Chris Yetman

Past

Senior Vice President – Business Solutions Partnering at Level 3 Communications
Senior Vice President, Service management - Global Network Services at Level 3 Communications
SVP, Global Network Services (NOC) at Level 3 Communications

SVP Voice & Softswitch Operations at Level 3 Communications
VP, IP & Data Services, Customer Network Operations at Level 3 Communications
Vice President – Enterprise Operations (IT) / CRM at Level 3 Communications
VP, Operations Architecture Design & Support. at Genuity
VP, Technical Support and Solutions Provisioning at Genuity
Director at BBN
Director of Server Administration and Network Support at GTE Internetworking
Director of Server Administration at BBN Planet
Manager of Desktop Computing. at EDS
Principal Consulting Engineer, VAX Systems & Networks. at EDS
Various software consulting positions at Digital Equipment Corporation
Various Technical Positions at Teradyne

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12 more...

Education

Northeastern University
Blue Hills Regional Voc Tech

Recommended

25 people have recommended Chris

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Telecommunications

Websites

The Yeti Blog

Chris Yetman’s Summary

CHRISTOPHER S. YETMAN

Phone: (303) 923-5473
Email: chris@yetman.net

Executive with more than 20 years in high technology. Chris excels at leading technology based organizations and believes in operational excellence through coaching leaders, accountability for results and clear goals that can be measured. Chosen many times to manage integrations and improve the performance of teams that managed networks, systems and customer care.

Chris uses his technology background (BS/CE) and career experience (programming, building networks, managing servers, storage architect/etc) to lead teams tasked with building/maintaining systems, networks, applications and infrastructure. He sets high standards for performance and challenges others to excel in their delivery of solutions. He believes in emphasizing the possible, using continuous improvement principles and measuring results to manage changes in people, process or systems in order to improve performance. Chris holds himself and others accountable for results. Teams working with Chris know the value they bring to the business and strive to deliver.

Chris has experiences in startup situations, M&A experience and has managed groups from a few key people to over 1000 employees. He delights in creating the best outcomes for any company or organization.

Chris Yetman’s Specialties:

Operations of large networks and data centers, Critical Facilities, Technical support teams, Customer Care teams.

COMPETENCIES

• Increasing service and team performance through streamlined processes and effective measurement.

• Integrating teams/companies.

• Leadership of small and large organizations, coaching management.

• Effectively manage large discretionary and capital expenditures.

• TCP/IP • VoIP • Software Development • SONET • ATM • Security • Web Hosting

Chris Yetman’s Experience

Senior Vice President – Business Solutions Partnering

Level 3 Communications

(Public Company; LVLT; Telecommunications industry)

September 2008 — February 2009 (6 months)

Appointed to handle off-shoring process of 1,500 non-core positions within enterprise, including technical support and service activation staff from order entry through billing. Managed relationships with outsourced vendors.
• Ensured that staff works optimally where right processes concur with right metrics.
Oversaw staff of 13, accountable for coordinating transition of work to vendors’ staff, while ensuring vendors’ performance meets contract terms.
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Senior Vice President, Service management - Global Network Services

Level 3 Communications

(Public Company; LVLT; Telecommunications industry)

September 2007 — September 2008 (1 year 1 month)

Selected to turn around underperforming service operation and continue to consolidate Service Management operation that had poor customer service and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) times. Responsible for Customer Care functions and Network Operations Centers (Service management) for all products and services representing more than $4.2B in revenue.

Managed teams across 4 call centers and 2 Network Operations Centers (NOC) throughout the U.S., as well as business partner teams in India. Directed a staff of 1,050, with 750 in the U.S. and 300 off-shore.

• Decreased operating costs while dramatically improving service.

• Instituted process improvements that increased efficiency of operations to do same amount of work with fewer people.

• Led development of abstraction software to combine multiple legacy OSS and database systems into one console for use by technicians. Integrated the console with ticketing system and fault management from multiple element management systems.
SVP, Global Network Services (NOC)

Level 3 Communications

(Public Company; LVLT; Telecommunications industry)

August 2006 — September 2007 (1 year 2 months)

Chosen to integrate and consolidate operations centers from 11 to 2; achieved significant savings. Oversaw overall operating budget of $110M and cut it to $85M, and a maintenance budget of $72M and decreased it to $52M. Directed a staff of 400.

In charge of teams that handled all aspects of surveillance, triage and repair, as well as maintenance of all layers of the global network infrastructure, including all Transport, IP, and Voice.

