damienpauldong.com
damienpauldong@gmail.com
Experience
Interim Executive Director - Artisans Asylum
Jul 2023 - Jan 2024
Transitioned from Co-Chair of the Board of Directors to serve a six-month interim term following the resignation of the previous Executive Director. Led full operational management of a $2M nonprofit makerspace occupying 52,000 sq ft in Boston, working with a core team of 3 full-time and 2 near-full-time staff, a broader group of part-time shop leads, and dozens of volunteers to stabilize and grow the organization.
Signed a ~$1mil lease deferral agreement with our landlord, Harvard Real Estate, to give the organization a financial runway to grow operations and avoid insolvency.
Grew membership revenue 35% above established targets.
Secured a 30% increase in revenue managing the City of Somerville's FabVille maker space program.
Realized ~$100k USD in savings through operational process optimization.
Launched a systems integration project connecting disparate operations platforms (CRM, bookkeeping, merchant gateway, and access control), improving financial visibility and recovering ~$35K in outstanding receivables
Delivered over 50+ free community events to increase visibility to the Allston/Brighton community.
Provided direct staff coaching to strengthen team morale, engagement, and retention
Co-Chair, Board of Directors - Artisans Asylum
Jan 2023 - Jul 2023
Elected to the Co-chair position to bring leadership guidance to the Board of Directors to help improve involvement and engagement of board members.
Served on the Finance Committee to develop a strategy to achieve long-term financial sustainability in our new location.
Launched an IT Committee to create a roadmap to address operational issues using combination of part-time staff, volunteers, and external consultants.
Worked one-on-one with the outgoing Executive Director to identify operational priorities of the organization and develop a leadership transition plan following his resignation.
Member, Board of Directors - Artisans Asylum
Nov 2021 - Jan 2023
Nominated as a director for the largest non-profit maker space in the Northeast US. Served as a member of the Grand Opening and Executive Transition committees, helping to prepare the organization for re-opening after a simultaneous move of facilities and a change in executive leadership.
Volunteered as a technology advisor to the organization, with a focus on systems consolidation and cost optimization in IT operations, cutting tech spend by nearly 40%.
Organized a grand opening event featuring guided tours, demonstrations, and programming to educate over 700 guests about our mission, while also raising over $120,000 for the organization.
Co-Founder & Managing Director - Cicada LLC
Oct 2018 - Oct 2020
Co-founded a technology-forward venue development startup with a vision to build a landmark next-generation arts center in downtown Boston — part art gallery, part black box theater, part nightclub — designed as a destination for emerging experiential art with cutting-edge production capabilities.
Secured project investment from a C-suite executive of Grubhub
Assembled a multidisciplinary team of specialists spanning architecture, engineering, licensing, zoning, real estate law, AV/lighting systems, and hospitality
Earned neighborhood buy-in by engaging directly with municipal officials and community stakeholders on the project visionProduced high-concept event programming designed to test the market for next-gen interactive and immersive entertainment experiences.
Designed and produced high-concept event programming to validate market demand for next-generation immersive and interactive entertainment experiences
Co-developed advanced entertainment system prototypes incorporating projection mapping, sACN-based LED pixel mapping, interactive sensor-based show control, audio-reactive generative visuals, and VR/AR performance environments
Evaluated 70+ commercial properties across Greater Boston and closed an $11.5M real estate transaction securing a 17,000 sq ft venue in Boston's Government Center district
Project suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
IT Solutions Consultant - Merck KGaA - EMD Serono
Jan 2015 - May 2018
Developed technology solutions for enterprise applications in the areas of collaboration, process automation, unified communications, and business intelligence. Worked with internal stakeholders across company divisions to develop tailored technology solutions to address business problems.
Led a multi-year enterprise cloud transformation program for the US pharma division migrating 1,500+ applications to Microsoft 365, ServiceNow, and Azure; directed offshore delivery through a structured Cognizant partnership, governing milestones, quality, and delivery outcomes ($280K managed scope)
Managed development of EMEA regional sales dashboards, providing leadership with real-time visibility into sales performance across the region
Led a project to automate customs clearance tracking workflows and documentation for international product imports valued at over $1B annually, replacing a manual process with a scalable, auditable system
Managed stakeholder alignment across business units during large-scale platform transitions
Manager, Collaboration Systems - Merck KGaA - EMD Serono
Sep 2010 - Dec 2015
Managed technology projects and operations for the US pharmaceutical division, with responsibilities that expanded over time to include IT service management, ISO audit preparation, and cross-functional innovation initiatives.
