I have been inside the systems. I know what they cost.
Twenty years in technology leadership: Amazon, Microsoft, three CTO roles, and a consulting firm I founded and ran.
The pattern across all of it is the same. Companies bring me in when the organization has outgrown the way it runs. I find where the work is actually getting stuck, fix that, and put mechanisms in place so the answer to “are we going to hit it?” is never “I hope so.”
Amazon
Principal Technical Program Manager in a 3,000-person, $1.4B technology organization. I ran delivery for the global hiring platform: 20+ engineering teams, 100+ engineers, 11 business domains and 66 countries. The operating model I built governed $100M in annual automation savings and became the delivery standard across Amazon HR tech.
I also led the 10-person TPM organization for Amazon Care, Amazon's virtual and in-person primary care service in all 50 states.
Microsoft
Client CTO and senior technology advisor to the largest for-profit healthcare system in the United States. I owned the transformation roadmap with their C-suite, which led to the largest Healthcare Enterprise Agreement in Microsoft history, over $268M.
Anytime Telehealth
CTO during COVID. The platform was failing under load when I arrived. Sixty days later it was handling 5,000% more visits, and I later cut its cloud and infrastructure costs by 90%.
Mike Ross Consulting
Founded and ran a profitable software consulting firm serving healthcare, finance, government and commerce clients, with a team of 15 across onshore and offshore engagements.
Beyond the work
Outside client work I write as Ross Charles, about what long stretches of high pressure do to the people carrying it, including me. That work produced the Identity Pattern Framework and the assessment at yourpatternmap.com.
It comes from the same instinct as my client work: most dysfunction has a reason, and naming the reason is where change starts.
Based in Nashville, TN. Available for fractional CTO, CIO and COO roles, advisory work and speaking. PE firms and portfolio companies welcome.