• Consolidated all vendor maintenance from all acquired networks into a single series of MSA’s with 1 contract for each vendor that resulted in a greater than 30% savings in the total maintenance budget.

• Managed significant growth through acquisitions while gaining synergies in people and maintenance costs making combined networks less expensive to run and increasing their performance.
SVP Voice & Softswitch Operations

Level 3 Communications

(Public Company; LVLT; Telecommunications industry)

November 2005 — July 2006 (9 months)

Selected to address and improve operations performance while going through growth period that doubled Charged with straightening out underperforming areas of MTTR. Directed 300 employees responsible for Activation, Service Management and Network management of circuit switched and soft-switched (VoIP) voice networks.

Instrumental in helping VoIP services scale significantly, while driving down fault frequency and MTTR rates.

• Drove significant savings in costs of $8M annually through process and vendor negotiations. Voice network grew more than 100% annually and exceeded 5B minutes use per month.

• Spearheaded the integration of multiple national voice networks as a result of the purchase of WilTel.
VP, IP & Data Services, Customer Network Operations

Level 3 Communications

(Public Company; LVLT; Telecommunications industry)

October 2004 — October 2005 (1 year 1 month)

In charge of the Activation, Service Management and Network Management of high speed IP products, as well as the IP backbone. Managed 200 staff and teams that handled all aspects of surveillance, triage, and repair, as well as maintenance of the IP network.

• Led initiatives that saved millions in maintenance costs while improving service
availability for the IP backbone during while backbone grew more than 100% annually.

• Implemented continuous improvement culture through rigorous measurement and process corrections.

• Developed a reconciliation process between the network and billing services recovering millions in revenue and circuit costs.

• Drove network improvements that resulted in 5 nines of availability (99.999%) for the IP backbone.
Vice President – Enterprise Operations (IT) / CRM

Level 3 Communications

(Public Company; LVLT; Telecommunications industry)

February 2003 — October 2004 (1 year 9 months)

In charge of the data centers, servers and applications maintenance for level 3’s OSS and Enterprise. Charged with deployments of new software releases and testing for compatibility with enterprise & OSS. Managed Enterprise help desk, Systems Administrators, Systems Architects, Software Test & DBA teams.

• Led virtualization of servers for testing releases allowing for more overlapping build and test cycles.

• Developed SOA architected CRM abstraction environment to consolidate multiple CRM data sources into a single interface allowing for faster integration of acquired companies CRM data.

• Increased performance of SOAP/XML interfaces by orders of magnitude using updated code and XML accelerators systems to speed up transforms.

• Deployed multiple integrated releases of OSS, back office, ticketing and database systems.
VP, Operations Architecture Design & Support.

Genuity

(Telecommunications industry)

March 2002 — February 2003 (1 year)

Directed teams handling the design, security, and support of Genuity’s Intranet, including all infrastructure networks and the desktop environment for employees.

• Redesigned Interwan to take advantage of VPN technology over Internet links and saved $1M+ per year in circuit costs while creating a more secure perimeter for the corporate networks through the use of new fire wall standards.

• Created standard repeatable systems architectures for use with internal and customer facing services allowing Genuity to gain economies of scale on support, dramatically decrease installation times and simultaneously increase stability.

• Consolidated multiple Network Operations Centers with no loss in monitoring without impacting customers.
VP, Technical Support and Solutions Provisioning

Genuity

(Telecommunications industry)

March 1999 — March 2002 (3 years 1 month)

Led 8 teams of Analysts and Engineers that managed various aspects of GTE’s Network Centric Services (Web Hosting). In charge of Provisioning, Tier2 Network and Systems Support, Systems Security, Quality Assurance, Software Tools, and Server Management. Managed budgets for capital and staff of over 600 with 7-12 direct reports.

• Collaborated with managers to restructure teams to lower MMTR’s and shorten the delivery of new Web Hosting servers.

• Transitioned support of operational tools from engineering teams into Operations for backup support and Systems Administration framework.

• Deployed Tivoli infrastructure used to manage more than 6000 web hosting servers.
Director

BBN

(Telecommunications industry)

1995 — 2001 (6 years)
Director of Server Administration and Network Support

GTE Internetworking

(Public Company; GTE; Internet industry)

October 1997 — February 1999 (1 year 5 months)

Directed 4 distributed teams of systems engineers maintaining servers providing customers with support for their Internet connectivity. Operational support for services such as email (mail relay, smart hosting, and pop service), news feeds, DNS (authoritative and caching) service, Radius service, and Servers that supported BBN’s Network Operations Centers.