Oversaw development and operations of enterprise collaboration tools across the Americas region
Led a $200K project to migrate the US pharma division's legacy Liferay intranet to SharePoint 2013; the US launch was awarded "Best Rollout" across all global regions
Managed the $18M annual IT run cost portfolio for the US pharmaceutical division: designed SLAs, secured cost center funding approvals, and reported KPIs against service delivery commitments
Served as the division's primary contact for ISO certification audits conducted by SGS; managed all audit preparation including evidence collection, audit reports, and policy and procedure documentation (including ISO 9001, 20000, 27001 certifications).
Led development of a drug safety and authenticity mobile application — awarded the “Merck Innovation Award, Silver Medal”
Consolidated the division's event planning and sourcing onto a unified platform, enabling centralized vendor sourcing and cost reporting across the organization — awarded the EMD Serono Award for "Leading and Living the Company Values"
Integration Developer - Thinking Phone Networks
Jul 2009 - Sep 2010
Worked on early-stage startup as one of the first 20 employees, building a cloud-based unified communications platform for small and medium businesses. Developed integrations between our cloud platform and other third-party enterprise applications.
Served as a presale engineer and consultant for developing custom integrations for new client infrastructure.
Helped sales teams develop solutions to technical problems to assist in customer success and change management.
Developed turnkey plugins for Microsoft CRM, Salesforce.com, Sugar CRM, and Microsoft Outlook to accelerate integration and customer onboarding.
Designed marketing and training material for our integration components including product data sheets, user guides, and video product demonstrations.
Co-Founder & CTO - YouAre.TV
Sep 2007 - Jun 2009
Co-founded a startup, “You Are TV”, which was one of the first movers in the online streaming video space, targeting independent filmmakers and emerging content creators.
Led development of our custom video hosting and transcoding platform using PHP, MySQL, and YUI, hosted on AWS, with one of the first flash-based streaming video players on the market.
Built infrastructure on the newly-launched Amazon Web Services platform as a scalable solution for content distribution for online video.
Secured angel round founding and delivered over a dozen pitches to potential investors for additional funding rounds.
Grew a loyal online community of over 1,500 active creators with over 10,000 videos to our content library.
Packaged our technology into a white-label online video platform as a service offering.
Company wound down following the 2008 financial crisis
Manager, Siebel Applications - Serono
Jun 2006 - Aug 2007
Managed the lifecycle of applications built on the Siebel (Oracle CRM) platform, overseeing project budgets totaling over $1M USD.
Launched Siebel Analytics (Oracle OBIEE) as the company's new cross-platform business intelligence platform.
Deployed Verint Impact 360 Workforce Optimization to enable call recording for compliance, legal, and training purposes in the company's patient support call centers.
Audited patient-facing CRM systems to validate for FDA compliance with 21 CFR part 11 reporting regulations.
Technology Consultant - Deloitte
Jul 2003 - May 2006
Delivered technology solutions for Fortune 500 healthcare and life sciences clients across multiple concurrent engagements.
Developed a multimedia virtual walkthrough to support a pre-sales presentation for a call center modernization proposal for a health insurance client; the solution was presented to client executive leadership and resulted in a successful project sale — awarded a Deloitte Applause Award for performance
Served as technical lead developer implementing CTI integrations between Siebel CRM and Genesys PBX systems for a major health insurance client, including screen-pop and click-to-call functionality for a health insurance client
Designed and built business intelligence reports in Siebel Analytics; developed Informatica ETL mappings and custom SQL scripts for a client data warehouse for a medical devices client
Implemented disaster recovery environments and automated mission-critical application monitoring using Foglight and VBScript for a medical devices client
Skills
Organizational Management
Team leadership, non-profit management, business process engineering, operations management, stakeholder management, change management, basic bookkeeping
IT Operations
ITIL Certified in IT Service Management, ISO 9001:2008, ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011, ISO/IEC 27001:2005, project management (waterfall & scrum), IT costing and budgeting
Infrastructure
Amazon Web Services, Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, Terraform, Git, OpenWRT, Linux & Windows Administration
Enterprise Application Development
Office 365, SharePoint, Salesforce, Qlik Sense, Oracle BI EE, Dynamics CRM, Siebel, Liferay
Programming Languages
CSS, HTML, Javascript, PHP, Python, SQL, C/C++, C#, Processing, Visual Basic, Arduino, CircuitPython
Certifications
ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management
PeopleCert
Issued May 2012
Professional Project Management (PMBoK)
International Institute for Learning
Issued May 2013
Education
Boston College, Carroll School of Management
Bachelor of Science
Computer Science & Operations Mgmt Double Major
Class of 2003