Amanda Sanders

About Amanda Sanders

Hello! I\'m a process architect with a diverse background as a business analyst, project manager, product manager, and team leader.My background in relational databases, 6 Sigma, operations, and enterprise architecture has prepared me for success in a wide range of roles and industries.I\'m a process follower who believes in the value of executing and improving processes rather than working around or against them. I enjoy defining and documenting new processes, identifying improvement opportunities in existing ones, and developing and analyzing metrics to draw actionable insights from data. While I have a broad skillset, I especially love being the “go-to” expert, whether that be for a tool like Confluence or Excel or a specific business process.When not at work, you\'ll usually find me at a game convention playing Euro-style hobby board games, solving puzzles in an escape room, or at an art fair adding to my collection of handmade ceramic mugs. Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to connecting with you soon.

Experience

1. Process Architect

   Northwestern Mutual

   Mar 2024 — Present · Milwaukee, WI, US

   Lead Process Architect for the redesign of the enterprise Authorization to Operate (ATO) process- Conducted comprehensive interviews, job shadowing, and research with more than 25 risk partner teams to gain an in-depth understanding of current state processes, identifying critical pain points and gaps- Developed detailed diagrams outlining current and future state process flows and system integrations- Established an ATO core team and advisory working group, defining five program workstreams- Co-led the Question Optimization workstream, gathering, analyzing, categorizing, and deduplicating 800+ questions from more than fifteen request forms, reducing \"intake\" type questions by 75%- Led the Workflow & Transparency workstream, overseeing sub-teams focused on tooling decisions, ATO use cases, detailed workflow design, ServiceNow Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) functionality, integrations, and reporting- As the primary contact for development team, wrote detailed requirements, created test cases, interfaced with stakeholders, developed UAT and pilot plans, managed off-shore business analysts, and assisted in testing, troubleshooting, and defect resolution- Launched production pilot on August 27, 2025 with full rollout planned in Q4, which will allow us to retire two cumbersome current-state processes and eliminate the need for in-person meetings. Expectation is that overall time to receive ATO will decrease by at least 30%.

Education

• Bradley University

  Bachelor’s Degree

• Illinois Central College

  Associate’s Degree

Skills

• Ibm Bpm
• Microsoft Excel
• Business Process Improvement
• Business Process
• Databases
• Data Analysis
• Six Sigma
• Enterprise Architecture
• Change Management
• Team Leadership
• Customer Relationship Management (Crm)
• Oracle Rdbms
• Microsoft Office
• Program Management
• Customer Relationships
• Database Administration
• Oracle
• Requirements Gathering
• Communication
• Project Management
• Continuous Improvement
• Training
• Process Improvement
• Problem Solving
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Sql
• Visio
• Business Analysis
• Metrics Reporting
• Incident Management