Stroud Tech Solutions LLC

Enterprise Cloud Architecture, SRE & SecDevOps Consulting

Federal Clearance Eligibility: Previously Held DoD Top Security Clearance (DISA) & DHS Public Trust (FEMA) — Eligible for Reinstatement

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER (CIO) | CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER (CTO) | FEDERAL & HEALTHCARE IT EXECUTIVE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Results-driven technology executive, former IBM Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and Enterprise Cloud & DevSecOps Leader with 25+ years of progressive experience directing large-scale engineering organizations, hybrid cloud modernization, and 24x7 mission-critical IT operations across Federal Government (DoD/DISA, DHS/FEMA, USPS), Healthcare, and Financial Services environments.

Proven track record overseeing multidisciplinary technical organizations of 100 to 130+ personnel and governing $20.8M–$27M+ annual technology delivery portfolios. Adept at advising C-suite and senior federal agency stakeholders, spearheading Generative AI and multi-cloud architectures (GCP, AWS, IBM Cloud, Red Hat OpenShift), and enforcing rigorous federal and healthcare security and regulatory compliance (FISMA, NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, FAR/DFARS, HIPAA, FIPS 140-2/140-3, ATOs, SOC2, and GDPR).

CORE EXECUTIVE COMPETENCIES

Executive Domain	Key Capabilities & Enterprise Standards
Enterprise & Federal IT Leadership	• Enterprise IT Roadmaps & Operating Models • Organizational Leadership (100–130+ Staff) • $20M+ Portfolio & Budget Governance • Federal Contract Execution (FAR/DFARS) • C-Suite & Agency Advisory • Troubled Program Turnarounds
Cloud, AI & Platform Modernization	• Hybrid & Multi-Cloud Architecture (GCP, AWS, IBM Cloud) • Generative AI & ML Solution Architecture • Kubernetes, Docker & Red Hat OpenShift • Big Data (Spark, Hadoop) • 24x7 Global SRE & Zero-Downtime Operations
Cybersecurity, Risk & Compliance	• Federal ATO Support, FISMA, NIST, FedRAMP & CUI Protection • HIPAA, FIPS 140-2/140-3, SOC2, CIS Benchmarks & GDPR • DevSecOps & Automated CI/CD Patching • CISO Alignment & Enterprise Vulnerability Remediation

EXECUTIVE IMPACT & STAR OUTCOMES

1. Global SRE, Federal Program Leadership & $20M+ Portfolio Governance

The Challenge: Mission-critical federal and commercial enterprise environments required executive operational leadership capable of scaling 100+ person multidisciplinary engineering teams, managing multimillion-dollar budgets, and eliminating recurring production outages across global 24x7 infrastructure.
Strategic Execution: Directed a 130-person consulting practice (~$27M+ annual practice portfolio, 30 direct reports) as CTO & Service Area Leader at IBM. Served as Chief Engineer at FEMA overseeing 100+ developers, architects, and PMs executing an estimated $20.8M+ annual engineering run-rate ($100/hr across 100 technical FTEs). Later directed multi-region SRE teams for IBM Cloud VPC Monitoring to ensure 24x7 coverage and eliminate single points of failure.
Business Impact: Delivered zero-downtime global cloud upgrades, sustained high-performing 100+ person technical organizations across federal and commercial programs, and ensured continuous availability and contractual SLA compliance.

2. Proactive Federal & Healthcare Cybersecurity, DevSecOps & ATO Compliance

The Challenge: Legacy architectures, manual patching, and siloed security practices created compliance bottlenecks and vulnerability exposure across federal defense networks, healthcare payer systems, and financial cloud services.
Strategic Execution: Partnered directly with the CISO of DISA to resolve DoD-wide FIPS 140-2 and Ports/Protocols compliance supporting federal Authorization to Operate (ATO) and FISMA/NIST governance. Spearheaded Secure Engineering across two IBM divisions, embedding HIPAA, FIPS 140-3, SOC2, CIS, and GDPR directly into CI/CD pipelines. At EY (supporting Independence Blue Cross), implemented automated dependency patching (Mend Renovate) across hundreds of GitHub repositories.
Business Impact: Transformed security and regulatory compliance into proactive, automated engineering standards, accelerating federal ATO readiness and drastically reducing CVE exposure across Java, Node.js, Golang, Python, Rust, and .NET applications.

