Supplement to Jon Strong's CV / resume - highlights Innovation and Value Creation across Jon's career in roles from developer through CIO, CTO and executive consultant
Great Ideas Do Not Succeed On Their Moral Authoritycarlkessler
Technical staff often think that because an idea is a good, it should succeed of its own merit. In reality, one needs a good business case and solid effort in selling the value to the corporation. This presentation covers many of the pitfalls awaiting the person as the beginning selling their idea.
A Wall Street Journal article postulates that innovation comes from inside a company through networks—not lone individuals. The authors offers strategies to cultivate innovation, such as making efforts to break down the walls between company departments, rapidly testing and refining ideas, and figure out whether there are people in the chain of command who are hard to work with.
But for most large organizations, this “formula” for innovation is difficult to implement. Change, especially innovative change, is often is met with organizational resistance. Conversely, the culture of the organization often expresses collective frustrations with the limitations of business processes and underlying technologies to support business needs.
Doug Jackson, senior director of the Business Analysis Practice for Robbins Gioia (http://www.robbinsgioia.com), and Paula Pierce, CEO and principal transformation strategist, Peridona Strategies LLC (http://www.periodonastrategies.com), conduct an interactive session on integrating business analysis and organizational change management to create an environment for innovation and successful change. They will examine problems that prevent establishing successful innovation networks and provide an approach using best practices from both disciplines to help organizations harvest and test innovative ideas. They will show you how to:
• Identify the root of change resistance in our organizations
• Identify and capitalize on existing networks
• Apply BA and OCM best practices to create an environment for innovation.
Creating Kick-Ass Users: Principles for Effective OnboardingStefanie Andersen
Onboarding is a critical phase of the user's journey, but the first-time user experience is often neglected during the design process. This presentation draws on principles from game design and instructional design to explain how to make products more engaging and easier to learn.
Designing Mobile Solutions for Social & Economic ContextsJonny Schneider
Technology should help solve problems for people, but all people (and their problems) are unique - there is no one size fits all. This is especially true of Mobile, where environments and user needs are much more diverse than in other computing platforms. For instance, building mobile applications for the widest reach in India requires thinking about feature phones, non-English interfaces, the 'language' of missed calls, low-bandwidth situations, cultural nuances and numerous other unique conditions.
Jonny Schneider and Nagarjun Kandukuru argue that the practice of design thinking helps mobile developers solve the most important problems in context-appropriate ways. They demonstrate how the best mobile applications lie at the intersection of technical feasibility, business viability and crucially, user delight.
Rather than struggling with problems reactively, find out the ways on how to survive remote teams, deadlines and inadequate communication with ease. Get the complete guide here https://www.orangescrum.com/
Great Ideas Do Not Succeed On Their Moral Authoritycarlkessler
Technical staff often think that because an idea is a good, it should succeed of its own merit. In reality, one needs a good business case and solid effort in selling the value to the corporation. This presentation covers many of the pitfalls awaiting the person as the beginning selling their idea.
A Wall Street Journal article postulates that innovation comes from inside a company through networks—not lone individuals. The authors offers strategies to cultivate innovation, such as making efforts to break down the walls between company departments, rapidly testing and refining ideas, and figure out whether there are people in the chain of command who are hard to work with.
But for most large organizations, this “formula” for innovation is difficult to implement. Change, especially innovative change, is often is met with organizational resistance. Conversely, the culture of the organization often expresses collective frustrations with the limitations of business processes and underlying technologies to support business needs.
Doug Jackson, senior director of the Business Analysis Practice for Robbins Gioia (http://www.robbinsgioia.com), and Paula Pierce, CEO and principal transformation strategist, Peridona Strategies LLC (http://www.periodonastrategies.com), conduct an interactive session on integrating business analysis and organizational change management to create an environment for innovation and successful change. They will examine problems that prevent establishing successful innovation networks and provide an approach using best practices from both disciplines to help organizations harvest and test innovative ideas. They will show you how to:
• Identify the root of change resistance in our organizations
• Identify and capitalize on existing networks
• Apply BA and OCM best practices to create an environment for innovation.
