Mitch Stephens

Birmingham-based Agile delivery and project management leader with 10+ years guiding cross-functional technology and business projects. Combines hands-on Scrum leadership—including team coaching, ceremony facilitation, backlog refinement, blocker removal, and continuous improvement—with traditional ownership of scope, schedules, budgets, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder reporting. Brings five years of healthcare technology experience and leadership across HIPAA, cybersecurity, financial services, and other regulated environments.

Sr. Technical Program Manager - Battle Road Digital - Birmingham, AL (Remote)

(2025-01 - 2026-01)

• Established and led the program management function for a $14M U.S. Army software modernization program in a highly secure environment, leading its Agile delivery model, governance, planning, and reporting practices.
• Facilitated sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and SAFe planning for cross-functional teams.
• Synchronized sprint schedules across teams with the greater program release calendar.
• Partnered with product and technical leads to translate operational needs into a prioritized backlog, clarify requirements, and sequence work.
• Managed scope, milestones, risks, issues, and dependencies across internal teams, government stakeholders, and delivery partners.
• Removed blockers and used team feedback to improve workflows, accountability, and delivery efficiency.

PMO Director - Diversified Energy - Birmingham, AL (Hybrid)

(2023-01 - 2025-01)

• Established and led the Technical PMO for a $2B+ public energy company operating in a SOX-regulated environment.
• Led Scrum adoption across multiple technical teams, initially serving as Scrum Master before transitioning ownership to team leads.
• Using Smartsheet, I coached team leads on backlog management, sprint planning, retrospectives, and capacity planning.
• Used velocity and capacity data to improve delivery performance, enabling a 190% increase in IT headcount and 300% increase in capital investment.
• Implemented quarterly roadmap prioritization and a structured intake process for the IT organization.
• Delivered a ServiceNow Demand Management solution integrated with Snowflake, improving demand, capacity, and portfolio visibility.
• Chaired executive intake and steering committees to review delivery health, resolve blockers, and align cross-functional execution.

Technical Program Manager, Cybersecurity - Shipt, Inc. - Birmingham, AL (Remote)

(2021-01 - 2023-01)

• Established the program management function across Cloud Security, Application Security, Security Operations, and GRC.
• Standardized Agile delivery through shared sprint cadences, backlog practices, and tool standards.
• Led the infrastructure modernization program, managing scope, milestones, and dependencies across new authentication services, service mesh, and web application firewall projects.
• Chaired cross-functional steering committees to escalate risks, resolve dependencies, and maintain delivery progress.
• Led annual penetration testing, expanding test scope and establishing vulnerability-remediation standards across the technical organization.

Sr. Project Manager - Protective Life Corp. - Birmingham, AL (On-site & Remote)

(2018-01 - 2021-01)

• Managed full-lifecycle regulatory, risk, and transformation projects for a $124B financial services company.
• Led SAFe PI Planning across 20–30 contributors from Legal, Finance, Risk, Actuarial, Product, and Infrastructure.
• Led the NACHA compliance project to secure customer ACH account data across business and technology systems.
• Led the LIBOR-to-SOFR transition project to replace the discontinued benchmark rate across affected products, contracts, and systems.
• Led SSN and PII risk-reduction projects to limit exposure of sensitive customer data across systems and business workflows.
• Led the CPRA compliance project to implement expanded consumer privacy rights across customer interfaces, workflows, and processes.
• Managed M&A integration projects to transition acquired data, platforms, and operations into Protective's environment.

Sr. Project Manager - DirectPath Health - Birmingham, AL

(2013-01 - 2018-01)

• Established the project management function in a HIPAA-regulated healthcare environment.
• Led a HIPAA-compliant cloud migration to improve security, reliability, and scalability.
• Led Salesforce, SharePoint Online, VoIP, and HRIS projects to modernize business operations.
• Served as Product Owner for enterprise applications, managing requirements, backlog priorities, and user adoption.
• Built intake and governance processes to improve prioritization, forecasting, and delivery consistency.
• Managed M&A integrations spanning data migration, platform transitions, and business handoffs.

Construction Project Manager - Various

(2004-01 - 2013-01)

Construction Project Manager overseeing $10M+ commercial builds with full lifecycle responsibility—hiring, scheduling, cost control, vendor oversight, and stakeholder coordination.

MBA - Entrepreneurship - University of Alabama at Birmingham (2022-01)

BS - Business & Industrial Management - University of West Alabama (1997-01)