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Ramesh Rajagopalan

Vice President M&T Bank, Buffalo

Work experience

IT Management and Leadership

16 + years of IT experience worked in various roles such as Delivery Manager, QA Program Manager, Dev Lead and Lead Analyst roles in Banking and Financial, Health Care, Insurance, Retail industry.

  • Led Enterprise programs with the budget of multi million dollars(1M to 5M) govern by various  SDLC processes from projects initiation to closing.
  • Strong understanding and experience working in different architectures involves Client-Server, Web based User Interfaces, Mainframe Legacy systems and Relation Database management systems.
  • Performed multi-tasking of various area such as application development, test strategy/planning, defect management, gap analysis, configuration management, Risk Management, Change management, Stakeholder management, user training etc.
  • Proficiency at PMI methodology and Process in managing the Medium to Complex Program/Project Management from initiation to Closure phase. 
  • Expertise in Software implementation procedure and process. Managed end-to-end product/project/program implementation.
  • Experience in Incident, Change and problem management application system.
  • Knowledge of IS 27001: 2013 control objectives and how these are applied in IT services and line of business.
  • Application/Program Management Leadership skill involves end to end program/functional unit management start from initiation, vendor selection, requirement analysis, design and development, testing to implementation.
  • QA Leadership skill that involves implementation of QA road map, leading TCOE(Test center of Excellance), implantation of QA process and methodologies for the complex business systems/programs.
  • Expertise in Risk management includes but not limited to risk processes such as risk evaluation, Risk classification, Risk treatment etc.
  • Knowledge of Data Governance process and Informatica Data governance tools.
  • Managed Web Mobile banking project and Enterprise message hub for the ios/androids application to create and manage the mobile banking users in M&T
  • Extensive Knowledge with Payment clearing systems and Credit card processing systems.
  • Knowledge of data management involves PCI(Payment Card Identification) and PII(Personal Identifiable information)
  • Experience of healthcare knowledge in EDI, HIPAA Standards, 4010/5010 Guidelines, Medicare, Provider, HCR and other Healthcare Exchange initiatives.
  • Experience in working with Business users for business requirements analysis and review, test scenarios identification and BAT/UAT.
  •  Prepared and communicated the Status reports, Summary Reports, Defect status reports, Lessons Leaned documents to PMO and Senior Leadership.
  • Vast experience in onshore and offshore work model including people management.
  • Expertise in Smoke, Functional, Regression, System Integration and User Acceptance and automation testing.
  • Well versed in Waterfall and Agile Methodologies.
08/2015Till Date

Vice President

M&T Bank

System Manager I

08/201505/2018

System Manager I

Enterprise Data Services, M&T Bank

 M&T Bank, Buffalo USA. Project Summary:  M&T is  one of the  largest banking service organization of western New York area and Enterprise Data services is one of Key technology area within its IT division which services all the enterprise data functions and business needs. It closely works with Enterprise data office as a technology partner to serve different lines of business data needs and reports. Enterprise data testing is one of the integral parts of Enterprise data service where all the inbound and outbound data validation of the warehouse will be performed. Data governance technology is part of data services where it supports all Data governance initiatives at the bank Responsibilities:

Achievements: Established IDQ(Informatica Data Quality) framework for Data Quality and Data Governance program for Bank. Established new servers for the IDQ framework and managed IDQ Split and Upgrade project. Managed Mobile Next generation and Enterprise Message Hub projects from EDS to create a Mobile banking alerts for the Web banking mobile Customers. Knowledge M&T Bank application architecture and the various lines of business functionalities. Worked in Informatica tools upgrade project and plan Well Experienced in Vendor management and SOW/MSA model management. Managed Project Charter, Project plan and all the PMO mandated artifacts for the successful track of project/program. Established QA standards and templates Enterprise data service team Involved in CCAR process and modelling testing strategy. Worked with various M&T internal teams such as infrastructure, Enterprise architecture team, DBI/DBA team for the successful implementation of IBT application and server. Closely worked with Informatica vendor and it's professional service team for managing and upgrading Informatica tool sets. Effort Estimation, Resourcing Management for the successful completion of entire STLC phases. Established Enterprise data warehouse testing approach and strategy. Led a team of 11 resources including offshore and onsite.

02/201407/2015

Qa Program Manager

Cognizant Technology

Client: WellPoint Inc. CA USA  WellPoint, Inc. is  one of the  largest health benefits companies  in the United States. Through its networks nationwide, the company delivers a number of leading health benefit solutions through a broad portfolio of integrated health care plans and related services, along with a wide range of specialty products such as life and disability insurance benefits, dental, vision, behavioral health benefit services, as well as long term care insurance and flexible spending accounts 

Achievements: Established QA roadmap and tracked each milestones successfully for Meritain. Developed testing operating model and process for the seamless test management execution. Worked closely with business user's community for the User testing need and testing approach.  Led and manage the system integration testing team in align with Master test strategy developed for the program.

