Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Websites
Certification
Timeline
Generic

SARA CORTEZ

Chicago

Summary

Strategic Program Manager with a strong record of leading cross-functional initiatives that drive operational excellence, cost savings, and organizational growth. Experienced in end-to-end program lifecycle management, including capital project execution, stakeholder alignment, and change management. Skilled in budgeting, procurement, and contract negotiation, with a deep understanding of logistics, supply chain performance, and continuous improvement methodologies.

Overview

15
15
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

Program Manager

fairlife
Chicago
05.2023 - Current
  • Directed cross-functional collaboration among architects, contractors, site leaders, and the Gensler design team to align office design with customer needs and executive vision; facilitated project pricing and secured $7.8M RFA approval from Coca-Cola, delivering the office under budget in five months.
  • Led operational ramp-up project to increase raw milk intake at fairlife-owned receiving bays from 2.8M to 3.6M pounds/day, reducing third-party logistics fees; conducted time-study identifying nine efficiency opportunities, enabling successful scale-up from April 9 to May 12, 2024.
  • Orchestrated an office redesign initiative in collaboration with design firm Gensler across five fairlife locations, harmonizing office environments to foster a cohesive workspace culture.
  • Spearheaded fairlife's hybrid Project Management Office, fostering seamless coordination and collaboration among cross-functional teams.
  • Drove product ownership for the development of our organization-wide project management tool, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness across teams.
  • Directed seven workstreams throughout the six-month duration of phase two of a $650 million plant build project, successfully securing property acquisition, executing master service agreements with dairy cooperatives and utility companies, ensuring timely completion of milestones.

Program Manager

Amazon
Arlington
06.2021 - 12.2022
  • Leading project expansion of offer letter and contract digitization across all Global Transfers Services' (GTS) supported countries within LATAM, EMEA, US/CA, and APAC regions utilizing MyDocs self-service.
  • Overseeing the lift and shift from the AWS iTEAM recruiting team’s APAC population of more than 2,300 transfers.
  • Managing the LATAM domestic and country-to-country internal transfer service programs, with the goals of standardizing and closing the regions gaps.
  • Implemented the LATAM content improvements for the Internal Transfer Guide to help employees and hiring managers better navigate the nuances of the transfer experience.
  • Managed the lift and shift from the iTEAM recruiting team’s EMEA Tier III population of 6,000 transfers.

Solution Delivery manager

Portland Trail Blazers
Remote
04.2021 - 06.2021
  • Managed the initiation of the ServiceNow implementation by negotiating the implementation budget and built out the change management plan.
  • Developed a three-month security assessment plan to overhaul the outdated security policies.
  • Drafted and presented communications that would align all departments with the Information Technology Department's new strategic direction.

Senior Project Manager

Ticketmaster
Chicago
11.2018 - 07.2020
  • Led a cross-functional team to enable 3,200 broker contacts to the Salesforce community support portal via a newly created script without failure.
  • Created a three-tier communications plan to increase portal adoption.
  • Analyzed data in Salesforce and created reports to show portal adoption trends.
  • Brokers portal adoption rate rose to more than 80 percent after a month from go-live.
  • Supported the Resale team as the process lead and Salesforce subject matter expert.
  • Overhauled the third-party events team reporting, focusing on aligning team goals with Ticketmaster's Objectives and Key Results (OKR) such as growing gross ticket value through activating high ticket value events and having Interactive Seat Maps (ISM) for every event to increase conversion rates.

Project Manager

University of Michigan - Merit Network
Ann Arbor
12.2011 - 10.2018
  • Administrator for the NetSuite and Adaptive platforms.
  • Managed a six-month implementation of NetSuite's Enterprise Resource planning platform.
  • Successfully managed the fiber optic construction, SLA specifications, strict budget, and delivery of 55 sites to a prominent wholesale ethernet customer within eight months.
  • Headed a project team to conduct a third-party written assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a customer's network management practices.
  • Led the project team on the build-out of two production servers, performed quality assurance and cutover from the Merit-hosted Oracle instance to the University of Michigan's instance.

Project Coordinator

University of Michigan - Merit Network
Ann Arbor
01.2011 - 01.2015
  • Successfully created software development tools to maintain and track inventory.
  • Managed project budget totaling $5m, deadlines, grant compliance and reporting for 156 community lateral fiber construction builds off the backbone.

Education

Bachelor of Science - Mass Communications, Business Administration

Saint Joseph's College
Rensselaer, IN

Skills

  • Strategic program management
  • Cross-functional team leadership
  • Capital project execution
  • Vendor and contractor management
  • Budgeting & Cost Control (>$7M)
  • Supply chain and manufacturing integration

Certification

  • PMP - Project Management Institute
  • 2017-12 – 2023-11

Timeline

Program Manager

fairlife
05.2023 - Current

Program Manager

Amazon
06.2021 - 12.2022

Solution Delivery manager

Portland Trail Blazers
04.2021 - 06.2021

Senior Project Manager

Ticketmaster
11.2018 - 07.2020

Project Manager

University of Michigan - Merit Network
12.2011 - 10.2018

Project Coordinator

University of Michigan - Merit Network
01.2011 - 01.2015

Bachelor of Science - Mass Communications, Business Administration

Saint Joseph's College

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