Creating Kick-Ass Users: Principles for Effective OnboardingStefanie Andersen
Onboarding is a critical phase of the user's journey, but the first-time user experience is often neglected during the design process. This presentation draws on principles from game design and instructional design to explain how to make products more engaging and easier to learn.
Designing Mobile Solutions for Social & Economic ContextsJonny Schneider
Technology should help solve problems for people, but all people (and their problems) are unique - there is no one size fits all. This is especially true of Mobile, where environments and user needs are much more diverse than in other computing platforms. For instance, building mobile applications for the widest reach in India requires thinking about feature phones, non-English interfaces, the 'language' of missed calls, low-bandwidth situations, cultural nuances and numerous other unique conditions.
Jonny Schneider and Nagarjun Kandukuru argue that the practice of design thinking helps mobile developers solve the most important problems in context-appropriate ways. They demonstrate how the best mobile applications lie at the intersection of technical feasibility, business viability and crucially, user delight.
Rather than struggling with problems reactively, find out the ways on how to survive remote teams, deadlines and inadequate communication with ease. Get the complete guide here https://www.orangescrum.com/
Presentation on why HR needs to be focused on creating and accumulating connections, relationships and conversations, or social capital. Presented to the HRPA annual conference 2015 in Toronto, Canada.
Our Company ReBuilding approach enables companies to perform a "soft transformation" towards agile, decentralized and highly customer-focused structures. Our approach includes organizational elements of very successful Asian companies. After all, it is in Asia that we are observing companies taking completely new and very successful paths in order to be as adaptable and innovative as possible. The presentation highlights some very successful Asian company examples, their organizational structure and founder personalities.
Much of the time, we view innovation through a lens of total newness, but teachings from a variety of industries and professions might hold the key to defining successful strategies, and positively influence the way innovation is executed in the enterprise space.
You can find the entire slide deck from 4Ps Marketing's annual conference, Digital EDGEucation 2015. Hosted from Google UK in London on the 11th February, the 4Ps team and Friends of 4Ps presented a whole wealth of presentations about the latest in Search Marketing.
Individual Project I-3
1. Title
Technology Innovation Project
2. Introduction
Background of the Corporation
Largo Corporation is a major multinational conglomerate corporation which specializes in a wide array of products and services. These products and services include healthcare, finance, retail, government services, and many more. The annual revenue is about $750 million and it has about 1,000 employees. The parent company is located in Largo, Maryland and its subsidiaries are headquartered throughout the United States.
The mission of the corporation is to bring the best products and services to people and businesses throughout the world so they can then realize their full potential.
The corporate vision guides every aspect of their business to achieve sustainable, quality growth:
Productivity: Be a highly effective, lean and fast-moving organization.
People: Be a great place to work where people are inspired to achieve their maximum potential.
Partners: Nurture a winning network of customers and suppliers, together we create mutual, enduring value.
Responsible: Be a responsible citizen that makes a difference through ethical behavior.
Revenue: Maximize long-term return while being mindful of our overall responsibilities.
The company’s culture is reflected in their corporate values:
Leadership: Courage to shape a better future.
Collaboration: Leverage collective intelligence.
Accountability: Own up to your responsibility.
Passion: Committed to excellence.
Diversity: Provide new perspectives into our business.
Quality: We will want quality as part of our brand.
The corporation consists of the parent company and the following subsidiaries:
Healthcare – Suburban Independent Clinic, Inc. (medical services)
Finance – Largo Capital (financial services)
Retail – Rustic Americana (arts and crafts), Super-Mart (office products)
Government Services – Government Security Consultants (information security)
Automotive – New Breed (electric cars)
Systems Integration –
Solution
s Delivery, Inc. (communications)
Media Design – Largo Media (website and app design)
The organization is headed by CEO Tara Johnson who completed her Master’s degree at UMUC and eager to make worthwhile improvements to the corporation. She rose through the ranks of Largo Corporation starting with systems integration, then retail and her last position before becoming CEO was in finance.
The corporation is in a highly competitive environment so the CEO wants savvy employees at many levels to make wise judgments and take an aggressive approach and deliver results towards improving the bottom line yet maintaining corporate social responsibility.
Corporate Issues
Ms. Johnson is very concerned about the outlook of her company. Revenues recently declined and she felt that the organization needed a transformation for the company to do well over the long term. In thumbing through some readings she was inspired when she uncovered the following:
We live in a business world acceler.