Roles & Responsibilities : Managing State of Georgia and Healthcare Obama Care Exchange Project's Internal Auditor  for different stream of releases Act as an Entrance-Exit Manager involves all the necessary IT audits and reports the status to senior leadership. Establish Risk Management processes and involves in risk assessment, risk identification, risk classification and risk treatment etc. Reviewing testing efforts and artifacts, including test plans, test scenarios and test data setup Participating in Project Kick of meetings and assigning QA responsibilities Analyzed and reviewed the requirements and prepared the auditing checklist and SOP for the audit Facilitated User training for new features introduced. Environment: Microsoft Project Plan, Visio,. Net, SQL Server, IBM ClearQuest, HPALM

01/201301/2014

Test Manager

Cognizant Technology

Client: Meritain Health an Aetna Company, Buffalo NY.  Meritain Health is a Trading partner of America's giant healthcare company Aetna and performs claim processing and adjudication. Meritain is one of the highest claims processing company in United States with its robust and enhanced claims processing applications.

Achievements: Being a QA leadership team perform QA assessments and provide new process and tools Engaged the automation, performance, test data and Web Service testing teams for each project based on the requirements.  Developed Test Strategy, Test Plan, Issue Tracker, and Risk Tracker, RTM documents and maintained all the documents up to date. Managed multiple QA projects across multiple vendors and interfacing team. worked closely with Aetna's various subsidiaries and established a one master template for the QA process. 

Roles& Responsibilities: . Responsible for entire STLC phases of the projects and provide QA sign off for each phase. Reviewing testing efforts and artifacts, including test plans, test scenarios and test data setup Participating in Project Kick of meetings, ROM meetings and assigning QA responsibilities Managing QA Leads and offshore.  Responsible for resourcing, QA budgeting for the successful completion of entire STLC phases. Effectively participated in Stakeholders status update meetings and run the defect triage calls to keep update the management on the daily progress and blocking issues. Periodic calls with Business Analysts and development teams to remove the bottle necks which are blocking the progress of the test development and execution activities. On weekly basis updated the project scorecard to track the health of the project. Provided Daily dashboard reports during test execution phase, test closure, defect closure and traceability Matrix reports at the end of BAT execution to the stake holders Followed Gating process and uploaded all approved QA documents to the project sharepoint. Led a team of 10 onshore and 45 offshore resources. Environment: Microsoft Project Plan,. Net, C#, SQL Developer, Mainframe, DB2, Informatica, TFS    

08/201212/2013

Delivery Manager

Cognizant Technology

Client: RBC Investor Services, Toronto, ON. Enterprise Custody Platform RBC Investor Services is implementing a global custody solution that consists of a centralized main system and multiple interfaces to external systems, collectively known as the Enterprise Core Custody which includes streams such as Corporate Actions, Trades, Tax, Position Management and Reporting for clients and operations group.

Achievements: Ensured System integrity is maintained and Potential risks are identified and controlled or escalated throughout the life cycle of the project. Managed the Enterprise core custody systems design and development for the customer requirements through various releases. successfully implemented the release management process and fine tuned the gaps in it. Took care of end to end Project management process and track the releases from initiation to closure phase of the project. Successfully managed the project deliveries within the allocated budget and timeline.

Roles & Responsibilities: Managed the Reporting, Trade and interface modules with a team of 10 members. Led the team and participate in review sessions for approval and sign-off. Ability to compile and interpret analytical data and to act independently in making workload and Resource allocation decisions. Generating Status reports, Summary Reports  to PMO.  Prepared estimations and resource forecast and took the interviews for the new resources. Conducted Training and knowledge transfer sessions to the new team members. Coordinated with Luxemburg team and India team for the Schedule and broad cast application issues.  Participated production checkout validation along with SMEs.  Escalate risks/issues/action items to management. Environment: Microsoft Project Plan, HP Quality Centre, HP ALM, PRPC, WebServices, Oracle, Crystal reports, BaNCS, Visio.

02/201107/2012

Test Architect

Cognizant Technology

 Client: Manulife Financial, Kitchener, ON .The CLIENTS II system is an automated system used to assist in the processing and adjudication of Group Insurance claims. It allows on-line entry of claim information, immediate adjudication of claim submission and the production of cheques, explanation of benefits and reports. The benefits that are processed by CLIENTS II are Dental and SHE(Supplementary Health Expense).

