Candidates About

 

Taha Zahoor

·         7 plus years of experience as a Financial Business Analyst with strong understanding of Business Requirements Gathering, Business Process Flow, Business Process Modeling and Business Analysis.

·         Good comfort level with Capital Markets, Money markets, Trading Systems, Derivatives (Strong in Options), Equities, Fixed Income, US government Treasury Securities (T-Bills, T-Bonds and T-Notes), Municipal Bonds, Stocks Trading Cycle, Margin Requirement, Mark to Market, Hedge Funds.

·         Strong understanding of project life cycle and SDLC methodologies including RUP, RAD, Waterfall and Agile

·         Expertise in business analysis, requirement elicitation (JAD & JRP), GAP Analysis.

·         Strong understanding of financial valuation concepts and various capital market instruments and processes including Equities, Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange, Derivative (OTC) & Back-Office operations.

·         In-depth knowledge of creating use case, activity, logical, component and deployment views to extract business process flows and workflows; thereby helping development and quality assurance in understanding the requirements.

·         Experience conducting User Acceptance testing (UAT).

·         Extensively used rational tools for creating use cases, version control, defect tracking and reporting and applied the Rational Unified Process in all areas of a Software Development Life Cycle.

·         Interacted with large teams of testers and developers through excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

·         In depth knowledge of RUPs Iterative Software Development Life Cycle process.

·         Requirement Analysis and Use Case development, UML modeling using Visio.

·         Experienced in conducting Joint Application Development / Design (JAD) sessions.

·         Experienced with Requirements gathering, data modeling, System Architecture, Feasibility studies, Scope Documents &requests for proposal (RFP).

·         Experienced with Data Flow Diagrams (DFD), Flowcharts.

·         Highly experienced in working on concurrent projects in a very demanding situation.

 

 

Tools: Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Power Point, Project, Access), Outlook, IBM Lotus Notes

Analysis Tools, Techniques: RUP, UML, Object Oriented Analysis, Visio, Data Analysis

Test Management Tools: HP Quality Center, TFS

Reporting Tools: Cognos, Crystal Reports, Business Objects,

Database: SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, MS-Access

Operating Systems: Windows, UNIX

 

 

 

State Street Bank offers a wide range of securities brokerage and investment banking services, including financial advisory, underwriting, private placements, fixed income trading, and equity research. Investment products offered include insurance, mutual funds, annuities, and hedge funds. As a Business Analyst, I worked on an online personal finance module (eFolio Web login) with features for Investment and Brokerage services. In addition my responsibility included interaction with corporate client portfolios online, view and maintain account and sensitive investments information, simulate buying and selling for portfolio impact, view market data, run what-if scenarios, shock the portfolio using interest rate assumptions and including: View Inventories, View Cash flows, Shock Portfolios, Simulate Trades, Run What-if Scenarios, Create Customized Reports to gather required information and Data flow for new e-Business module.

 

Responsibilities

·         Met the Business development group and gathered the requirements for the developing Automatic Assignment of claims Involved in Logical & Physical Data Modeling. Database Schema design and modification of Triggers, Scripts, and Stored Procedures in Sybase Database Servers.

·         Will be interacting with the business team to gather requirements, document use cases, work with the technology team to translate the business requirements into functional requirements

·         Identified, researched, investigated, analyzed, defined opportunities for business process improvement, documented business processes and initiated efforts to make improvements

·         Manage the Requirements (Business as well as System requirements), performed requirements analysis along with the creation of Use Case Scenarios. Modeling of the business and application using Rational Unified Processing (RUP) and Unified Modeling Language (UML).

·         Performed Business Process Modeling using Visio and customer data analysis.

·         Identified and documented risks and their impacts and provided recommendations to mitigate the risk.

·         Documented and tracked all product defects with use of SQL (reporting). 

·         Writing Complex SQL queries and optimizing SQL queries

·         Used SQL queries for data analysis and data extraction

·         Performed Gap Analysis to identify the deficiencies of the current system and to identify the requirements for the proposed system.

·         Developed SQL queries using SQL Navigator to extract data from the target tables to prove the data mapping.

·         Define and architect a SOA based solution to address long-term business-IT flexibility

·         Worked with Technical Team to create requirement for Web Services that could leverage using SOA.

·         Developed Web services scripts for a Web Service calling SOAP UI.

·         Modified and Edited the XML to validate the SOAP UI Services.

·         Develop test plans, test cases, procedures, and documents given business requirements and design documents

·         Reviewed and logged help desk tickets and determined avenues for improvements and enhancements

·         Helped develop Estimates of the proposed enhancements to system understanding and helped determine ROI

·         Coordinated multiple projects modules assigned to multiple teams in an Agile environment constantly tracking and configuring different versions, variants and managing changes to the software

·         Used ClearCase to keep different versions of the documents and ClearQuest to report bugs or defect

 

Environment: RUP, Agile (Enhancement), Rational Requisite Pro, Rational Rose, SQL, UML, MS Visio, Oracle, Quality Center

 

 

 

Guggenheim Partners is a global investment and advisory firm with more than $240 billion in assets and a track record of delivering results through innovative solutions.

