Michael Ray

High-conviction, player-coach Customer Success & Operations Executive with a definitive track record of building and scaling mission-critical support infrastructures from scratch. Recognized for a unique combination of elite people leadership, deep technical engineering literacy, and a systems-first approach to automation. Expert at architecting complex tier-routing protocols, leveraging generative AI to transform raw call transcripts into high-deflection knowledge bases, and translating technical product telemetry into continuous process improvement.

Exceptionally comfortable operating at the high-stakes intersection of technical support, operational risk management, and rapid product-led growth.

Head of Customer Support & Operations / VP at BookingPal (2015-01 – 2024-12)

Progressive executive scope: Joined as early employee (#10) to design, build, and scale the company's master global customer support and success infrastructure from the ground up.

• Backlog & Queue Resolution: Inherited a critical backlog of over 5,000 unresolved technical support tickets upon arrival; systematically triaged the queue, optimized response workflows, and successfully cleared the entire backlog while stabilizing daily operations.
• Founding Execution: Acted as a pure player-coach in the initial operational phases, manually managing all inbound customer tiers to construct foundational routing protocols, escalation paths, and comprehensive runbooks that scaled a team of 20+ specialists.
• AI & Knowledge Integration: Spearheaded early-stage adoption of generative AI tools to automate complex support macros, ingest and summarize raw call transcripts for core engineering bug tracking, and rapidly construct a high-deflection internal/external knowledge base.
• Systems Auditing & Risk Management: Engineered and executed a proactive system performance monitoring framework; successfully identified a critical data anomaly (1,300+ inquiries vs. a baseline of ~3.2) to uncover and permanently mitigate a massive, competitor code-level exploit.
• Cross-Functional Engineering Alignment: Built high-fidelity feedback loops directly connecting frontline support signals with Product Management and Core Engineering, driving an 80% reduction in post-launch defects and reducing engineering rework by 50%.
• Continuous Performance Improvement: Owned all operational metrics end-to-end, utilizing targeted training playbooks, early gap-intervention, and data-driven coaching to improve overall team productivity by 30% and raise baseline CSAT by 25%.

Member of Technical Staff – Early Career Foundations at Unitech Research Inc. (2015-12)

Early employee (#8) contributing hands-on across technical support engineering, client infrastructure administration, and high-reliability systems deployment.

• Managed tier-level technical escalation paths for mission-critical software applications serving global enterprise accounts, including Hitachi, Panasonic, and NTT Data.
• Championed the modernization of legacy internal infrastructure by executing the migration from a legacy SPRAT ticketing system to Bugzilla, drastically improving visibility and data-driven accountability.
• Developed automated testing and software validation workflows that enhanced baseline application stability and significantly reduced manual incoming ticket volumes at the source.

– United States Air Force Academy

General AA in General AA Studies – Golden West College

Electrical Engineering – California Polytechnic State University