Valerie Cortez

Current

• Asst. Deputy, Business Financial Manager, Sensors Directorate at Missile Defense Agency

Past

• Major Defense Acquisition Programs Manager at L-3 Communications GSI
• Management Consultant at Diplomac Solutions, LLC
• Governance Consultant at Bank of America

• Project Manager / Sr. Business Analyst / Technical Liaison at SAIC
• Program / Change Manager on Transformation Management efforts at Department of Defense
• Program Management: Supply Chain Management & Logistics at Advanced Technology Systems, Inc
• Project Lead / Business Process Consultant at CACI
• Systems Manager / HR Specialist at Navy

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Education

• Averett University
• University of Phoenix
• Nicholls State University

• Thibodaux High

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1 more...

Recommended

6 people have recommended Valerie

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Defense & Space

Valerie Cortez’s Summary

VETERAN with an active SECRET clearance, MBA, and over 10 years consulting to federal government in IT STRATEGIC PLANNING, BUSINESS PROCESS, BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, MISSION INITIATIVES, and DECISION SUPPORT ANALYSIS with a focus on ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING systems and processes.

Project Management, Senior Analysis, and Technical Liaison with a strong foundation in business process reengineering and defense acquisition. Manage Defense Acquisition Programs focused on Information Technology Transformation & Continuity initiatives.

Valerie Cortez’s Specialties:

Change Management; Knowledge Management; Technical to Business Liaison; Extensive knowledge & understanding of development, business intelligence, database/warehousing, and process methodologies, techniques, & tools; Root Cause, Return on Investment, Cost Benefit, Feasibility, Six Sigma, Lean, Customer-Focused, RUP, UML, DMAIC, Agile, Spiral, Features Driven, Scrum, Extreme Programming, C4ISR, Architecture, SIMProcess, Informatica, Corda, ERWin, BPWin, Rational Rose, Sharepoint.

Valerie Cortez’s Experience

• Asst. Deputy, Business Financial Manager, Sensors Directorate

  Missile Defense Agency

  (Government Agency; Defense & Space industry)

  September 2009 — Present (3 months)

• Major Defense Acquisition Programs Manager

  L-3 Communications GSI

  (Public Company; LLL; Information Technology and Services industry)

  November 2007 — September 2009 (1 year 11 months)

  Systems Accountant to MDA through L3 Communication charged to lead, develop, manage, and coordinate among process areas and track implementation of the Defense Agencies Initiative (DAI) program. This is a multi-organization implementation of Oracle 11i Business Suite Federal Financials with Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Ensure consistency between program efficiencies, MDA business requirements, and financial & systems governance compliance. Develop metrics to track program goals and assess progress of achievement of strategic objectives. Coordinate the development of information feeds through various communication vehicles to attain customer feedback. Recommend process improvements and adjustments to the business operations and strategic plans. Form strategic alliances with other agencies in partnering for funding and data fusion.

• Management Consultant

  Diplomac Solutions, LLC

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 2007 — August 2007 (8 months)

  Strategic Consulting and Business Development for a technical small business start up as a 1099 developing RFP responses, statements of work, and negotiating contract terms with new clients.

• Governance Consultant

  Bank of America

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Banking industry)

  October 2006 — January 2007 (4 months)

  Governance Consultant on SHort-term contract doing Systems assessment for audit risk analysis and mitigation.

• Project Manager / Sr. Business Analyst / Technical Liaison

  SAIC

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  April 2005 — May 2006 (1 year 2 months)

  Managed the development of a decision analysis support tool delivering enterprise reporting capabilities of assets and programs supporting mission critical initiatives, the PPBE processes, implementing DOD 5200 compliant security standards, and assisting with the achievement of Federal financial compliance for the OSD budget of nearly $500BB/annum using Informatica’s OLAP application and backend. Utilized rapid application development (RAD) spiral development philosophy to create a near-production web-based ETL, storage, query, and display environment with dynamic dimensional modeling founded on object oriented design. Achieved enterprise data efficiency implementing a quality improvement methodology adapted from Lean Thinking with a customer focus. This resulted in actualizing a common data structure that enhanced the reporting capabilities supporting congressional and executive mandates to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and align to the Enterprise Architecture.

• Program / Change Manager on Transformation Management efforts

  Department of Defense

  (Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Defense & Space industry)

  October 2004 — April 2005 (7 months)

  Developed the strategic plan for transforming the enterprise financial management business, improving operational efficiency, optimizing business systems, leveraging existing technologies, expanding functional capabilities, and conducting analysis to identify new opportunities to integrate mission capabilities. Maintained awareness of congressional actions, other agency programs of interests. Developed the Defense wide plan outlining financial systems transition over a 20 year span retiring legacy systems and the implementation of planned ERP's, defining capabilities and new functions across DoD, as well as process efficiencies and cost savings.