Guggenheim Partners Trading System (GPTS): The project involved in design and implementation of a global derivatives trading platform using Java front end. The application allowed traders and portfolio managers to trade multiple derivative instruments (exchange traded and OTC) with a common front end execution platform. The application interfaced with Reuters and Market for real time data, the accounting system and multiple VBA applications. System captures all market data needed to price & trade these products, including Recovery Curves, Default Probabilities & Correlations. It also generated credit-related risk reports - P&L, Industry Exposure, Counterparty Exposure and Issuer Exposure.

 

Responsibilities

·         Performed business specification (BRD) and data requirements, use case models, GUI, use cases, functional specifications and data flow diagrams, ER diagrams, etc.

·         Create a library of financial modeling tools for our applications for the analysis and modeling of derivatives for valuation, pricing and simulation, interest rate risk assessment, cash flow forecasting, intraday quotations from data feeds, contract specifications, trade capture, trading, trade processing and settlement, compliance, risk management as per ISDA and FpML standards/specifications for various trading platforms including Bond trading.

·         Responsible for Fixed Income and OTC Options part of the project. Simulated yield curves with different spreads under various scenarios and used these curves to simulate the P/L path.

·         Analyzed the existing business process flows for Equities and Derivatives to gain understanding of the existing system and documented the business process flows for the proposed system.

·         Documented and tracked all product defects with use of SQL (reporting). 

·         Developed tables, Views, Stored Procedures and Triggers using SQL Scripting

·         Wrote SQL queries to retrieve data from databases after data migration.

·         Create test objects Business Specifications, Use Cases, Workflows and develop manual and automated Test Cases in TFS using Visual Studio

·         Used TFS as Test management tool.

·         Developed and executed test cases, test scenarios and followed-up defects using TFS.

·         Collaborated with Change Management Group and IT to prepare a detailed derivatives infrastructure for trading.

·         Implementing the derivatives trading application a diagrammatic flow of investment process , trading , data transaction between application, pricing and analytics , database , data feeds and back office integration (trade confirmations, processing, settlement, collateral management, market data) , portfolio valuation including bond rating and accounting

·         Made detailed research analysis & prepared a diagrammatic investment and trading process for derivatives instruments including CDS, CDS Index, CDS Options, Equity Swaps, Interest Rate Swaps, and Exotic Options.

·         Performed detailed analysis and work - flow diagrams for derivatives trading which included - preparation of market & reference data, analysis & decision support, modeling a contract, preliminary instrument setup on the application

·         Participated in Data Mapping, Data Conversion, creation of the Data model and used SQL and Toad to extract, filter and validate data

·         Involved in manual trade data reconciliations, analyzing the chart of accounts, tracking the GL transactions and validating them from their mainframe systems.

·         Coordinated team mailbox to ensure timely completion of business requests and task assignment

·         Organized weekly status meetings to monitor progress on production issues/test defects and send out meeting minutes to assign tasks to the team members to efficiently monitor progress.

 

Environment: Gathering Requirement, TFS, SDLC, RTM, AMI, Windows, SQL, MS Word, MS Excel, Outlook and MS Visio

 

 

Jacobs Levy Equity Management is an equity manager focused exclusively on U.S. equity portfolios offered in separate accounts. The project was to design and develop an Investment Risk Evaluation System for Jacobs Levy's Portfolio Management Business. The system provided a complete set of rules, computations, business definitions and underlying data structures to help Jacobs Levy's Investment achieve Compliance to the Internal Rating Based Approach.

 

Responsibilities:

·         Reviewed existing functionality of online trading (Stocks & ETF's), Options (Exchange Traded), MF's and Bonds). Overhauled necessary components and reworked existing processes to increase performance and reliability on par with expected additional volume.

·         Worked with SMEs to understand various assets and security classes, exchange traded derivatives (such as futures, options on futures, equity options and index options), OTC derivatives (such as interest rate swaps, swaptions, credit default swaps and total return swaps) and portfolio allocation and management.

·         Performed Requirements Gathering and Analysis, interviewed the SME (Subject Matter Experts), and ensured that contributors and all key stakeholders were motivated to complete assigned tasks.

·         Was responsible for all project documentations and served as a liaison between the business team and the project team by assisting in identifying, understanding, and documenting their business needs.

·         Used SQL queries for data analysis and data extraction 

·         Performed Gap Analysis to identify the deficiencies of the current system and to identify the requirements for the proposed system.

·         Developed SQL queries using SQL Navigator to extract data from the target tables to prove the data mapping.

·         Perform requirement sessions with Business users.

·         Worked throughout the SDLC, which included requirements, specifications, design, analysis and testing utilizing RUP methodology.

·         Involved in gathering Premium Processing Requirements.

·         Implemented a structured system development methodology with emphasis on Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) that dramatically improved productivity and reduced errors.

