Hazem Salama

Talented team leader with more than 15 years of experience in IT, delivering user-friendly business solutions that achieve both technical and business goals. Diversified experience in various areas of IT, from hardware to databases to web applications as well managing small development teams using SCRUM and eXtreme Programming methods. Valued and trusted advisor to senior executives.

My academic background is just as comprehensive with a BS and MS in Computer Science, and an MBA in Information Management.

Responsibilities:
Manage development teams to deliver solutions that meet budgetary and technical constraints
Implement policies and procedures to ensure compliance with industry and corporate guidelines
Evaluate IT processes and solutions to ensure alignment of business and IT
Built relationships and engaged with software vendors to select best solutions for the business
Reduced cost of managing IT by using proven industry-standard open-source tools and by utilizing existing corporate resources
Improved long-term productivity by devoting time and resources to reduce and eliminate “technical debt” in existing applications
Work with users and executives on requirements gathering via the use of wireframes, personas development, prototypes, etc.
Ensure team members are motivated and organized to meet their development objectives
Mentor other team members by pioneering knowledge-sharing sessions
Motivated junior developers to take on bigger roles in development and to better understand the business and Tax Department functions
Timely and effectively remediate all Internal Audit issues involving systems’ security and control
Perform several informal usability tests on user experience designs
Participate in major system conversions e.g. from PeopleSoft to SAP
Excellent communications skills both written and verbal


Achievements
Applied various analysis frameworks (e.g. Porter Five Forces, SWOT Analysis, As-Is/To-Be) to evaluate the challenges and opportunities for the Tax Technology organization
Converted the Tax Department taxability rules from 300+ Excel sheets to a web-based application which resulted in correct billing rules being applied to Verizon billing systems and a significant reduction of audit exposure
Designed and implemented various custom automation tools for Tax Professionals which resulted in significant reduction of time wasted on manual repetitive tasks
Championed the development of applications that are mobile-ready in anticipation for wide use by executives in the next few years
Championed Scrum process and implemented eXtreme Programming (XP) techniques which resulted in developers performing at peak efficiency and significant increases in productivity

Special Projects
Designed and implemented system changes to allow for outsourcing of manual tax preparation functions to third-party vendors resulting in multi-million dollar savings to the company
Utilized Business Intelligence tools to create various programs to facilitate auditing and reporting
Integrated and consolidated data from different systems to support billing and tax-compliance function due to mergers and acquisitions
Designed and developed an in-house application to import billing data for tax compliance saving the company tens of thousands of dollars in contracting the project
Designed and developed a web-based application to track and manage projects undertaken by Tax Technology Group which helped senior managers track each project’s progress in a timely fashion
Designed and developed a web-based application to track trouble tickets entered by Tax Department employees and route tickets to appropriate members of the Tax Technology Group
which improved response time and productivity

Designed and developed a prototype for a web application which keeps track of court tape records
Provided training and technical support for the courts users
Provided support for the courts hardware

Supported the centers workstations and servers including remote sites such as schools in Brooklyn and Jersey City. Maintained both the center and the schools Internet sites

Developed and supported Intranet sites for Tax Department including web applications using various web technologies such as ColdFusion and Java with back-end databases built in MS SQL Server. Provided LAN and desktop support for Internal Auditing and Tax Departments.