Eric Santamaria

About Eric Santamaria

As a Senior Ops Director and Continuous Improvement Leader, I partner with senior leadership to improve employee performance, process effectiveness, and well-being. Leveraging deep expertise in Lean Six Sigma and innovation, I’ve led teams to eliminate days of waiting and millions of dollars of waste, while addressing burnout. I am driven by Respect for People.My approach is centered around:* Operational Agility: Leveraging deep expertise as a GE-certified Black Belt to launch and uplevel Continuous Improvement strategies that align customer priorities and business goals, focusing on agility, change management, and eliminating Waste.* Burnout Assessment and Recovery: Uncovering the root causes of Burnout and its impact on top performers, then partnering with leadership to integrate sustainable improvements.* Assisted AI Readiness: Coaching Leaders to lead their organization to integrate Assisted AI, through operational excellence, standardizing low-value work, elevating front-line innovation, and up-skilling in AI to deliver sustainable Value.* Inclusive Leadership: Operationalizing Respect for People and employee well-being to foster environments where collaboration and meritocracy thrive, enhancing employee development, innovation, and team empowerment.Key Strengths:* Coaching Leaders and Senior Managers to improve Safety, Quality, Delivery, Value, and Performance Management (SQDC).* Advancing and leading transformations in Lean, Ops Excellence, and Change Acceleration.* Operationalizing Well-Being, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Inclusiveness to deliver Impact.* Strategic Alignment of Customer Experience, Organizational Goals, and Business Impact.

Experience

1. President and Principal Consultant

   Minimum Viable Project

   Jun 2021 — Present · US

   Minimum Viable Project leads innovative, mission-driven companies to operationalize agility, strategic innovation, and inclusive leadership development. Partnering with startups and mission-driven companies to mitigate organizational Burnout, and scale operations and services as strategic advantages. Coaching Ops Directors and Executive Leaders to improve strategies for Ops Excellence, Change Management, innovation, and inclusive leadership. Creator of the Minimum Viable Project™ to upskill Ops Leaders; Certified LGBT Business Enterprise:• Participating in the LeanSpark pilot to evaluate and refine a business plan. • Coached a Legal Ops VP and Director to eliminate >55% of effort through process standardization and automation of client documentation. Mitigated 27 hours per week of manual transcription and formatting that were exhausting top performers and eroding the clients’ experience. • Coached a Healthcare Ops Director and Executive Director to launch New Hire Onboarding, Performance Management, and Change Management for a patient ambulatory healthcare organization.• Mentoring six Program Managers to identify the root causes of Burnout. Developed recovery strategies in partnership with an Executive Director of DEI and People Ops to mitigate eroding morale or defection.We specialize in Burnout Assessment and Recovery, Continuous Improvement Strategy, Manager Development, and AI Readiness and Application to develop robust operational strategies. At the core of our approach are the values of Respect for People and Operational Excellence, and a commitment to authentic belonging, customer Value, market-leading Impact, and exceptional change management.

Education

• Boston University

  MBA, Business Administration and Management, General

  2003 — 2005

• Colorado State University

  BS, Mechanical Engineering

  1992 — 1998

Skills

• Operational Excellence
• Healthcare Information Technology
• Employee Engagement
• Six Sigma
• Process Improvement
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Change Management
• Program Management
• Healthcare
• Strategic Planning
• Operations Management
• Lean Manufacturing
• Continuous Improvement
• Business Process Improvement
• Performance Improvement
• Black Belt
• Dmaic
• Kaizen
• Coaching
• Training Delivery
• Training
• Performance Management
• Lean Transformation
• Lean Thinking
• Transactional Lean
• Railway
• Strategy
• Supply Chain
• Management
• Management Consulting
• Integration
• Leadership
• Business Process
• Project Planning
• Value Stream Mapping
• Process Engineering
• Healthcare Information Technology (Hit)