Achievements: Prepared Risk base testing approach and performed the test execution for functional testing. Implemented the QA methodology and test metrics in Group Benefit Solutions system. Prepared test strategy and test plan templates as part of TCOE implementation. Prepared Combined Test Strategy and Test plan document for small projects. Have setup the Quality Center standards for new and maintenance projects.  

Roles & Responsibilities: . Worked closely with Business Analysts and Development Team to discuss the design and testing aspects of the application. Prepared test cases and facilitate test script review sessions to ensure accuracy, quality and completeness of test scenarios. Participated in walkthroughs and Tech spec review meetings. Created and maintained the test data repository for future testing purpose. Drives defects towards resolution; Contributed to the defect management: defect status, root cause, triage meetings. Status reporting of testing progress and defects during testing phases. Participate in project meetings to provide updates on testing deliverables, testing milestones. Provided test estimations for Monthly and Quarterly release to the project manager. Utilize negotiation skills to evaluate priorities and resolve conflicts during testing phase. Provided and run the weekly status reports to the QA director. Interacted with QA director on daily basis on TCOE implementation progress. Lead a team of 4 onsite and 12 offshore resources. Environment: HP Quality Centre 11. 0, JCL, COBOL, CICS, DB2, VSAM, File-Aid, Expeditor, MQ-Series, Endeavour, TSO,  MVS(OS/390), IBM 3090, Windows XP, ControlM

02/201001/2011

Application Development Manager

Cognizant Technology

 Client: WellPoint Inc. India EDI clearinghouse is a screening system where the edits and validations are applied to the files sent by the Submitter, before they are sent to the external payment systems.  After the files are processed in the external systems, the responses to be sent back to the submitter are sent through the clearinghouse, which applies edits to these files too.

Achievements: Identified the gaps and improvised the clearing house transaction processing count and rate per day by fine tuning the design and DB queries which helped to increase the ROI of the EDI process. Standardized the release management process of the EDI system releases and established the relevant templates in align with PMO standards. 

Roles & Responsibilities: Worked on the design and development strategy of the enterprise clearing house framework. Ensure High level design document and development design artifacts are documented and maintained. Document, implement, monitor, and enforce all processes for development and unit testing as per standards defined by the organization. Prepares/updates the metrics dashboard at the end of a phase or at the completion of project.  Escalate the issues about project requirements(Software, Hardware, Resources) and organize the status meetings and send the Status Report(Daily, Weekly etc.) to Directors. Understand the Release from an end-to-end perspective and provide thought leadership for design and development Ensure the implementation plan for the release and track till to successful implementation to production environment. Evaluates and implements training and development needs for team. Interaction with Vendors for Requirement Clarifications and for defining the development scope. Led a team of 22 offshore resources. Environment:. Net, Java, Quality Center, IBM MQ, Lotus Notes, UNIX, Windows 2000, DB2, MS Word, MS Project 2003.

04/200901/2010

IT - Risk Business Analyst

Tata Consultancy services

Client: Merrill Lynch, India. Domestic online Trade Review is an application in Merrill where comprises all the domestic trade transaction happenings in Bank and validates the transaction with the Merrill compliance rules and highlight the corresponding trade in the customer online report.

Achievements: Established a healthy relationship with business and suggested the business risks involved in the Domestic online trade systems and identified the transactional loopholes  in the work flow. Provided the Data analysis report to the business to help them to set the needed security and process standards on the data standpoint. 

Roles & Responsibilities: Responsible for analyzing risk impacts and business risks for preparing functional requirement documents. Investigated, documented, and gathered information on data security recommendations to protect PCI/PII data classifications.  Analyzed Functional Requirements and Business Requirement Documents to get a better understanding of the system on both functional and business perspectives. Analyzed the system requirements by interacting with system architect, developers and BAs. Experience in TSYS Mainframe. Posting transactions and validating various TSYS screens for customer data. Validating the customer information in TSYS and CAPS application for CSD block Environment:  Quality Center, QTP, Informatica, MS Access, Remedy, DB2, IMS, VSAM, COBOL, TSYS, TSO, VB Script, Excel Macros, Informatica, UNIX,  FileAid, SPUFI, TOAD. 

