management responsibilities
- Sourcing evaluation and vendor selection
Technical Expertise
- Infrastructure - Computing platform architecture (Windows, Unix), email, DNS, directory services, thin computing (Citrix), digital certificates, video/audio streaming
- Network - MPLS and VPN architectures, firewall/proxy server deployment, network circuit monitoring, management and troubleshooting, wireless solution deployment
- Security - Enterprise risk assessment/management, information security architecture, security policy definition, threat management, server hardening, intrusion detection, DMZ architecture, encryption techniques, credentials management, business impact assessment
- Applications - Software development lifecycle methodologies, enterprise-wide planning and implementation of ERP, CRM and BI enterprise solutions, application integration, software management (packaging, delivery, patching), collaboration/portal solutions, web sites/web content management
- Enterprise Architecture - Business driven IT alignment and strategy development, application portfolio management, IT governance, enterprise architecture frameworks (RightStep, TOGAF), business solutions portfolio development, technical architecture migration planning
- Organization - Assessment/planning for IT organization structures and staffing, organization change management
- Data - Data architecture current state analysis and future state definition, data architecture standards, database physical design, data privacy and security policy definition, business intelligence data consolidation, analysis and reporting architectures
- Storage - SAN and NAS architecture definition, storage management policy definition
CTO Leadership
- Championed strategy of becoming a business value provider for all of the client's technology services needs, focusing on the client's business and industry drivers
- Managed client relationships for technology strategy, planning and management
- Developed IT strategic plans which included an enterprise business requirements assessment, technology policy review, systems and technology assessments, architectural review process, standards management, enterprise communications strategy and transition alternatives.
- Managed project managers, consultants, architects and engineers for the Chief Technology Office program activities
- Ensured solution quality by reviewing financial estimates, technical design and delivery capabilities
- Leveraged internal and external communities of practice and alliance partners for innovation, thought leadership and revenue growth
- Structured a Business Innovation Program to drive IT value for the client
- Researched emerging technologies to establish direction for technology adoption which increased business value
- Managed multiple remote and virtual teams of subject matter experts
- Established Architecture Review Boards to review projects for architecture compliance
- Structured and chaired a joint Technology Steering Committee as a governance body for architecture standards approval, project compliance review escalation and technology direction approval