Norman Paulsen

Profile

IT, Software Engineering, eCommerce, and Digital Transformation Leader

Digital transformation leader with 15+ years of experience creating long-term strategies for success and growth while still achieving near-term results. Known by team members as a technical and data pioneer with superb leadership and people management skills. Possesses deep subject matter expertise in DevOps, business intelligence, software development lifecycle, eCommerce platforms, data analysis, and reporting.

• Software Engineering
• Organizational Design
• Development ROI

• DevOps/DevSecOps
• Continuous Improvement
• Cross-Cultural Teams

• Data Driven Decision Making
• Digital Architecture
• Project Management

Software Engineering

• Replaced acquired brand's eCommerce technology platform with our in-house model, increasing the brand's sales by 400% day over day.
• Developed modular and redundant software platform keeping digital team operational during complete outages of legacy systems, with an uptime of over 99.99%.
• Created CRM stack for eCommerce sales team that increased efficiency of agents, making them 10 times as productive (as measured by sales) than traditional agents.
• Implemented new microservice API architecture, increasing automation rate of online orders. This increased automated orders from 5% to 45% of total online orders.

DevOps/DevSecOps

• Automated code reviews using SonarQube, decreasing manual reviews by 90%, increasing code standard compliance and reducing bug commits.
• Fused automated unit and integration testing into various points in the DevOps cycle, catching bugs earlier and more often, reducing production bugs by 95%.
• Instituted automated coding standards and best practices across onshore/offshore teams, minimizing technical debt and saving multiple man weeks per year in rework.
• Forced break points in process for manual reviews in compliance with PII, PCI and HIPAA standards.

Data Driven Decision Making

• Established cross-team KPI's for SEO and SEM decreasing friction due to share shift. This allowed teams to make better spend decisions that increased joint sales 24% YoY.
• Created standard deviation modeling in API response times to detect problem areas in infrastructure and code leading to response time decreases of over 80%.
• Implemented dashboard on eCommerce automation issues and empowered decision making and resource allocation that improved automation rates 900% over 3 years.

Organizational Design

• Built the first hybrid onshore and offshore development team at Altice, delivering our first major initiative 20% ahead of schedule and at reduced cost.
• Designed and implemented an entirely new joint SEO and SEM organization during COVID. This cross functional team increased digital sales 14% YoY.

Continuous Improvement

• Developed software suite to test existing API's effectiveness, using results to increase API performance up to 200%, directly impacting sales team's performance.
• Applied agile methodologies to SEM testing, allowing for 5 times as many tests and leading to an increase in non-branded sales from this channel by 145% YoY.

Digital Architecture

• Consolidated and migrated entire web infrastructure to the cloud, increasing security compliance, reducing downtime by 80%, and standardizing technologies.
• Devised reverse proxy setup for brand acquisition, bringing the acquired company in-brand on time and increasing sales 15% before the completion of main integration project.

Professional Experience

Altice USA | 2013 - Present

Senior Director of Ecommerce & Search | 2017 - Present

Lead a team of 16, with 2 direct reports, that are responsible for coordinating the strategy and delivery of multiple in-house teams and vendor partners covering web, eCommerce and customer care technologies, microservices and API's, cloud and on-prem infrastructure, and SEM and SEO sales tactics. This includes managing a $50M annual budget.

• Built eCommerce funnel that is the largest sales channel (pre-covid) and continue to maintain the lowest cost-per-sale and highest customer retention rates.
• Leading digital transformation of all web properties owned by Altice USA, moving them to a standardized technology platform, architecture and cloud infrastructure.
• Tasked by senior leadership to build out the SEO sales channel from the ground up, this included onboarding new vendors and building out a team over 18 months.
• Used continuous improvement and agile methodologies on SEM to create the shortest cycle time for testing new paid search marketing tactics.

Lead Developer eCommerce | 2013 - 2017

Led a hybrid team of 5 onshore and 10 offshore developers that were responsible for building out the eCommerce platform including databases, API, billing system integration, CRM, and order automation.

• Oversaw development and implementation of the most advanced ecommerce platform of its kind in the industry, pushing ecommerce sales from non-existent to the number one sales channel in under 5 years.
• Participated as the SME, collaborating with senior leadership, in the development and implementation of the eCommerce strategy.
• Created the data architecture and reporting suite for monitoring platform uptime, API response times, network traffic, conversion rates, and product performance.
• Provided leadership to the most diverse development team (gender and ethnic) for the company, overcoming potential culture pitfalls.

OrderCounter | 2011 - 2013

Chief Operating Officer

Led a team of 7, including 2 direct reports, responsible for the daily operations of every department including a call center, support, inventory management, onsite installs, new product development and outbound sales.

• Developed first Android point of sale with full integrations into registers and printers making company's product line the industries best.
• Managed all call center operations for both outbound sales covering normal business hours and inbound technical support covering 24/7 shifts.
• Responsible for install fleet covering the Southeastern United States with two operational hubs.
• Focused efforts on delivering new products and features from the I.T. staff that were designed to meet customer needs while targeting aggressive delivery timelines.
• Monitored and tracked inventory operations and supply chain management from ordering through to customer installation.