Strategy
Alignment
Execution
Sarah Navarre, MBA, MPH
Leadership • Facilitation • Organizational Transformation
I
IT & Cybersecurity Product Leadership
Proven leadership in IT and cybersecurity across multiple sectors. Led teams in successful implementations of Azure AD B2C, cloud migrations, and vendor integrations for global finance, non-profit, and higher education organizations.
Accelerating Secure Customer Onboarding at Enterprise Scale
CASE STUDY: IAM Fidelity Investments, Cybersecurity
Challenge
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Fidelity needed a scalable identity platform capable of supporting new applications while maintaining security and compliance requirements.
Approach
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Led cross-functional teams across engineering, security, and business stakeholders to develop a centralized authentication platform and operational model.
Results
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Reduced onboarding timelines from months to weeks
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Improved scalability for new applications
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Created alignment across multiple business units
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Established a foundation for future growth
CASE STUDY:
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Leading Enterprise Transformation Through Large-Scale Migration/Modernization:
CASE STUDY: SharePoint/O365, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
The Challenge
Organizations often face significant challenges when modernizing legacy technology environments. Large-scale migrations require more than technical execution—they demand careful planning, stakeholder alignment, risk management, and a clear strategy for minimizing disruption while achieving business objectives.
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embarked on a major initiative to transition thousands of SharePoint environments from on-premises infrastructure to Microsoft Office 365, creating a more scalable, modern, and sustainable collaboration platform.
The Approach
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As Project Manager, I led a team of migration specialists and quality assurance professionals responsible for executing one of the organization's largest SharePoint modernization efforts.
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Success required balancing technical execution with organizational change management, stakeholder communication, and process improvement. Key areas of focus included:
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Developing and refining migration frameworks and best practices
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Establishing governance and quality assurance processes
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Coordinating cross-functional teams throughout the migration lifecycle
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Managing stakeholder communication and project transparency
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Creating repeatable processes to support future migration initiatives
The Results
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The initiative successfully migrated approximately 1,100 SharePoint environments to Office 365 while maintaining operational continuity and user adoption.
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Key outcomes included:
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Successfully delivered a project valued at approximately $600,000
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Migrated the overwhelming majority of targeted environments to the modern platform
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Reduced dependency on legacy infrastructure, leaving fewer than 3% of sites remaining on-premises
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Created a repeatable migration roadmap and governance model for future enterprise initiatives
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Improved organizational scalability, collaboration, and long-term platform sustainability
Lasting Impact
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Beyond the immediate migration effort, the project established a foundation for future modernization initiatives by documenting lessons learned, standardizing processes, and creating a framework that could be leveraged across subsequent projects.
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The success of the program demonstrated that large-scale transformation initiatives are most effective when strong leadership, clear communication, and disciplined execution work together to support both technical and organizational change.
Key Takeaway
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Successful transformation is not measured by the number of systems migrated—it is measured by an organization's ability to adopt change, reduce complexity, and position itself for future growth. Strategic leadership, stakeholder alignment, and repeatable processes are the foundation for sustainable enterprise transformation.
Intelligent Swarming: Building a High-Reliability Support Model at Enterprise Scale
CASE STUDY: Fidelity Investments, Cybersecurity
The Challenge
As Fidelity's digital platforms expanded, supporting millions of users required more than traditional incident management. Growing demand, increasing complexity, and global operations created a need for a more resilient support model that could reduce operational bottlenecks, improve response times, and maintain exceptional service reliability.
The Approach
I led the design and implementation of an intelligent swarming IT Service Management (ITSM) model that provided 24/7 follow-the-sun coverage across teams in the United States, India, and Ireland.
Rather than relying on traditional tiered support structures, the model emphasized skill-based collaboration, cross-functional engagement, and rapid issue resolution. Key initiatives included:
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Establishing global follow-the-sun operational coverage
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Implementing skill-based swarming and escalation protocols
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Creating rotational staffing and cross-training programs to reduce single points of failure
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Introducing workflow automation and AI-assisted operational processes
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Building strong partnerships across engineering, security, UX, and operations teams
The Results
The transformation delivered measurable improvements across platform operations and support effectiveness:
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Reduced incident backlogs from approximately 100 open tickets to consistently fewer than 5
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Improved mean time to resolution (MTTR) through streamlined collaboration and automation
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Increased operational resilience through distributed knowledge and cross-training
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Enhanced support scalability for millions of global users while maintaining security, compliance, and performance standards
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Established a sustainable operating model capable of supporting continued organizational growth
Broader Impact
The principles developed through the intelligent swarming initiative extended beyond incident management and became foundational to other enterprise programs, including identity platform modernization and Azure AD B2C onboarding initiatives.
By combining process optimization, automation, and intentional operational design, onboarding timelines were reduced from an average of 9–12 months to approximately 6 weeks, enabling faster delivery of business value while reducing operational risk.
Key Takeaway
High-performing organizations understand that reliability is not created by technology alone. Sustainable success comes from aligning people, processes, automation, and leadership around a shared operational vision.
When designed intentionally, enterprise platforms become more than systems—they become strategic enablers that accelerate business outcomes, improve customer experiences, and create resilient organizations prepared for future growth.
DELIVERING TECHNOLOGY AT SCALE THROUGH STRATEGIC PRODUCT LEADERSHIP
Case Study: Western Governor's University
The Challenge
Large-scale technology initiatives often fail not because of technical limitations, but because of misaligned priorities, unclear communication, and competing stakeholder expectations. Successfully delivering solutions at enterprise scale requires balancing business objectives, customer needs, technical feasibility, and organizational change.
The Approach
As a Product Manager, I partnered with business leaders, technical teams, and stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into actionable roadmaps and measurable outcomes. By aligning cross-functional teams around a shared vision, we were able to deliver complex initiatives that created meaningful business value while maintaining focus on customer experience.
Key areas of leadership included:
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Defining product vision, strategy, and roadmaps
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Prioritizing initiatives based on business value and customer impact
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Facilitating collaboration across development, QA, UX/UI, cloud engineering, and business teams
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Managing communications and stakeholder alignment throughout the project lifecycle
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Establishing success metrics and KPIs to measure outcomes and guide decision-making
The Results
Through disciplined planning, collaboration, and execution, teams successfully launched major technology initiatives serving more than 120,000 users at a time.
Key outcomes included:
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Delivery of complex technology solutions on schedule and within budget
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Improved stakeholder alignment and organizational transparency
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Increased customer adoption and satisfaction through user-centered design and planning
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Reduced delivery risk through iterative development and continuous feedback
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Stronger collaboration between business and technical teams
Building Relationships Through Results
Successful product leadership extends beyond launching technology. It is about building trust, creating alignment, and establishing long-term partnerships.
By focusing on measurable outcomes, transparent communication, and customer-centered decision-making, I have consistently helped organizations navigate change, deliver value, and build momentum for future initiatives.
Key Takeaway
Technology creates value when people are aligned around a common goal. Effective product leadership brings together strategy, execution, and collaboration to turn complex initiatives into meaningful business outcomes.