• Program Management: Supply Chain Management & Logistics

  Advanced Technology Systems, Inc

  (Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  March 2001 — September 2004 (3 years 7 months)

  Sr Systems Analyst in support of Supply Chain Management & Logistics decision analysis programs for Defense Supply Center, Philadelphia. Supervised and performed operations research studies such as feasibility studies, cost benefit analysis, risk assessments, trade off analysis, best/worst case analysis, Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats (SWOT), GAP, root cause and Return on Investment (ROI) studies. Utilized Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodology in centralizing the supply chain management and logistics systems and functions supporting all DoD subsistence management. Collected and validated data on and provided competitive market & trend analysis used in performing benchmarking studies.
  
  Generated contract awards worth 500K+ through contributing to corporate proposals.

• Project Lead / Business Process Consultant

  CACI

  (Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)

  June 1999 — March 2001 (1 year 10 months)

  BA / Lead to Navy SPAWAR ITC PMO serving as the principal simulation process modeler & team lead for a team of 3 to 8 consultants. Participated in gathering detail information on business processes, systems, data, & requirements; developed use cases, process models, work flow analysis, functional needs assessment, gap & SWOT analysis; performing financial analysis (ABC, Economic Analysis, ROI); researched & recommended best practices; established program methodologies; made recommendations on process improvements & automation efficiencies; & created integration & implementation strategies. Directly responsible for the development of several SDLC documents, architecture products, requirements definition, as well as developed & presented program briefs to high level government & congressional constituents. Tasking involved interfacing with & presenting to high level executives at the PMO and interacting & coordinating with peers from outside organizations & vendors.

• Systems Manager / HR Specialist

  Navy

  (Government Agency; 10,001 or more employees; Defense & Space industry)

  April 1992 — July 1999 (7 years 4 months)

  MILITARY SERVICE
  
  ~ Honorable Discharge, United States Navy: Apr 1992 – Feb 1994 to Aug 1995 – Jul 1999.
  ~ Campaign Badges: Southwest Asia Service Medal with Bronze star: Kuwait Liberation (Saudi, Arabia).
  Major Awards:
  ~ “Navy Achievement Medal”: Secretary of Defense, John B. Dalton, New Orleans, LA.
  ~ “Blue Jacket of the Year”: Commander Naval Reserve Force, New Orleans, LA.
  ~ “Military Citizen of the Year”: Chamber of Commerce, New Orleans, LA.

Valerie Cortez’s Education

• Averett University

  MBA , 2002 — 2004

• University of Phoenix

  BS , BA / Business Information Systems (New Orleans Campus) , 1996 — 1999

• Nicholls State University

  Sociology 1990 — 1991

• Thibodaux High

  Diploma , 1986 — 1990

Additional Information

Valerie Cortez’s Interests:

Golf, Self Development, Politics, Spirituality, Gardening, Web 2.0 innovations

Valerie Cortez’s Groups:

VP of PR, Toastmasters International, Research Park Club, Huntsville AL

Society of Cost Estimators and Analysis (SCEA), Huntsville Chapter

•    Executive Suite
•    Christian Professionals Worldwide
•    LION™ Worn with Pride! [Choose wisely ... ] < BEWARE OF COUNTERFEITS >
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•    OpenNetworkers.info < 50.000+ Open Networkers across 60 social networks >
•    Consultants Network
•    SAIC Alumni
•    US Navy Veterans
•    Young Entrepreneurs of America
•    CBMW
•    Toastmaster
•    Oracle Practices
•    ORACLE PRO
•    National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA)
•    Defense & Aerospace
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•    WASHINGTON DC CONNECTIONS
•    The Official Toastmasters International Members Group
•    Department of Defense
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•    Defense Industry Network
•    DOD CLEARANCE GROUP
•    WomenSuite
•    American Society of Military Comptrollers
•    MBA Highway | MBA & Recruiter Network
•    Military Logistics
•    Enterprise Application Solutions
•    Linking Alabama
•    Women In Defense - Tennessee Valley Chapter
•    ViaVet
•    Cleared Networkers

Valerie Cortez’s Honors:

~ “Navy Achievement Medal”: Secretary of Defense, John B. Dalton, New Orleans, LA.
~ “Blue Jacket of the Year”: Commander Naval Reserve Force, New Orleans, LA.
~ “Military Citizen of the Year”: Chamber of Commerce, New Orleans, LA.

Valerie Cortez’s Contact Settings

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