Resume

VP / Senior Director, Enterprise Applications & Business Systems

Executive Summary:

Enterprise systems and business technology executive — and trusted advisor to the Office of the CFO/CHRO — with 15+ years owning ERP, Finance, HCM, and Procurement platform strategy and transformation for Fortune 100 and global retail organizations. Sets technology direction and manages investment priorities while building executive consensus around transformation agendas. Governs platform roadmaps to deliver measurable business value, guided by an analytics-driven, ROI-focused operating style.

Most recently at Whole Foods Market (Amazon), served as the accountable executive for a $35M+ portfolio of 60+ production systems — spanning Workday, Coupa, UKG, and Procore — for 100,000+ users across 500+ locations in the US, Canada, and UK.

Highlights:

Culture & Talent Development Transformed team culture from reactive to proactive, embedding accountability, customer focus, operational excellence, and continuous improvement as core operating values. Built a PMO and leadership bench that business executives repeatedly asked to replicate — asking to hire more people like them. Coached leaders to turn around performance, including developing a previously underperforming leader into a company-wide award recipient who was later promoted.

Back-Office Digital Transformation Directed the digital transformation of Whole Foods Market’s core back-office platforms — replacing PeopleSoft with Workday Financials, redesigning the chart of accounts and fiscal calendar, consolidating three financial planning tools into Workday Planning, modernizing recruiting systems to improve candidate experience and reduce time-to-fill, and rolling out Coupa globally to automate $2B in procurement spend.

New Levels of Business Agility Established and chaired a System Governance function enabling three teams and three system integrators to develop Finance and HCM functionality concurrently on the Workday platform without compromising cross-functional system integrity — later expanded to govern all enterprise business systems and master data — accelerating release velocity and reducing cross-functional delivery risk across the portfolio.

Crisis Leadership & Business Continuity Personally led the disaster recovery effort when our vendor-hosted timekeeping solution (Kronos) suffered an extended outage during our peak business season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with payroll for 100,000+ employees across three countries at risk — directing my team’s build of a Workday-based timekeeping application within days, to keep payroll running, and securing emergency vendor executive support to stand up Kronos in AWS within weeks for long-term resilience. Outcome: zero missed paychecks, across three countries / regulatory regimes, amid a global health crisis.

Professional Experience:

TASK Consultants — Principal Consultant — Office of the CIO/CDO • Houston, TX | 2024–present
Interim advisory and execution roles supporting CIOs, CDOs, and IT leadership teams of Fortune 1000 companies on technology and data strategy.

GenAI & Data Strategy (Oceaneering): Engaged by Chief Data Officer to drive data and automation innovation. Identified 80+ data and AI-enabled product ideas; advanced 3 to business cases and secured investment for 2 funded prototypes. Led development of the enterprise Data Strategy spanning architecture, governance, BI, AI, and data monetization. Developed value case for Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption and secured executive alignment to proceed into active pilot phase.

Nonprofit Advisory (National): Analyzing operational data for a poverty alleviation program to identify opportunities for greater community impact and operational efficiency.

Nonprofit Advisory (International): Reengineering manual, labor-intensive processes and introducing automation for a legacy giving program to reduce operational costs.

Whole Foods Market — Senior Director, Enterprise Transformation • Austin, TX | 2022–2023

$300M SG&A Optimization: Recruited to lead an enterprise-wide cost reduction initiative against a $250M goal; identified more than $300M in SG&A savings opportunities, built the integrated change agenda, and co-launched cross-functional initiatives to capture those savings, in partnership with a leading management consulting firm under C-Suite sponsorship.

Functional Cost Reduction: Outsourced the item data management function to a managed service, cutting cost by more than 50%.

Whole Foods Market – Senior Director, Enterprise Business Systems • Austin, TX | 2020–2022
De facto Head of IT for all back-office corporate functions. Owned the full technology stack — applications, support, and infrastructure — for the portfolio of financial and business applications supporting Accounting, Finance, Tax, Indirect Procurement, HR, Legal, Workforce Scheduling, Timekeeping, Site Planning, Store Construction, and Repairs and Maintenance — 60+ systems, $35M+ budget, 70+ person team, 100,000+ users across 500+ stores in the US, Canada, and UK.

Executive CFO Advisory: Served as Acting VP of Finance Technology and partnered directly with the Office of the CFO to build the integrated digital transformation strategy and roadmap across Finance, Accounting, Tax, and Indirect Procurement. Facilitated strategy workshops and designed the operating model to support business-led digital transformation.

Platform Ownership & Vendor Governance: Owned strategic platform relationships for Workday (Finance and HCM), Coupa, and UKG (Kronos); ran quarterly business reviews to ensure ROI and SLA compliance and align vendor roadmaps with business goals. Negotiated $25M in SaaS subscriptions (new and renewal), achieving 30%+ savings.