My keynote from the UX South Africa 2014 conference in Cape Town, South Africa
It's a look at the state of play including:
- It's still easy to find poor website UX in South Africa
- Informing digital strategy by making and launching things
- Problems that executives of traditionally non-digital companies face as software slowly eats the word - and some solutions: Proactive research, digital product management, agile...
- Some of the skills and talents that unicorn UX designers need to have
My invited talk at TCS AgileCafe, Bangalore on Sep 29. In this talk, I explore how large #enterprises are creating #innovative products using #leanstartups
Presentation on why HR needs to be focused on creating and accumulating connections, relationships and conversations, or social capital. Presented to the HRPA annual conference 2015 in Toronto, Canada.
Our Company ReBuilding approach enables companies to perform a "soft transformation" towards agile, decentralized and highly customer-focused structures. Our approach includes organizational elements of very successful Asian companies. After all, it is in Asia that we are observing companies taking completely new and very successful paths in order to be as adaptable and innovative as possible. The presentation highlights some very successful Asian company examples, their organizational structure and founder personalities.
Much of the time, we view innovation through a lens of total newness, but teachings from a variety of industries and professions might hold the key to defining successful strategies, and positively influence the way innovation is executed in the enterprise space.
You can find the entire slide deck from 4Ps Marketing's annual conference, Digital EDGEucation 2015. Hosted from Google UK in London on the 11th February, the 4Ps team and Friends of 4Ps presented a whole wealth of presentations about the latest in Search Marketing.
Individual Project I-3
1. Title
Technology Innovation Project
2. Introduction
Background of the Corporation
Largo Corporation is a major multinational conglomerate corporation which specializes in a wide array of products and services. These products and services include healthcare, finance, retail, government services, and many more. The annual revenue is about $750 million and it has about 1,000 employees. The parent company is located in Largo, Maryland and its subsidiaries are headquartered throughout the United States.
The mission of the corporation is to bring the best products and services to people and businesses throughout the world so they can then realize their full potential.
The corporate vision guides every aspect of their business to achieve sustainable, quality growth:
Productivity: Be a highly effective, lean and fast-moving organization.
People: Be a great place to work where people are inspired to achieve their maximum potential.
Partners: Nurture a winning network of customers and suppliers, together we create mutual, enduring value.
Responsible: Be a responsible citizen that makes a difference through ethical behavior.
Revenue: Maximize long-term return while being mindful of our overall responsibilities.
The company’s culture is reflected in their corporate values:
Leadership: Courage to shape a better future.
Collaboration: Leverage collective intelligence.
Accountability: Own up to your responsibility.
Passion: Committed to excellence.
Diversity: Provide new perspectives into our business.
Quality: We will want quality as part of our brand.
The corporation consists of the parent company and the following subsidiaries:
Healthcare – Suburban Independent Clinic, Inc. (medical services)
Finance – Largo Capital (financial services)
Retail – Rustic Americana (arts and crafts), Super-Mart (office products)
Government Services – Government Security Consultants (information security)
Automotive – New Breed (electric cars)
Systems Integration –
Solution
s Delivery, Inc. (communications)
Media Design – Largo Media (website and app design)
The organization is headed by CEO Tara Johnson who completed her Master’s degree at UMUC and eager to make worthwhile improvements to the corporation. She rose through the ranks of Largo Corporation starting with systems integration, then retail and her last position before becoming CEO was in finance.
The corporation is in a highly competitive environment so the CEO wants savvy employees at many levels to make wise judgments and take an aggressive approach and deliver results towards improving the bottom line yet maintaining corporate social responsibility.
Corporate Issues
Ms. Johnson is very concerned about the outlook of her company. Revenues recently declined and she felt that the organization needed a transformation for the company to do well over the long term. In thumbing through some readings she was inspired when she uncovered the following:
We live in a business world acceler.
My keynote from the UX South Africa 2014 conference in Cape Town, South Africa
It's a look at the state of play including:
- It's still easy to find poor website UX in South Africa
- Informing digital strategy by making and launching things
- Problems that executives of traditionally non-digital companies face as software slowly eats the word - and some solutions: Proactive research, digital product management, agile...
