Kevin Graves, MBA, PMP
Simi Valley, CA 93065
Kevin@kgraves.com

September 2001 - Present   Burbank, CA

Senior Vice President, Professional Services
& Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Currently manage over half the staff and budget of this small/medium sized software company selling ERP software into Media and Post Production market.  Clients include Warner Brothers, Liberty Media (now Ascent Media), Sony, Boeing, Ford, CBS, ABC, and others.  Provided leadership to the following departments: Project Management, Application Development, Support, Quality Assurance.  Achievements include increasing profitability of all departments by 86% during the first year while increasing client & employee satisfaction.  Much of this success was tied to the communication of high level company goals to all employees, clear objectives for all departments, monthly bonus plans, and the redesign of annual reviews to ensure they supported company goals and considered peer evaluation techniques.  Directly responsible for introducing and overseeing major improvements including: increasing the availability and reliability of internal network resources; the roll-out of Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, and Exchange 2000; the introduction of Desktop Streaming which allows our support team to remotely view and fix problems through firewalls; the rollout of an improved Client Support portal which provided clients the ability to service themselves; and the introduction of an automated regression testing tool and process to increase software quality. 
 

   

1994 - August 2001                   Hollywood, CA

Manager of Studio Applications / Project Manager

Managed a team of nine staff members, including Project Managers, System Analysts, and various consultants to provide ongoing development and support of over 50 custom software applications.  Applications include custom implementations of Solomon IV (Work Order & Accounting), Great Plains Dynamics CS+ (ERP & manufacturing), Lotus Notes (various apps), Hollywood Inventory Tracking applications (HITS), as well as other client/server applications to support the Studio, Legal, and Music areas.  Managed annual budget of over 4 million dollars.  Managed the setup and support of the infrastructure necessary to perform company-wide Year 2000 testing.  Respected by both staff and management.        

Manager of Client Technology

Managed a team of seven analysts responsible for being liaisons between Client departments and Information Systems to determine the best technical solutions for client business requirements as well as resolving all software problems affecting their desktop PC or network accounts.  Their duties included performing and/or coordinating Client needs analysis, product recommendations, purchasing, receiving, installation, and training, and well as desktop troubleshooting and resolution for approximately 2,500 clients. Network environment consisted of a mix of PCs and MACs, Ethernet and Token-Ring, IPX & IP, with Novell Netware 3.x and 4.x on the File Server, and Windows 95 on the desktop, as well as nearly all popular "shrink-wrap" applications. 

Help Desk Manager

Managed a team of six Help Desk Analysts who provided all first level phone support and account administration for approximately 2,500 clients.  Approximately 1,000 problem calls and 75 new user requests were handled each week.  Through clear objectives and team building, increased first call resolution rate from 40% to 50% and live answer rates from 65% to 90%. 

   1993-1994 ARCO - PRODUCTS DIVISION. Los Angeles, CA

Network Support Consultant
Worked in a team of 2-3 consultants providing second level desktop troubleshooting and resolution for approximately 650 Clients. The Network environment consisted of a mix of PC's and MAC's, Token-Ring, with Novell Netware 3.x on the File Server, and Windows 3.11 (running off the network) on the desktop, as well as nearly most of the popular "shrink-wrap" software running from both the server and desktop. Performed various special projects including the evaluation and recommendation of a company-wide File Server backup product, and the writing of the File Server disaster recovery plan.

  1990-1992 NYNEX BUSINESS CENTERS. Encino, CA

Business Services Manager / Business Services Specialist
Managed and administered the sales of all Services (Training, Service Contracts, Phone Support, and System Engineering Services) for all Los Angeles area Sales Offices. Duties included making sales calls to Fortune 500 companies, writing proposals and contracts, and managing various computer classrooms. Attained 150% of quota in 1990, continued increasing revenue in 1991. Hired by ComputerLand in June '91 when they acquired NYNEX Business Centers nationwide. Promoted to Business Services Manager.

  1989 Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Long Beach, CA

Systems Engineer
Researched and wrote the disaster recovery plan for computer operations for the Lakewood, CA office, wrote employee orientation guide, designed and wrote test specs for an on-line computer system to automate an in-house manual parts-listing process, documented the work-flow of a large General Motors project, acted as a local PC support resource, learned JCL and COBOL computer programming languages.

EDUCATION

2000 PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE  Los Angeles, CA

Certified Project Management Professional (PMP #29698))

1998 CALIFORNIA LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY Thousand Oaks, CA

M.B.A. with Information Technology Emphasis

1996 PARAMOUNT PICTURES Hollywood, CA

High Performing Teams

1990 ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS Long Beach, CA

Quality College Graduate

1989 WESTMONT COLLEGE Santa Barbara, CA

B.A. Economics & Business.
B.A. Political Science

1988 WESTMONT COLLEGE Western Europe

International Business Institute (16 college credits)