Operational Excellence: Reduced software defects 10% and support cost 35% YOY by redesigning the operating model and instilling a culture of accountability and customer focus. Cut KTLO 19% over two years through application rationalization and technical debt remediation. Reduced data center footprint 20% by migrating workloads to AWS.

Security Vulnerability Remediation: Mobilized Linux, Windows, and DBA resources to remediate 5,000+ security vulnerabilities across 600+ infrastructure assets on an aggressive Amazon-driven timeline, materially reducing risk profile.

System Reliability & Customer Experience: Instituted an automated QA framework across the portfolio — accelerating release velocity and ensuring core application stability for internal business customers.

Whole Foods Market – Principal Program Manager • Austin, TX | 2018–2020
Member of leadership team of Enterprise Business Systems Delivery group.

PMO & Governance: Requested by VP of Enterprise Systems to informally assume oversight of all digital transformation programs; accountable to Finance and HR executives for the full transformation portfolio. Led the portfolio replacing PeopleSoft with Workday Financials, consolidation of three financial planning tools into Workday Planning (Adaptive Insights) and the replacement of the financial reporting tool with Workday FPM, while redesigning the chart of accounts and changing the fiscal calendar. Delivered projects within 3% budget and schedule variance.

Bar Raiser Award: Received “Bar Raiser” award (modeled on Amazon Bar Raiser program) from VP of Enterprise Systems for excellence in program planning, execution, stakeholder engagement, and benefits realization.

Coupa Global Rollout: Personally led global implementation of Coupa to automate $2B in decentralized indirect procurement spend. Designed the cross-functional operating model and stood up policy and governance for a newly created Indirect Procurement function. Recognized by Coupa for achieving their highest metrics for system utilization and value creation.

TASK Consultants – Principal Consultant — Program / Project Manager • Houston, TX | 2010–2018
Program and project management, delivering enterprise business systems for Fortune 500 energy and healthcare clients: Baker Hughes, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, Texas Children’s Health Plan.

Core System Migrations (Energy): Led implementation of SAP PRA and Quorum to replace legacy financial systems for third-party crude accounting and surface assets at a Fortune 10 energy company. Delivered integrated solution within 11 months — recognized by SAP as one of the fastest implementations of its kind.

Corporate Divestitures: Led system and data segregation for Corporate and Indirect Tax departments to support a multi-billion dollar corporate split, utilizing Corptax and Zytax (Avalara) and system separations supporting corporate spinoffs and an MLP IPO — providing early exposure to M&A and divestiture systems work in high-stakes, deadline-driven environments.

Regulated Program Launch: Augmented core business platforms to support the rapid launch of the STAR Kids Medicaid managed care program for Texas Children’s Health Plan (TCHP).

Built and scaled an enterprise systems and leadership background through VP-level and CEO roles before transitioning to a career track in enterprise IT.

Flipswap | VP Operations, Sales: Reduced per-device recycling costs by 50% through process improvement, boosted gross margins by 24% through dynamic pricing model engineering, and increased inventory turns from 5.5 to 10 by reengineering inventory workflows and introducing policies and governance.

Wireless Works | CEO & Founder: Bootstrapped with $10k seed capital and attained operational profitability within 6 months. Grew startup into $50M revenue company in mobile device reverse logistics, refurbishment, and recycling.

Network International | VP Technology Management & Deputy CIO: Led 75+ person engineering team to build and launch 3 integrated B2B transactional systems within 6 months.

Accenture | Manager: Led design, development, and delivery of SAP R/3 environments in global rollouts for Fortune 100 energy clients; designed enterprise business process and application architecture.

Education:

M.S. in Data Analytics — Texas A&M University, Mays Business School

M.S. in Computer Science — The University of Texas at Austin

B.A. in Computer Science — Coe College; Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa

Certifications:

Program Management Professional (PgMP)

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

Certified Change Practitioner (Prosci)

Testimonials:

“Bar Raiser” Award — Enterprise Business Systems Delivery.
— VP of Enterprise Business Systems Delivery (leader)

“Sudz has high standards and consistently asks questions to drive long-term thinking from both teams. He is an excellent communicator with a strong awareness of his multiple stakeholders.”
— VP of Finance (internal customer)

“Sudz is highly strategic. He has been instrumental in creating and communicating a compelling and inspired vision/strategy around product ownership, performance management, and financial accountability. He continually plays the long game and helps set us up for success.”
— VP of Accounting (internal customer)

“Sudz has a strong capacity to drive cross-functional teams to decision as a strategic partner and leader. He is also skilled at breaking up group-think by playing devil’s advocate.”
— VP of Accounting (internal customer)

“Sudz’ inclination to think strategically is stronger than that of most others. He also possesses the superpower of staying calm and level-headed during critical times.”
— VP of Tax (internal customer)

“Sudz is a very talented and capable leader with an impressive ability to bridge the gap between technology and business, communicating effectively with technical SMEs as well as board members.”
— CIO (former leader)

Sudz Khawaja

Information Technology Executive