- Some of the skills and talents that unicorn UX designers need to have
My invited talk at TCS AgileCafe, Bangalore on Sep 29. In this talk, I explore how large #enterprises are creating #innovative products using #leanstartups
Investors historically sit through pitches and evaluate early stage startups on three primary metrics: 1) great looking product demos, 2) compelling presentations, and 3) a strong team. Steve Blank, the Godfather of the Lean Startup movement said in his Customer Development Manifesto: “There’s no formal way for an investor to assess project maturity or quantify risks. Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress.”
What has been missing is a common language to communicate objectives and data that investors and entrepreneurs can use to communicate startup readiness.
Fortunately, the principles developed in the Lean Startup movement can be utilized to help entrepreneurs assess their Investor Readiness Level in a way that allows them to demonstrate “evidence” of their readiness. In this session, Max Green and Heath Naquin, both of the IC2 Institute, will share this new method for entrepreneurs to gauge their own investor readiness using the principles of Steve Blank's Investment Readiness Level and LeanLaunchpad.
Entrepreneurs attending this session will learn a valuable approach helping their start-up team prove their competence and validate their ideas by showing investors “evidence” that there’s a repeatable and scalable business model.
Heath Naquin serves as Executive Director for the SW I-Corps Node at The University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as the Managing Director for a multi-university NSF Industry University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) the Center for Next Generation Photovoltaics. Heath was a founding member of three different start-up business initiatives across sectors. He has helped companies raise more than $30 Million in funding from private and government sources.
Heath actively works on international commercialization initiatives and efforts focusing on industry collaboration, new project development and deployment along with building linkages between industry, government, academia and the venture capital community. Heath has worked in more than 20 countries on international commercialization and entrepreneurship initiatives in countries such as Colombia, Jordan, Iraq, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Armenia, and Turkey. Heath has extensive experience with the NSF, EPA and NIH SBIR programs as an active commercial reviewer for many years. Heath also currently serves as Faculty for the Concordia University Executive MBA program.
WeWork provides small businesses, startups, and freelancers with beautiful workspace, inspiring community, and meaningful services. With weekly events, personalized support, flexibility, and access to thousands of like-minded entrepreneurs around the world - WeWork is the perfect place to grow your business in 2015.
The WeWork Congress location sits in the heart of downtown Austin at 6th St. and Congress Ave. To learn more about joining the community, email joinus@wework.com or call 855.593.9675.
The 30 most innovative ce os to watch dec 2017Merry D'souza
Insights Success has curated a list of “The 30 Most Innovative CEOs To Watch, 2017,” who are waving their creative wand to bring-forward the most innovative and disruptive solution to the industry and leaving a benchmark of leadership for emerging CEOs to
follow suit.
Similar to Jonathan Strong - Innovator - may 2019 (20)
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Modern Society.pdfssuser3e63fc
Just a game Assignment 3
1. What has made Louis Vuitton's business model successful in the Japanese luxury market?
2. What are the opportunities and challenges for Louis Vuitton in Japan?
3. What are the specifics of the Japanese fashion luxury market?
4. How did Louis Vuitton enter into the Japanese market originally? What were the other entry strategies it adopted later to strengthen its presence?
5. Will Louis Vuitton have any new challenges arise due to the global financial crisis? How does it overcome the new challenges?Assignment 3
1. What has made Louis Vuitton's business model successful in the Japanese luxury market?
2. What are the opportunities and challenges for Louis Vuitton in Japan?
3. What are the specifics of the Japanese fashion luxury market?
4. How did Louis Vuitton enter into the Japanese market originally? What were the other entry strategies it adopted later to strengthen its presence?
5. Will Louis Vuitton have any new challenges arise due to the global financial crisis? How does it overcome the new challenges?Assignment 3
1. What has made Louis Vuitton's business model successful in the Japanese luxury market?
2. What are the opportunities and challenges for Louis Vuitton in Japan?
3. What are the specifics of the Japanese fashion luxury market?
4. How did Louis Vuitton enter into the Japanese market originally? What were the other entry strategies it adopted later to strengthen its presence?
