Ausem Qaddoura

PMP-certified Enterprise Program Manager with over 20 years of experience leading large-scale digital transformations and establishing high-performance PMOs. Proven expertise in optimizing project portfolios, driving cross-functional alignment, and delivering significant cost savings through Lean Six Sigma and hybrid Agile-Waterfall methodologies. Strong background in risk management, compliance (NIST, ISO, SOX), and stakeholder engagement, with a track record of enhancing operational efficiency and achieving strategic objectives in global telecom and tech environments.

Skills and Core Competencies: 

• Operational Excellence: Enterprise Portfolio & Project Management (EPPM), Operation Efficiency & Process Optimization, Value Stream Management (VSM), Technical and Lean Six Sigma (LSS) – (DMAIC/DMADV), Technical Leadership, High-Availability & Redundancy, DC Management, P&L Management, Client Relationship Management, Strategic Planning. 
• Telecom & Technical Proficiencies: OSS/BSS/CORE/MPLS/SD-WAN/VoIP- Telecom/IT Cloud Modernization, Azure, VMware, NFV, SDN, HPC Clusters, Big Data Platforms, CI/CD, Automation, API Integration, AI Analytics. Monitoring & Analytics: Datadog, Grafana, Power BI, Splunk. Data Center Operations, Excellence in Redundant System Assurance.
• Tools & Platforms: JIRA, Power BI, Asana, Confluence, Smartsheet, Kubernetes (K8s), Docker, Terraform, Jenkins, Ansible, GitHub, GitLab, Selenium, Datadog, Grafana. Root Cause Analysis (RCA). ISO 22301/27001, NIST SP 800-53.
• Methodologies & Standards: Agile/SAFe, Agile-Waterfall Hybrid (Agile-Fall), LSS. Best Practices.

Program Manager (Consultant) Grand Prairie, Texas

• Govern PMO-EPPM portfolio for cloud migrations; DC modernization, Accelerate cloud services/ API integration via CI/CD, automation (Jenkins, GitHub) and IaC (Ansible, Terraform), reducing costs by 15% with full SLA compliance.
• Achieved 15% operational savings with LSS-DMAIC, RCA and Statistical Process Control (SPC) to optimize cross-functional resource utilization. Enhanced execution efficiency by 30%, and boosted stakeholder satisfaction.
• Developed robust BCM/DR frameworks using CI/CD, ensuring ISO 22301/27001 compliance and 99.999% application uptime to safeguard operations. Executed for cybersecurity projects with LSS Pugh Matrix, RCA, and SPC.
• Employed Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to identify and eliminate bottlenecks in the product development lifecycle.
• Pioneered hybrid Agile-Fall projects using EPPM for OSS/BSS transformation, slashing time-to-market by 20%.
• Provided technical leadership and personnel management for cross-functional engineering teams, fostering a culture of continuous learning and high performance. Proficient in industry best practices.
• Developed real-time Power BI dashboards powered by AI analytics and data mapping for the EPPM system, providing predictive insights that reduced decision latency by 30%.

Program Manager Southlake, Texas

• Directed AI-driven enterprise cybersecurity initiatives by architecting and overseeing a high-performance transaction monitoring ecosystem powered by HPC clusters, enabling proactive threat detection, penetration simulation, and robust regulatory compliance with ISO/NIST standards.
• Backlog Governance & Savings: Monitored product backlog using EPPM principles, accelerating value delivery by 20% and generating $26M savings by applying LSS DMAIC to eliminate bottlenecks via data-driven decisions.
• SAFe Scaling & Collaboration: Scaled SAFe practices and implemented JIRA dashboards and Confluence to enhance EPPM visibility and best practices, boosting cross-functional collaboration by 25% and value stream transparency.
• Slashed vulnerabilities 90% via Jenkins/Selenium automation and AI analytics (ML-based anomaly detection) on big data streams using Datadog/Grafana, achieving 95% first-pass approval. Led cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of continuous learning and high performance while ensuring DC redundancy and failover compliance.
• Architected an AI-driven transaction monitoring framework using BSS platforms and big data technologies to establish scalable cybersecurity and real-time threat detection.
• Executed OSS/BSS cybersecurity enhancement with AI and CI/CD automation, ensuring ISO/NIST compliance and improving real-time operational performance.

Dev-Lead/OSS/BSS Program Manager, Contract Plano, Texas

• High-Volume Transaction: Led a containerized mission-critical BSS platform using LSS DMADV tools (FMEA, QFD) to simulate 10M+ events/hour of big data traffic using HPC clusters and DevOps tools (K8s, Docker, Terraform, Jenkins).
• Process Innovation: Translated EPPM-governed features into user stories, streamlining development via CI/CD and LSS DMADV utilizing FMEA and RCA for risk analysis and Agile-Fall to cut timelines by 20% and threats by 25%.
• Led OSS/BSS transformation, deploying a containerized, Data Center-resilient platform for hybrid NFV/SDN. Migrated legacy systems to redundant cloud architecture, aligning delivery with client’s virtualized network strategy.

