About me
I am a Business Operations and Project Delivery professional with 15 years of experience in Tech, delivering company-wide initiatives and managing global cross-functional teams in fast-growing environments.
I am a pragmatic idealist known to challenge the status quo, uniquely problem-solve, and drive transformation while building healthy collaboration, trust, and consensus among stakeholders.
Versatile Generalist | Creative Problem Solver | Empathetic Relationship builder | Attention to detail + Big picture | Strategic thinker + Hands-on doer |
Strategic Planning & Execution | Business Operations | Process Optimization | Tech Industry |
Team Leadership | Cross-functional Management | Program Management | Complex Multi-Stream Projects |
Change Management | Analytical Skills | Interpersonal Skills | Passion for Problem-Solving |
Continuous Improvement | Tech. Savvy | Management Consulting | Effective Communicator |
I have worn many hats and been part of the growth and transformation of the organizations I have worked for and worked with.
From a small internal consulting team to a global business transformation agency, from creative project management and technology product management to company-wide operations, I'm proud of the diversity of my experience and thrilled with the idea of adding more pieces to this infinite puzzle.
I am now seeking a new opportunity within a mission-driven organization where I can have an impact. A place that fosters an entrepreneurial spirit and where I can learn from new challenges as well as diverse, talented, and passionate people.
Skills & Experience
15 yrs Experience
Business Operations
Delivery & Client Operations
Project & Program Management
Team Management
STRATEGIC PLANNING & EXECUTION
- Definition of the scope, purpose, and objectives of the newly formed regional Business Operations function, identification of strategic streams and areas of focus based on current challenges and local, regional, and global business goals.
- Yearly planning and quarterly reviews of 15 to 20 initiatives of various sizes in collaboration with each function of the company
- Bi-weekly reporting to an audience of 20 executives and senior regional leaders: progress towards the plan, feedback gathering, requests, priorities, etc.
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION & PROCESSES
E.g. 1: Talent acquisition & retention programs
Functions: HR - Recruiters - Staffing - Heads of practices (Technology, Strategy, Design, Delivery, ...)
- Streamlined the interview/hiring process with identified hiring teams and decision-making points.
- Improvements to the onboarding process for each new employee (day 1 - week 1 - month 1) to ensure better integration.
- Evaluation of the maturity level of each practice, identification of promotion structure, and training needs.
E.g. 2: Foreign visitors and expats support
Functions: Immigration/Legal - HR - Staffing - Heads of Practices (Tech. Creat. Delivery, ...)
Structure, simplify, and communicate processes related to visitors from other countries and expats settling in the US or Canada.
E.g. 1: Increase forecast accuracy to 90%+
Functions: Delivery - Staffing - Finance
- Reduced data defects (forecasted hours, employees' internal vs inter-company rates, etc.) improving overall KPIs reliability, and actual results predictability to over 90%.
- Experimented with process improvements and auditing reporting tools, until ready to be progressively handed it over to responsible parties such as staffing managers and financial analysts.
E.g. 2: Monthly Revenue forecast & reconciliation
Functions: Delivery - Staffing - Finance - Executives
- Reviewed local and inter-company staffing forecasts, audited data accuracy and performed corrections when needed.
- Set up dashboards, and created reports for business reviews with executives.
E.g. 3: Managed budgets for $1M+ Accounts
Functions: Project Teams - Staffing - Finance, Executives - Clients
- Managed client budgets of $1M+, including negotiation, yearly planning, monthly invoicing, and reconciliation with Finance.
- Managed project budgets, from estimations with project teams to weekly tracking and reporting.
BUDGETS, REVENUE FORECAST
& RECONCILIATION
SERVICE & PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
E.g. 1: First Product development
Functions: R&D, Technology, Marketing, Sales, Account Management, Executive team
- Part of the Product Development Steering Committee, setting objectives, evaluating progress, and assessing risks.
- Supported Product team in the go-to-market planning, and collaborated with Marketing to create sales collateral.
- Became the SME for product presentations to clients during events and pitches.
E.g. 2: New Service offerings
Functions: Practice teams, Marketing, Sales
Experimented with new types of events and services such as Innovation Labs, Retail Tours, and Learning Expeditions, with a low initial investment and high margin potential.
Packaged successes into offerings with repeatable and scalable processes, and tools.
E.g. 3: New Product Releases
Functions: Product - R&D - Communications - Interior Design - Public Relations
- Coordinated the highly confidential yearly product launches on digital platforms with a non-negotiable release date and time.
- Owned markets reveal presentation material preparation and top executive speakers coaching (incl. Heads of Product, R&D, and Communications).
TEAM MANAGEMENT & TRAINING
Account teams' onboarding & management
- Managed cross-functional and remote project/ account teams of 10-100+ people across multiple offices from North, and South America, Europe, and India.
- Improved transparency and knowledge transfer for all team members with an onboarding program, ultimately leading to a better understanding of the context, increased cohesion and creativity, and overall engagement.
CLEAR & EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
- Facilitated countless in-person and virtual meetings with all types of participants, ranging from daily stand-ups with a project team, Steering Committees with internal and client C-levels, to workshops with 50+ stakeholders from multiple countries.