5. Will Louis Vuitton have any new challenges arise due to the global financial crisis? How does it overcome the new challenges?
Want to move your career forward? Looking to build your leadership skills while helping others learn, grow, and improve their skills? Seeking someone who can guide you in achieving these goals?
You can accomplish this through a mentoring partnership. Learn more about the PMISSC Mentoring Program, where you’ll discover the incredible benefits of becoming a mentor or mentee. This program is designed to foster professional growth, enhance skills, and build a strong network within the project management community. Whether you're looking to share your expertise or seeking guidance to advance your career, the PMI Mentoring Program offers valuable opportunities for personal and professional development.
Watch this to learn:
* Overview of the PMISSC Mentoring Program: Mission, vision, and objectives.
* Benefits for Volunteer Mentors: Professional development, networking, personal satisfaction, and recognition.
* Advantages for Mentees: Career advancement, skill development, networking, and confidence building.
* Program Structure and Expectations: Mentor-mentee matching process, program phases, and time commitment.
* Success Stories and Testimonials: Inspiring examples from past participants.
* How to Get Involved: Steps to participate and resources available for support throughout the program.
Learn how you can make a difference in the project management community and take the next step in your professional journey.
About Hector Del Castillo
Hector is VP of Professional Development at the PMI Silver Spring Chapter, and CEO of Bold PM. He's a mid-market growth product executive and changemaker. He works with mid-market product-driven software executives to solve their biggest growth problems. He scales product growth, optimizes ops and builds loyal customers. He has reduced customer churn 33%, and boosted sales 47% for clients. He makes a significant impact by building and launching world-changing AI-powered products. If you're looking for an engaging and inspiring speaker to spark creativity and innovation within your organization, set up an appointment to discuss your specific needs and identify a suitable topic to inspire your audience at your next corporate conference, symposium, executive summit, or planning retreat.
About PMI Silver Spring Chapter
We are a branch of the Project Management Institute. We offer a platform for project management professionals in Silver Spring, MD, and the DC/Baltimore metro area. Monthly meetings facilitate networking, knowledge sharing, and professional development. For event details, visit pmissc.org.
2. Preface
• This is a supplement to Jonathan Strong’s résumé, with a focus on the role
of Innovation in leadership in general and across Jon’s career.
3. Considerations when bringing in an Innovator
• Why Innovate in the first place?
• Status quo yields predictable results – nothing new here
• New concepts and practices offer the potential for improved outcomes
• New and improved products
• Reduced costs
• Shorter time to market
• Customer satisfaction (both internal and external)
• Previously unimaginable outcomes - market disruption
• Competitive advantage
• Virtually every business claims to value innovation and creativity
…but that leads to a question…
4. Why is real innovation so rare?
source: Forbes, Business, 7/25/11, excerpt from:
“Business Innovation: Why It Is So Rare, So Prized And So Feared”
“For those of you who have ever taken any psychological profiling or testing for work, you have probably run across
The Myers-Briggs test (called MBTI). The MBTI is frequently used in business settings as it is an indicator of how we
see the world and are inclined to make decisions. The personalities were given 16 names and put into 4 groups by
psychologist David Keirsey. The largest group, The Guardians, are as large as 53% of the population. Guardians are
primarily concerned with order, stability, seeking security, and have a strong sense of duty. They are called Protectors,
Inspectors, or Supervisors. Well-known Guardians are Queen Victoria, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and former
President George H.W. Bush.
The idea of being “disruptive” or “innovative” is so very counter-intuitive to most Guardians. While they vary on how
they handle and approach what is “new,” they will not instinctively embrace it. For many, it is contempt without
investigation or “what we are doing today is perfectly fine – we have a system in place.” What is inherent in this
sentiment is “I have my place in this world, this new idea threatens that place.” They are neither good nor bad, they
are just do’ers, they are dependable – they get in there, they find and then they implement a process.”
Forbes on innovation:
5. A word of caution
• Organizations need to be clear about this:
➢ Do we now, or do we truly want to, embrace innovation?
➢ Or do we prefer a leader who will execute a known formula?
• Neither is inherently right or wrong – but the distinction is critical
➢ Must honestly assess organization culture, needs and
strategy, and align leadership accordingly
6. How to recognize a true innovator?
Innovation is not something you can just decide to do one day
Companies may resolve to
innovate…
Innovators should be sought for leadership roles
How can we recognize them?