06/200603/2009

Technical Lead cum Business Analyst

Tata Consultancy Services

 Client: Target Order Supply, India

Roles & Responsibilities:: Performing GAP analysis, requirement gathering. Preparation of Business Specification document. Preparation of Requirement document. Monitoring and reviewing Test Plan/Test Result Documents in Unit and System testing Level Provided Daily Status report and weekly status reports to the Project Manager and updating the communication log. Used Quick test pro for automated testing Responsible in Verifying and Validating WSDL and SOAP-based web service Request and response for the Test Cases in Soap UI by adding Assertions Used Shell script to run the batch jobs and retrieve the files. Performed/managed regression testing for IE, WAS and DB upgrade. Conducted Data Driven Test for running the same script for different input values Used Link Checker to verify the broken links in web pages Performed multi-user testing, cross browser testing and Adhoc testing Used Quality Center for bug tracking and reporting and also followed up with the development team to verify bug fixes and update bug status Environment: Quality Center, Quick Test Pro, WebServices, Soap UI, Informatica, Windows 2000, Java, J2EE, UNIX, Oracle 10g,  Visio, MS Word, MS Project 2003.

08/200305/2006

Senior Developer

Syntel Inc.

Client: American Express, India. Amex started to migrate the IBM supplied code Vagen to COBOL code where it involves the various Payment and clearing system of the amex financial system. It also interface with Credit card payment clearing system involves with CICS screen. 

Roles & Responsibilities: Analyzed Functional Requirement and Business Requirement Documents of Amex's Payment Cash management (PCM) to get a better understanding of the system on both functional and business perspectives.Analyzed the user requirements by interacting with system architects, testers and business analysts.Analyzed the Business requirement documents and functional specification and convert into design and development.Opened PMR tickets to copy the data into production during implementation.

Client: BCBS GA, India. As a part of HIPAA, BCBS implemented Medicare system that helps provider to inquire eligibility and claim status through online system. The request will be routed via Gateway system to fetch the response. 

Roles & Responsibilities:Convert the business requirement  into design document for the development. Prepared Low level /High level design document for the coding and performed unit testing of the code for the requirement. Used Mainframe and Easytrieve languages for the coding and development. Prepared Code check list and implementation check list.

2002-012003-07

Developer

Phoenix global solution

Phoenix Global Solution decided to change their old mainframe environment to LE environment they wanted to change all the existing systems to be OS/390 compliant. This project deals with changing all existing programs to OS/390 compliant. This migration project demands to  find out all the programs involved in particular system and converting it to OS/390 compliant. 

Roles & Responsibilities: Modifying the programs and JCL's, Coding of programs using Cobol II, Unit Testing of the Programs Creating new tables, if any required by the developers. Writing DB2 DDLs and sending a request to DBA to apply the DDLs on required databases. Creating new DECLGENs and updating the DECLGENs Used to update the View handlers namely DB2 programs for the newly added database fields Creating new test databases on request and maintained all test databases. Creating new changeman packages for new development projects Building changeman packages for the releases planned. Environment:  JCL, VS-COBOL-II, CICS, DB2, VSAM, ABEND-Aid, File-Aid, Expeditor, Comparex, MVS(OS/390), IBM 3090.

Education

19982001

MCA

Masters in Computer Application

MK University

19972001

PGDQM

Post Graduate Diploma in Quality Management

Bharathidasan University

19931996

BSc

Bachelor's in Industrial Electronics

Bharathidasan University

Technical Skills

Software QA and testing

Standard & Procedures Development, SDLC, PMLC, Test Plan design and development

Testing Tools

HPQC, HPALM, QTP 11/10.0, ClearQuest, Webservices, Claims Test pro, TFS, RQM

Web Development

VBScript, Java Script, HTML, DHTML, ASP

Databases

Oracle7.x/8.0/8.0.5/8i/9i/10g, DB2, VSAM, Sybase10.0, SQL Server6.5/7.0/2005/2008 MS-Access97/2000, Teradata

Programming Languages

VS COBOL II, JCL, Easytrieve, C, C++, PL/SQL, SQL, Visual Basic, JAVA, XML and .Net and C#.

Office Tools

MS Word, MS Excel, MS Visio, MS PowerPoint, MS Outlook, MS Project Plan

Other Utilities and Tools

IDCAMS, IBM Utilities, DFSORT, Comparex, Abend-Aid, ChangeMan, Endeavour, TSO/ISPF, TSYS, MQ Series, Clarity, Lotus Notes, Xpeditor (Batch/Online), CICS, Share Point, Remedy, ManageNow, SQL Developer, Rapid SQL, Fileaid, QMF, SPUFI, CA7, Job Track

Third Party Vendor products

FACETS 5.1 Core Product and its applications.

Claims Test Pro (CTP), Informatica Data Quality toolsets 10.1 HF1( Informatica Analyst, Meta data manager, Business Glossaries, DQ Developer)

Operating System         

MVS/ESA, DOS, UNIX, Linux, Windows