- Known to be an active listener and honest sounding board.
- Believer that presentation matters as much as content.
analytical skills
& DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING
E.g. 1: Evolving to a data-driven culture
Functions: All functions
- Introduced ways to collect company data based on the results of an assessment showing a lack of data-driven decisions
- Derived insights allowing for proactive structural moves such as investing in teams training for high potential and fast-growing technology, or mitigating potential needs for layoffs before they arose.
E.g. 2: Business Case for company investment
Functions: Delivery, Staffing, Practices (Technology, Strategy, Design), Account Management, Sales, Finance
- Quantified operations and delivery processes efforts and costs, employees satisfaction and morale, and uncovered new sources of insights
- Ultimately created an evidence-based business case that secured a $1M+ budget for the implementation of a new global delivery and operations system demonstrating a 30%+ gain in efficiency, and cost reduction across the board with an investment recuperated in less than 1 year.
VERSATILITY & ADAPTABILITY, COMFORTABLE WITH AMBIGUITY
E.g1: Data Privacy & Management ownership
Functions: General Council - Data Privacy, IT - Internal Control - Finance - HR - Executive team
- In response to a sudden need raised by the global HQ, I trained to become the regional DPM (Data Protection Manager) in less than 1 month.
- Provided training and oversight to all functions across 6 offices in the identification and capture of the impacted tens of processes into the global tool.
E.g. 2: Diversity of backgrounds, brands, and industries
- Excel at engaging with experts from diverse backgrounds, studying their expertise, and acting as a link with the rest of the company. Collaborated with experts and startups from backgrounds such as Architecture, AR/VR, Data Science, Marketing, Strategy, Copywriters, Translation, etc.
- Worked with brands from diverse industries, quickly becoming knowledgeable about their challenges to provide strategies and actionable plans, and interacted with their teams and executives from various functions: Digital, Marketing, IT, Product, HR, Retail, etc.
LANGUAGES
English
Fluent
French
Native speaker
Spanish
Conversational
Retail - Beauty - Home Appliances - Sporting Goods - Automotive - Luxury - Medical Equipments
some industries & brands I've worked with
Work History
New York CITY, USA
Business Operations Consultant
Created and developed 3 eCommerce brands (Pets Accessories - Apparel & Stationery).
- Shaped each brand's strategic direction and translated it into strategic initiatives to support the launch of those projects.
- Directed the business operation lifecycle of processes including creating policies and procedures for each stage.
- Showcased a commitment to excellence, financial health, and an unparalleled drive to deliver world-class services.
- Demonstrated a proven ability to balance multiple critical tasks and consistently deliver against hard deadlines.
- Leveraged data and analysis to guide decision-making and identify business improvement opportunities.
- Formulated and defined clear expectations by establishing the right solutions to the right problems.
- Surfaced trends and actionable business insights that led to operational enhancements.
2014 - 2021 VALTECH |
Valtech is a global multi-award-winning digital agency focused on Business Transformation. They build intuitive, frictionless, and connected experiences that improve human lives and make their clients' businesses grow. |
New York CITY, USA
VP, Business Operations & Delivery
January 2020 - September 2021
As part of the Business Operation & Delivery team, I worked both for the Americas region, and Global.
Americas Region Operations and Delivery processes
Partnered with senior leadership across the organization in the definition and analysis of operating and financial KPIs, to both improve the day-to-day activities and generate actionable insights to support strategic business decisions, operational planning, and priorities.
Global Operations & Delivery
- Secured initiative approval and a $1M+ budget from C-level executives by building a strong data-driven business case demonstrating more efficient and streamlined processes, performance, growth enablement, and cost reduction by over 30% recuperating the investment in less than 1 year.
- Spearheaded the global implementation of the new operations and delivery system, streamlining processes, increasing data integrity, and performance dashboard access for 3,500+ users across 20 countries. Led and actively participated in all aspects, from the definition of scope, business requirements, and release roadmap to change management and training programs.
- Resolved major cross-functional dependencies by facilitating collaboration and repeatedly reaching consensus across multiple departments around common processes, deliverables, and milestones among the executive team and key stakeholders across 10 functions and 40+ offices.
Chief of Staff
March 2017 - December 2019
- Partnered with North America Region leadership to prioritize, strategize, facilitate, and scale a portfolio of ongoing internal, tactical, and strategic initiatives across the organization on matters such as operational efficiency, people engagement, cross-country processes, and collaboration.
- Supported the US MD during his transition to the North America Region's leadership, acting as a proactive first line of contact for the 100+ US employees, handling highly confidential information, and enabling him to focus on driving growth and scaling the organization
Account Director & Special Projects
April 2015 - March 2017
- Established foundations for new types of initiatives in Retail Luxury and Digital Innovation, piloting innovative technologies, creating new business models, growth opportunities, and cultivating trusted partnerships with key stakeholders and external vendors.
- Drove client success, grew multidisciplinary teams, and tailored strategies to deliver on their needs with custom solutions adapted to their budget.