Innovation is an art, informed by experience and knowledge
But creativity, along with skill, experience, knowledge and
business judgment cannot just be created by fiat
7. How to recognize a true innovator?
Some Telltale Characteristics of an Innovator
Bright (but that much was obvious…)
Broad experience from which to draw and connect information
Able to recognize and abstract patterns from what might seem chaotic
Deep experience to inform the invention process and facilitate judgment
Typically feel obligated to question the status quo, albeit constructively
Able to envision and plan new models with confidence that they will succeed
Generally demonstrate this kind of mindset throughout a career
Valued innovators work their magic in service of organization objectives
8. Innovation examples from Jon’s background – 1
Invented a new banking platform
For a bank where all prior systems were based on traditional technology, created a
new retail credit platform based on new technologies that shortened the
development cycle from 2 years to 6 months, cutting cost dramatically and letting
the bank take on new business significantly faster.
Invented mainframe laser printer font manager
The bank built numerous mission critical systems using APL – a language with
complex special characters, but no legible APL printer fonts were available for the
bank’s IBM mainframe laser printer. Jon invented an interactive visual font editor
and manager that allowed creation, italicization, bolding and dynamically
smoothed scaling to any printable size for their enterprise printers. IBM adopted
the tool and promoted it across their customer base.
“Jonathan Strong is one of those rare individuals that you get a chance to work with that brings intelligence, passion and
caring to what ever he does. I would welcome the opportunity to work with him or for him on any type of project knowing
that it will be successful and that my skills would be used to deliver true value.”
Michael Meyerkopf
Solution Partner - Health Sciences EMC
Consulting at EMC
9. Innovation examples from Jon’s background – 2
Created the first full-screen financial apps at RCA
Designed and developed the first full screen 3270 applications used at RCA for
interactive financial planning, budget tracking, analysis and reporting. Adopted by
several RCA and NBC divisions. Shortened RCA and NBC development cycle from 2
years to less than 6 months for typical projects.
Invented commercial Business Intelligence platform
Jon led the concept, architecture and development of RCA’s first global,
performance reporting and business intelligence platform spanning all 31
divisions. This was adopted by GE, then spun off as a separate company, acquired
by Cognos, and wound up marketed as IBM Cognos Finance.
“I had the wonderful opportunity of working with Jon at MRU Holdings at which time he was the Chief Technology Officer… Jon’s knowledge
and competence in business technology and experience in multiple industries allows him to turn any information technology group into a
world-class organization. Jon has experience in directing and navigating teams and organizations through a myriad of scenarios and
circumstances with very successful and beneficial end results for the organizations and teams. Jon both understands and can excellently guide
and mentor teams towards achieving key performance indicators to help maximize business revenue and profitability and reduce information
technology costs. Overall Jon has an excellent track record of creating, building and maintaining world-class business focused organizations
and would be an excellent leader for any company”
Kirk Rohani
Software Development Manager, Computer Science
UT Austin
10. Innovation examples from Jon’s background – 3
Co-developed the first mainframe spreadsheet
Designed and developed the first spreadsheet program to run on an IBM
mainframe as a commercial product, mimicking all the capabilities of a PC
spreadsheet.
Built first mainframe spreadsheet graphics product
Designed and developed the first mainframe spreadsheet graphics product to run
on an IBM mainframe, compatible with leading spreadsheets, and mimicking the
capabilities of Visiplot.
Created Northeast A.I. Practice at Deloitte
Researched the Artificial Intelligence field, evaluated and selected products, and
planned and led the first Artificial Intelligence engagements conducted by Touche
Ross (now Deloitte) in the Northeast.
11. Innovation examples from Jon’s background – 4
Invented Credit Portfolio Risk Analytics Platform
Jon designed a new methodology and led creation of an AI-based Credit Risk
Portfolio Analytics and monitoring platform for a major national bank, integrating
bank data, econometric data and models, non-financial measures and newsfeed
analysis to forecast potential credit defaults. Using historical data, tool identified
failures 6 months in advance of insolvencies, and would have saved the bank over
$60 million for this one time period, and more than $300 million over two years.