·         Manage the Requirements (Business as well as System requirements), performed requirements analysis along with the creation of User Stories.

·         Facilitated Joint Application Development (JAD) Sessions for communicating and managing expectations.

·         Research, gather, and analyze content data and information, to include formatting and reformatting, reviewing, revising, cataloging, and electronically storing for future retrieval

·         Identified and executed on opportunities for improvement using observation, root cause analysis, process mapping, piloting, and structured analysis

·         Identified all the data sources and data elements that need to be integrated for each Metric.

·         Worked closely with QA team to perform manual testing of each Metric Report.

 

Environment: Agile, MS Excel, SQL, .NET, MS Visio, UAT, SQL, SharePoint, MS Project, Rational Tools, Oracle, MS Office, MS Access, Etc.

 

 

 

Rock Financials makes housing more accessible and affordable for millions of families across America. They link homeowners and renters to the world's capital markets. The project was aimed at developing a unique mortgage credit system that makes homeownership a reality for more of America's families. The system that was developed had many objectives to cover; the major ones were bringing a customer directly to Rock Financials rather than through the broker.

 

Responsibilities:

·         Gathered analyzed, documented business and technical requirements from both formal and informal sessions and validate the needs of the business stakeholders. 

·         Conducted user interviews and documented business and functional requirements. 

·         Performed Requirement Analysis and developed Use Cases, Activity Diagrams using Rational Rose 

·         Performed Data mapping, logical data modeling, created class diagrams and ER diagrams and used SQL queries to filter data 

·         Functionality to include transaction management, position management, realized/unrealized P&L, tax lot accounting. System will handle financial instruments traded by hedge funds, including all derivatives. 

·         Design and streamlined process to facilitate annual reconciliation of plan sponsors. 
Created use case scenarios and documented work flow and business process using Rational Rose 

·         Involved in project management using MS Project 

·         Documented requirements associated change requests with requirements and connected requirements with Use cases. 

·         Implemented data base transactions using spring transaction management 

·         Used the Agile methodology to build the different phases of Software development life cycle.(SDLC) 

·         Create technical design documentation for the data models, data flow control process, metadata management. 

·         Gathered user and business requirements through surveys, prototyping and observing from portfolio managers and UI (User Interface). 

·         Generated Surrogate IDs for the dimensions in the fact table for indexed and faster access of data. 

·         Gathered requirements and modeled the data warehouse and the underlying transactional database 

·         Coordinate with the development team and vendors during the development, test, and reconciliation process 

·         Incorporated Rational Unified Process (RUP) to create Requirement Document Specifications using Visible Analyst. 

·         Used Crystal Reports to design a complex, on the fly, report that displayed complete charts based on the parameters. 

 

Environment:  Windows, Business Objects , Oracle, SQL Server, XML, Agile, MS Access, MS Excel, MS Project, RUP, Oracle, UML, Rational Rose, Requisite Pro, Clear Case, Rational Clear Quest, MS Office suite, MS Visio. 

 

 

Worked as Business Analyst for the upgrading of the Kronos workforce time central V 5.1 to V 6.1 implementation at DSW Corporate office and upgrade POS (Point of Sale) at stores. The Kronos application then integrates with the existing E-commerce application of DSW. Responsible for testing design system configuration, validating employee data loads, developing test cases, conducting acceptance testing, defining and documenting internal processes related to Kronos, creating manager/employee job aids and conducted User Acceptance Testing (UAT) after the rollout of the software.

 

Responsibilities:

·         Involved in business analysis and project management, coordinating between the team members, addressing budget issues and creating test plans according to the business requirements.

·         Worked with the project manager for planning and organizing the project activities, and in communicating with other business center mangers and stakeholders of the project.

·         Conducted internal Technology meetings with Data Modelers, Architects and Developers to formulate  a design including Data Models and the ETL Process to source the data and to distribute data to downstream partners through XML interface

·         Gap Analysis of client requirements, generated workflow process, flow charts and relevant artifacts.

·         Defined and documented the scope of the project.

·         Gathered requirements, developed Process Model and detailed Business Policies. 

·         Designed Use Cases using UML and managed the entire functional requirements life cycle using RUP.

·         Worked with the project manager to estimate best/worst case scenarios, track progress with weekly estimates of remaining work to do, conducting informal meetings ad hoc and as needed.

·         Followed the RUP methodology for the entire SDLC. 

·         Involved in writing and implementation of the test plan, and various test cases for User Acceptance Testing (UAT).

·         Provided overall project management to multiple projects successfully completing them on-schedule and on-budget.

·         Prepared the Business Workflow using MS-Visio with input, output, Pre and Post conditions.

·         Enhanced test cases and scripts by adding the required functionality as per the new business requirements. .

·         Participated in various meetings and discussed Enhancement and Modification Request issues.

·         Attended weekly meeting to discuss progress and modification to test plans due to change in business requirements.

 

Master’s in Business Administration