Risk and Business Continuity (BC) Program Manager Frisco, TX-Riyadh, KSA (Hybrid)

• Designed and implemented regulatory compliance frameworks (ISO 22301/27001 & NIST SP 800-34/53) including Business Impact Analyses (BIA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) Plans (DRPs), achieving 100% audit compliance.
• Held full accountability for the governance and financial outcomes of enterprise BC and DR programs, including DCs redundancy and failover strategies, spearheading initiatives that resulted in $82M of savings (of a $320M BCM initiative).
• Led cultural change by modeling Agile-Fall, transparency and integrity using BCM/DR awareness and training programs.
• Increased C-level trust and commitment in BCM by 40% through targeted training and presentations using DMADV frameworks like FMEA (e.g., Reliability Engineering, Monte Carlo Simulation), achieving a 95% probability of meeting predefined RTO/RPOs values.
• Mitigated 95% of vulnerabilities by deploying an online risk management tracking portal and running large-scale risk simulations, ensuring regulatory compliance and safeguarding a $310M investment.
• Rescued a $310M investment through enterprise BIA, BC/DR frameworks, and automated risk/BCM portal, saving $82M.
• Directed BCM/DR due diligence for the VIVA and Vodafone Egypt acquisitions; BIAs of critical assets and recovery capabilities directly informed acquisition strategy and valuation.
• Championed the integration of BCM/DR frameworks with strict KSA regulations during mergers, proactively eliminating compliance risks and ensuring seamless regulatory approval.

Program Director Riyadh, KSA

• Risk Mitigation & Predictive Analytics: Prevented a $30M loss by leading cross-functional teams using predictive analytics and risk modeling, which increased on-time project delivery by 50% and eliminated penalty exposure.
• Portfolio Governance & Efficiency: Orchestrated the PMO for a $117M OSS/BSS/CORE telecom portfolio, implementing governance and financial controls while optimizing HPC for critical network workloads, streamlining processes by 60% and increasing customer satisfaction by 30%.
• Team Leadership & Development: Built and directed a 200+ member global team, enhancing personnel management and technical mentorship to foster high performance and talent retention.
• Investment Prioritization & ROI: Launched the 'Front Door' investment governance framework, utilizing cost-benefit analysis and Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to prioritize the backlog, boosting ROI by 25% and aligning team efforts to maximize value delivery.

Customer Project Manager Sweden/KSA

• Delivered $50M telecom projects using Ericsson's Agile-Fall methodologies, managing deployments that utilized high-performance computing resources, improving profit margins and timelines.
• Program Manager for the integration of critical Telecom Core and Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions, ensuring full compliance with industry standards and achieving 100% customer satisfaction on all deliverables.
• Led cross-functional teams to deploy compliant government LI solutions for Ministry of Interior projects.
• Managed OSS/BSS/MSC/RNC/BCS/HLR/MPLS releases assuring end-to-end Go-to-Market (GTM) readiness, achieving 100% compliance with on-time delivery. Such releases were essential as prerequisites for other GTM projects.

Project Manager/System Engineer – Previous USA Employments (Richardson-TX, Marlborough-MASS

• Orchestrated, designed and led the analog-to-digital GSM migration across all Ericsson’s AXE platform, meeting aggressive timelines and ensuring 99.999% operational continuity.
• Developed templates and workflows which were adopted as standards for system engineering teams: improving process efficiency by 20%.
• Implemented soft-switch solutions for global operators, deploying first implementations of Voice over IP (VoIP)-TCP/IP based Lucent’s Soft-Switch.
• Delivered custom integrations, met 100% of Quality of Service (QoS) targets.
• Ensured operational continuity through rigorous end-to-end design, testing and resilience planning.

Education:

B.S., Electrical Engineering, Wichita State University

This foundational degree provides the analytical rigor and systems-engineering mindset critical for managing complex, multi-million dollar technical programs and cross-functional engineering teams across telecom, networking, and software development.

Certifications & Professional Development:

Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute (Certification #4031374)

The global standard for project management excellence, validating your expertise in the frameworks and methodologies you've applied throughout my career to deliver projects on time and within budget.

Pursuing Six Sigma Black Belt Certification

Directly complements proven track record of using Lean Six Sigma principles (DMAIC, DMADV) to achieve significant operational savings (e.g., $26M at Mobileum, $82M at STC), reduce defects, and optimize processes.