Created and led Northeast PMO for Cap Gemini
Created and led the first PMO for Cap Gemini in the Northeast. Hired, certified
and managed all Project Managers, and presided over the creation of the projects
practice in the region. Grew region to $40 million while doubling profit margin in
less than 2 years.
“Jon was an acting CTO for a small startup financial data company. His technical and leadership
skills were exceptional, allowing for a small team to overachieve on tight budgets and the enormous
stress that exists in start up environments. People under his leadership over-performed, primarily,
due to the respect they had for Jon, myself included.”
Pippin Gilman
Business Transformation Leader, Process
Engineering, Global Enterprise Architecture
Verizon
12. Innovation examples from Jon’s background – 5
Created IT/Management Consulting firm
Created firm and methodologies, led and built practice, supporting numerous
clients over many years, from small to Fortune 100, in several industries.
Led creation of a world-class casual gaming site
Conceived and led design, development and operation of one of the top ranked
casual gaming websites. Early on the site developed close to a million members
purely due to word of mouth references, and audience retention and repeat visits
were ranked by Comscore as being the best among casual gaming sites, beyond
properties built and operated by both Electronic Arts and Vivendi.
“Jon is a charismatic, action-oriented leader who is constantly seeking a better way to execute.
While at TEKsystems Jon has been responsible for leading and mentoring a group of Delivery
Managers that relied heavily upon him to help troubleshoot delivery issues within our
engagement portfolio. He used his well developed communications skills to be thoughtful of his
audience... he was a considerate speaker and a compassionate listener. His leadership style is
sincere, direct and personal...he wants those around him to succeed. Jon believes in investing in
people…he always made time for me when I asked for his help, even though he did not directly
benefit. Jon is exactly the person you want leading, because he is a compassionate, determined
self-starter.”
Bill Jones
Solutions Architect at
TEKsystems
13. Innovation examples from Jon’s background – 6
Created IT organization and transformed operations
Took over as CIO/CTO for a student loan company and lead the transformation of
the IT organization from startup mode to world class 24x7 operation. Introduced
methodologies, rigor, enterprise architecture, business intelligence and real-time
marketing analytics, allowing the firm to go head-to-head with billion dollar
competition. Achieved 200% ROI on IT in less than two years. Served in other CIO
and CTO roles since then.
“I have worked closely with Jon over 18 months. Jon is one of the brightest IT visionaries I know. He has deep insight
into both the analytics, online, and development aspects of business. Jon was working on developing a robust platform
for processing customers in an efficient and optimized fashion. The IT department always research and tested the latest
technology and methods for improvement. The techniques used were cutting edge and stressed vendors into
developing innovative solutions.
Jon clearly understood the objective of the business and marketing's approach to customer acquisition, and worked
closely to accommodate all levels of analysis and growth.
I would be happy to serve as a reference to Jon, and would highly recommend him.”
Michael Kaushansky
EVP, Chief Analytics Officer at Havas Media
14. A brief list of a few more innovations…
First compressed storage database management system at RCA, with 80% reduction in storage space
and faster response time – custom design and architecture
First CMMi evaluation performed for Swiss Bank
First online real-time display of S&P Global Equity Indices “live” on the web
Fault tolerant self-scaling game server architecture that provided better than 99.99% uptime as site
membership grew from 500 to 1 million users, able to redistribute its own workload from one server
to an entire server farm autonomously in a lights out environment
Meta-server for online website advertising, dynamically switching among multiple ad providers in
each online ad space based on based on combination of user-specified ad preferences and real-time
selection of highest paid ad campaigns, optimizing ad placement, fill rate and revenue.
In every instance, the solution required new thought, process, technology – innovation – to
solve real-world business challenges and yield meaningful business benefit. Jon’s history is
as a serial innovator, creator of value, and a seasoned leader.
15. Excerpts Only
A brief document like this can only touch on a few highlights out of a
lengthy career. This was just a brief introduction.
If an innovator with leadership skills, technology expertise and
extensive value creation experience could benefit your organization,
we should talk.
Jonathan R. Strong
jonathanrstrong@gmail.com
609-532-1715
16. Thank you for your time.
I look forward to hearing from you!