Project Director
April 2014 - April 2015
In-residence subject matter expert, and responsible for all US activities related to the Rolex account; from setting up the local team and running day to day operations, to ensuring cross-cultural and cross-functional collaboration. Managed best practices and roadmap alignment among the teams and locations.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Digital Program Manager
January 2012 - October 2013
Directed Rolex.com redesign; from strategic business objectives and scope of work definition to final launch and maintenance processes. Responsible for 120+ professionals across five collaborative multidisciplinary agencies. Piloted Rolex digital communications projects portfolio with each project manager, providing weekly reporting deliverables to top management.
Digital Retail Manager
January 2010 - December 2011
Designed and led the execution and rollout of the first global digital retail program. Built strong affiliate relationships, engaging leadership and providing change management guidance and ongoing support to 20+ Rolex affiliates teams worldwide.
Project Manager
March 2008 - December 2009
Managed various Rolex.com-related projects, including weekly content and site updates following the editorial calendar, and multiple redesigns.
PARIS REGION, FRANCE
Communications Coordinator
January - October 2007
Managed and organized the French affiliate's fleet of vehicles reserved for events and partnerships.
Education
Courses
2023 (in progress)
2017
2017
2013
Financial Decision-Making for Leaders
People Management for Entrepreneurs
Inspiring and Motivating Arts & Culture Teams
Scrum Product Owner
University of Michigan (through EdX.org)
Indian Institute Of Management Bengaluru (through EdX.org)
University of Michigan (through EdX.org)
Scrum Alliance
degrees
2006
Bachelor in Marketing
Waterford Institute of Technology
Ireland
2004
DUT (eq. AA) in Business
Montpellier Institute of Technology
France
2007
Master in Communications Management
Paris ESGCI Business School
France
Questions you may ask yourself
WhAT IS SHE LOOKING FOR?
Here are the things that are important to me in my next opportunity:
- Business Operations feels like home to me. I am a versatile generalist and I thrive when I get to experience the holistic view of the company. Understanding the ins and outs of the business, identifying gaps and working on solutions to optimize the ways teams and functions work together reducing friction, duplicate efforts, while generating consensus and increasing efficiencies.
- Growing organization: I get excited by this 'teenager phase' of an organization that is not necessarily quite a newbie anymore, but not a scaled and mature organization either. Getting to create or improve processes, to uncover opportunities to scale the right way
- Tech-related field: I am passionate about the way technology enables people and organization into accomplishing more and better. I believe in human interactions being supported by the right tools, rather than replaced.
- Mission-driven: Working towards a same goal that goes beyond just growth is key. When people believe in and are motivated by what they are building, growth and profit become a natural byproduct.
- Diversity: whether it is cultural, demographic, expertise, geographic, I thrive in diverse environments where it is about embracing differences and celebrating commonalities.
Why did she leave Valtech?
My decision was the result of multiple things:
- You may have heard about this COVID-19 thing that happened! Well, like for many people it encouraged me to re-think about what was important to me, what I wanted to do. It gave me that extra push to finally focus on these projects that I had always wanted to pursue.
- After 7 years at Valtech, having worn many hats and been part of the exponential growth of the company, I was eager to look for different challenges.
- Other personal events that required and motivated me to spend more time with my family.
SHE DOESN'T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE IN OUR INDUSTRY, WHY SHOULD WE CONSIDER HER?
Adaptability and versatility are 2 words that define my life. Not only am I good at adapting to new environments, but I also tremendously enjoy the process of learning about it.
Professionally, I have successfully proven my capacity to evolve and transition through various roles — from project management to business operations — opposite organizations — from a traditional leading luxury brand to a innovative business transformation agency — but also to navigate multiple industries. My experience in client-facing roles has led me to quickly become knowledgeable about an industry and a client's challenges to become a trusted advisor, making strategic recommendation and delivering on outstanding experiences.
Watchmaking, cosmetics, home appliances, automotive, sporting goods, industrial design, health professional devices, I have always been able to quickly dive in and get to learn about new industries.
Personally, I grew up in a small town in the South of France and made it in the Big Apple, I have lived, studied, and worked in various countries, collaborated with people from all over the world and from many different expertises.
Ask me more questions:
+1 (646) 321-9135
Tools & Applications
Collaboration
Zoom
MS Teams
G-Meet
Slack
Miro
G-Mail, MS Outlook, Zoho
G-Drive, One Drive, Dropbox
Jira
Confluence
Operations & Delivery
G-Sheets, MS Excel, Numbers
G-Docs, MS Word, Pages
Mavenlink
Trello, Quire
PM tools like Asana, Monday...
MS Planner, MS Project
NetSuite OpenAir
Xero
SmartSheet
Presentations & Design
MS PowerPoint
G-Slides
Keynote
Canva
Figma
eCom., Social & more
Salesforce
Shopify & apps integration
Google Analytics
Mailchimp
SurveyMonkey
Meta Business Suite: Facebook/Instagram
Youtube
Etsy
Contact
Sara Berenice
(She/Her)
green card holder
full time or contract
New York, NY
