Joshua Varney

About Joshua Varney

In the summer of 2016, I quite literally fell into AWS cost management. No one was keeping track of our AWS Cloud spend it at the time and I began poking around. It didn\'t take much time for me to realize I found my niche. I began building reports, budget, alerts for spend anomalies, underutilized resources etc. Then the FinOps.org foundation came out in roughly 2019 and I finally had an official name to what I did. It was a light bulb moment, thinking that\'s what I do\" I\'m not a programmer, I can\'t code. I didn\'t go to formal school to code and to this day I still have nightmares of coding with QBasic in high school (Yes that was a long time ago, don\'t remind me). I can read the code, I can follow the functions, process and logical steps but writing it no dice.Working with AWS (cloud cost in general) cost management I get to do all the fun things I love. I get to work with some amazing tech, I get to apply my business/finance knowledge and lastly I get to use that small extrovert streak in me by getting to work/interact with a lot of different people. Outside of work I enjoy a good hike (I like being outdoors in general), I am a Pizza Snob! I love pizza (thin crust grew up in upstate NY, enjoy flying drones and I\'m a professional amateur woodworker.

Experience

1. Finops Strategist Sca Program Manager

   SMX

   Feb 2024 — Present · US

   a FinOps Culture within SMX- Building a FinOps Culture within SMX where everyone owns their cloud spend. Which includes Understanding Cloud Usage & Cost, Quantifying Business Value, Optimizing Cloud Usage & Cost and Managing the FinOps Practice- Generate cost optimization recommendations and collaborate with internal operations, engineering, finance, external partners and clients to optimize budgets and increase operational efficiency at scale- Supporting the evaluation, negotiation, and execution of third party contracts with the business and financial interest of the organization- Maintains current knowledge of relevant cloud resell programs, optimization, regulations, policies, and procedures- Work with Partner Managers to ensure partner program complianceSCA:Ensure the Strategic Collaboration Agreement between SMX and AWS is fully executed and followed- Develop and implement program strategies and plan in alignment with the organization\'s goals- Collaborate with key stakeholders across the organization from ideation to execution of program activities and initiatives- Build relations with key stakeholders to ensure effective execution of SCA agreement- Monitor, track and report program progress, evaluating outcomes and make needed adjustment where necessary- Prepare and deliver regular reports and KPI metrics to leadership and other key stakeholders on program status, achievements and challenges

Education

• SUNY Broome Community College

  Assiocates Degree, Business Administration, Business Administration and Management, General

  2000 — 2003

• Utah Valley University

  BS Business Administration, Business Management with a Finance Emphasis

  2005 — 2007

Skills

• Technical Support
• Enterprise Software
• Operations Management
• Erlang C - Call Forecasting
• Customer Service
• Tactical Execution
• Cloud Computing
• Interviewing Skills
• Service Center Management
• Customer Satisfaction
• Analytics
• Troubleshooting
• Salesforce.com
• IT Management
• Salesforce Administrator
• Saas
• Technical Support Center Management
• Salesforce.com Administration
• Lead Generation
• Call Centers
• Software Implementation
• Team Leadership
• Product Management
• Leadership
• B2b
• Crm
• Work Ethic
• Employee Management
• Management