Carolyn Alexander

Senior Director of Operations @The Action Center

Lakewood, CO, US

Leadership of a 13 person staff providing HR, IT, facilities, logistics, risk management, volunteer management, and distribution functions to deliver food, clothing and other supportive services to low-income and homeless community members.· Drove immediate cost reduction measures to outsource human resources and reduced finance and office manager staffing levels. These efforts lowered total operating costs by 4% while increasing key metrics in each area.· Successfully led the effort to sell an ancillary commercial building and break-even business unit, reducing our long-term liability by 55% and increasing the organization’s focus on our main operations.· Led our agency’s COVID response to immediately increase food distribution output by 300%. Successfully reengineered and or expanded all client programs during COVID without any interagency COVID transmission to date. · Facilitated a weekly COVID Food Response Zoom call with key regional stakeholders. This meeting has become an invaluable resource for information exchange and collaboration among the 40 regular attendees including food pantry leadership, elected officials, schools, churches, state policy organizations and government staff. This diverse group of stakeholders has been instrumental in increasing state and local food pantry funding, creating a PSA campaign \"It\'s OK to ask for help\", and integrated Spanish language interpretation to encourage language justice in community based collaborations.· Developed a cross-functional Emergency Action Plan and corresponding Emergency Response Team to effectively address immediate safety and security needs.· Responsible for human resources and risk management, building close relationships with HR, benefits, and insurance vendors to provide high service level, protection, and benefits to our agency. I have arranged several training sessions over the past 18 months to address development in the key areas of team building, difficult conversations and more

University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business

MBA

Michigan State University

BS