Directed a team of analysts handling Network Support and Applications Support for GTE Internetworking’s MCS line of business. Managed a staff of approximately 50 people with 11 direct reports.

• Handled 7 x 24 staffing and support issues while decreasing the teams overall MTTR.

• Hired new managers and spun off another team to handle Operations Security.
Director of Server Administration

BBN Planet

(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Telecommunications industry)

August 1995 — September 1997 (2 years 2 months)

Responsible for 2 teams of systems engineers (local to Cambridge and Maryland) that maintain servers that provide customers with support for their Internet connectivity. Provide operational support for services such as email (mail relay, smart hosting, and pop service), news feeds, DNS (authoritative and caching) service, Radius service and Servers that support BBN’s Network Operations Centers. Work with engineers to develop a supportable common operating environment that includes bringing all systems up to latest software revisions and building a set of standards that make maintenance easier for all systems.
Work with BBN teams and vendors to ensure that all systems are covered by service agreements (vendor or BBN supplied). Maintain capital budget for new systems deployment used by multiple BBN Planet Lines Of Business (Internet Connectivity, Managed Firewall Service, and Bulk Dial-up).
Manager of Desktop Computing.

EDS

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

June 1994 — August 1995 (1 year 3 months)

Personal Communications Division

Manage a team of Engineers responsible for all aspects of Desktop computing (PC’s, MAC’s & SUN’s), LAN Connections, Voice & Data. Drove a vision for EDS’ computing strategy that replaced standard terminals (VTxx’s & Terminal Servers) and replaced them with a Common Operating Environment that was PC based using a client server model for all new applications and development. Formed a team of professionals to accomplish the task of building network infrastructure for more than 400 users and deploying a system (PC or SUN) to every employee’s desk in an 8 month period. Deployed a client/server application used as a customer contact management system for all customer events (trouble ticketing). Server environments consist of Multiple SUN systems (SPARC 10/20/1000) and Novell 4.1 servers using Tricord ES5000 Super Server.
Principal Consulting Engineer, VAX Systems & Networks.

EDS

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

January 1991 — May 1994 (3 years 5 months)

Personal Communications Division.

Responsible for all enhancements and new VAX & VAXcluster configurations for EDS PCD. Architect CPU/Memory & I/O configurations to handle large Transaction Processing loads
(> 500,000 transactions/day). Designed and installed multiple large VAXcluster configurations (>100VUPS, >50GB) locally and at customer sites for billing services. Provide tuning & troubleshooting services for local and remote customers. Provide training and management / guidance to systems managers and operations staff. Work with Digital to save EDS and its customers millions of dollars in hardware/software costs by taking advantage of leading edge CPU/memory/storage options.
Various software consulting positions

Digital Equipment Corporation

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

June 1984 — January 1991 (6 years 8 months)

September 1990 - January 1991: Senior Software Consultant, New England District.

March 1989 - August 1990: Software Consultant, New England District Resource Team.

January 1988 - March 1989: Software Consultant, Applications Center for Technology (ACT)

June 1987 - December 1987: Software Consultant, Customer Support Center (CSC).

June 1985 - May 1987: Principal Software Specialist, Customer Support Center (CSC).

June 1984 - May 1985: Senior Software Specialist, Customer Support Center (CSC).
Various Technical Positions

Teradyne

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Computer Hardware industry)

May 1979 — June 1984 (5 years 2 months)

August 1982 - June 1984: Software Engineer, Central Engineering Services.

May 1979 - July 1982: Test Technician, Manufacturing Services Division.

Additional Information

Chris Yetman’s Websites:

The Yeti Blog

Chris Yetman’s Groups:

exgenuity.org, cxo

exgenuity.org
Executive Suite
Communications Technology Professionals
Executives Network (formerly AZ/SF Executives)
DEC Alumni
Telecom Executives Business Network
Level 3 Alumni
Carrier Ethernet
BBN Alumni
Hi Tech WEST
Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup
EVC Leaders - Practitioners of IT Economic Value Creation (Only for CIOs, IT & PMO Managers)
Best Practices in Service Desks and ITIL Worldwide
Best Practices in Call Centers Worldwide
Best Practices in Customer Satisfaction Worldwide
Executives Only - VP & Above
Lee Hecht Harrison Denver
The Blog Zone - A community for serious bloggers