Edmond, OK
IT Operations Leader
Chris
Kizziar.
Scaling infrastructure and teams through cloud modernization, M&A integration, and digital transformation.
01 — About
Twenty years building IT for companies that won't sit still.
Summary
Seasoned IT Operations leader experienced in scaling infrastructure and teams through rapid growth, acquisition, and divestiture. Supported expansion from 109 to 1,500+ employees and growth of the IT organization from 5 to 51 professionals, then led the IT separation of the business into three buyers.
Delivered 8 major acquisition integrations, 4 ERP migrations, 80% cloud migration, two datacenter retirements, and ransomware recovery with zero data loss, while managing a $4.9M annual operating budget alongside $6.45M in capital project delivery.
109→1,500+
Company headcount supported through rapid growth
5→51
IT organization scaled across two management layers
3 buyers
550-user operating company separated simultaneously
$4.9M
Annual IT budget managed, plus $6.45M in capital delivered
02 — Practice
What I do.
— 01
IT Strategy & Operations
Aligning infrastructure roadmaps with business growth and executive priorities, and building the teams that deliver them.
— 02
Cloud Modernization
Azure and AWS migrations, datacenter consolidation, secure cloud architecture at scale.
— 03
M&A Integration
Post-merger consolidation, ERP migrations, and absorbing acquired teams without disruption.
— 04
Divestiture & Carve-Out
TSA scoping and renegotiation, simultaneous multi-buyer separation, asset and data segregation, site decommissioning.
— 05
Cybersecurity & Recovery
Incident response, ransomware recovery, IAM, penetration testing, and SecOps posture.
— 06
Service Delivery & ITSM
SLA-based service operations, incident, problem, request and change management, major incident command and root cause analysis.
03 — Experience
Selected work.
- Retained by the Head of Enterprise Services to stabilize an active enterprise outage and provide interim leadership of the network function following the company's divestiture and reorganization.
- Directing network and OT communications operations while supporting recruitment of a permanent network manager.
- Played a key role in scaling IT operations during rapid company growth, supporting expansion from 109 to 1,500+ employees while the IT organization grew from 5 to 51 professionals across a 60-location footprint.
- Built and led high-performing infrastructure, engineering, and operations teams of up to 11 members across two management layers, driving talent development and adoption of modern IT practices.
- Directed integration of 8 major acquisitions (adding 1,100 employees and 51 new sites), delivered 4 ERP migrations, retired 2 datacenters, and migrated ~80% of systems to the cloud (Azure and AWS).
- Led ransomware recovery with zero data loss in four weeks; strengthened cybersecurity, optimized cloud and datacenters, saving $230,000 annually within a $4.9M IT budget.
- Directed the IT workstream of the 2025-26 divestiture, separating a 550-user multi-state operating company into three buyers simultaneously, covering 18 field offices, 11 communications towers, roughly 40TB of data and 480+ mobile assets, under a Transition Services Agreement I scoped and renegotiated.
- Owned $6.45M of IT capital across four corporate office buildouts housing 310+ people, including two delivered concurrently and a headquarters fit-out coordinated with the firm's private equity sponsor.
Senior SecOps Architect / Information Security Analyst — May 2018 – Dec 2019
- Architected and deployed enterprise cloud security solutions across 15+ AWS accounts and multiple global regions, reducing attack surface and strengthening overall SecOps posture.
- Automated traffic monitoring, security analytics, and blocking processes across ~20 publicly accessible solution stacks, improving threat detection and minimizing exposure.
- Managed identity and access management (IAM) controls for AWS accounts, internal networks, and business applications, enforcing least-privilege policies.
- Conducted penetration testing and vulnerability assessments across multiple platforms; prioritized and remediated findings to reduce critical and high-risk vulnerabilities.
Senior DevOps / Windows Engineer
- Provided technical leadership for Windows engineering and infrastructure modernization, developing roadmaps for datacenter virtualization, consolidation, and cloud transformation in AWS and Azure.
- Designed and automated secure cloud architectures, integrating Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, and account provisioning to support scalable DevOps and SecOps environments.
- Managed, optimized, and secured 500+ Microsoft SQL Server databases (including multi-terabyte instances), strengthening backup/recovery and database security practices.
- Implemented monitoring and collaboration platforms improving infrastructure visibility and reducing incident response times.
- Partnered with the Bangalore development organization on deployment pipelines and shared cloud standards; delivered a two-week on-site training program for DevOps engineers and developers, sustained through recurring remote sessions.
- Built an AWS-based machine learning platform (Lambda, S3, RDS) that allocated recruitment advertising spend from historical performance data, automating channel budget recommendations for enterprise talent acquisition clients.
- Administered enterprise Windows Server and SQL Server environments, troubleshooting complex issues to increase system uptime and stabilize critical business services.
- Executed system upgrades, security patches, and performance monitoring while optimizing alerts, reducing incident response times by 30%.
- Engineered and supported client-server infrastructure using Microsoft technologies, Active Directory, VMware, and SQL Server for over 100 business-critical applications.
- Developed and maintained standard operating procedures for virtualization, systems administration, and SQL database management, improving process consistency by 25%.
- Directed administration of multi-platform DBMS environments, implementing standardized processes that improved operational efficiency and strengthened information security controls.
- Engineered high-availability clustered databases in a fully virtualized environment and optimized data models and indexes for mission-critical applications.
- Designed and managed backup, recovery, and disaster recovery strategies, including secure off-site tape storage, reducing data loss risk and improving business continuity.
- Collaborated with acquisition and IT leadership to evaluate software solutions, develop RFPs, and establish EDM/ECM database procedures.
- Designed and implemented data automation tools that improved asset visibility and equipment accountability across the 3rd Infantry Division.
- Integrated multiple military databases and disparate data formats to achieve 100% data accuracy and ensure Army force readiness compliance.
- Served as Information Management Officer (IMO) and Information Assurance Security Officer (IASO); developed a database system delivering over $418 million in internal cost savings.
- Designed and implemented geographic data management systems using Oracle databases to support county-wide GIS operations and emergency management planning.
- Performed Oracle database maintenance, upgrades, and optimization while recommending GIS software and hardware enhancements across departments.
- Managed full IT hardware lifecycle, authored documentation and user manuals, and managed electronic voting systems testing, security audits, and regulatory compliance.
04 — Education
Education.
Jan 2024 — Jun 2026
Master of Science, Information Technology Management
Western Governors University · Salt Lake City, UT
Jun 2014 — Jun 2018
Bachelor's Degree, Information Technology Security
Western Governors University · Salt Lake City, UT
Let's talk.
Email
chris@chriskizziar.com
Phone
405.226.9908
LinkedIn
in/chriskizziar
Résumé
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Based
Edmond, Oklahoma