3. Cloud Architecture, Generative AI Modernization & Deployment Acceleration

The Challenge: Enterprise application deployment cycles exceeded 24 hours, multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, IBM Cloud, VMware) lacked centralized compute optimization, and healthcare payer teams required scalable Generative AI architectures.
Strategic Execution: Currently leading Google Cloud Platform (GCP) application migrations and evaluating Generative AI solution architectures for a major healthcare insurance client at EY. Previously re-architected big data (Spark/Hadoop) and enterprise stacks onto containerized Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift platforms across AWS and IBM Cloud.
Business Impact: Slashed enterprise deployment cycle times by 96% (from 24 hours down to 1 hour on OpenShift and 30 minutes on AWS), optimized multi-cloud infrastructure spend, and established resilient AI-ready healthcare cloud architectures.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

ERNST & YOUNG (EY) — McLean, VA (Client: Independence Blue Cross) | April 2026 – Present

Cloud Architect & Application Security Lead (Healthcare Payer Modernization) Serve as senior cloud and security advisor to healthcare insurance technology leadership, guiding the architecture and migration of complex enterprise applications to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Evaluate and refine enterprise Generative AI solution architectures and designs to enhance health insurance offerings, operational efficiency, and regulatory alignment (HIPAA).

Analyzed, selected, and led the enterprise rollout of Mend Renovate across hundreds of GitHub repositories to automate library patching, minimize developer toil, and harden CI/CD pipelines.
Authored comprehensive developer security playbooks across Java, Node.js, Python, and .NET to standardize vulnerability (CVE) identification and remediation across application teams.

IBM CORPORATION — Bethesda, MD & Herndon, VA | August 2001 – December 2025

Progressive Executive & Technical Leadership: CTO, Chief Engineer, Global SRE Lead, Security Lead & Software Development Manager

Global Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) & Compliance Lead — IBM Cloud Observability (Feb 2022 – Dec 2025)
- Directed a global SRE team ensuring 24x7 availability, reliability, and zero-downtime upgrades for the IBM Cloud VPC Monitoring Service across Kubernetes clusters, bare-metal hosts, and VMs.
- Led division-wide security and regulatory compliance across SOC2, CIS Benchmarks, HIPAA, and federal cryptographic standards; authored all architectural and operational runbooks.
- Spearheaded the engineering, testing, and documentation required to make COTS and custom software stacks FIPS 140-3 compliant across RHEL 8/9, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, NGINX, HAProxy, Redis, PostgreSQL, and microservices (Golang, Java, Scala, Python, Rust, Node.js).
Software Development Manager & Security Lead — IBM Analytics Financial Crimes (Jan 2011 – Jan 2022)
- Managed software engineering, security hardening, and hybrid-cloud deployment for IBM Financial Crimes Insight and fraud detection platforms utilizing Spark, Hadoop, and VMware ESXi/vSphere.
- Led containerization and cloud migration to Docker, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift, IBM Cloud, and AWS, reducing platform deployment times from 24 hours to 1 hour (OpenShift) and 30 minutes (AWS).
- Directed the Secure Engineering program to embed GDPR, HIPAA, and secure-by-design controls across product architecture, development, testing, and official customer documentation.
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Service Area Leader — IBM Human Capital Management (HCM) Practice (Aug 2003 – Dec 2011)
- Promoted to CTO to govern technical strategy, architecture, and delivery quality across a 130-person consulting practice (~$27M+ annual revenue/portfolio footprint) while leading flagship client engagements.
- Directly managed 30 senior practitioners; directed recruiting, hiring, staffing allocation, performance reviews, compensation, and promotions across all technical services engagements.
Chief Engineer — Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), EADIS Program (Aug 2009 – Dec 2010)
- Provided technical executive oversight for 100+ developers, architects, and project managers executing an estimated $20.8M+ annual engineering portfolio ($100/hr across 100 FTEs) under the Enterprise Application Development Integration and Sustainment (EADIS) federal contract.
- Directed the analysis, engineering, COTS selection, and migration of FEMA’s next-generation data center supporting System Development and Test environments under FISMA, NIST, and federal FAR/DFARS governance; instituted enterprise-wide performance engineering standards across all task orders.
Lead Technical Engineer & Chief Architect — Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA / DoD) (Aug 2006 – Jul 2009)
- Led the architecture, engineering, and cybersecurity certification of a highly available DoD-wide enterprise e-collaboration platform (IBM Sametime, WebSphere Portal, voice/video/chat) serving military personnel.
- Interfaced directly with the DISA CISO and Ports, Protocols, and Services Management (PPSM) leadership to achieve FIPS 140-2 compliance, NIST security control alignment, and federal Authorization to Operate (ATO).
Intranet Technology Lead — United States Postal Service (USPS) (2003 – 2006)
- Led the engineering team to design, build, stress-test, performance-tune, and operate the enterprise USPS intranet portal on WebSphere Portal 5, Solaris 9, Oracle, and Interwoven TeamSite CMS.
Turnaround Chief Architect & Security Lead — McDonald’s Corporation (2001 – 2003)
- Mandated by IBM executive leadership to turn around a troubled Fortune 500 transformation (“Store of the Future”); reorganized project staffing, re-architected the 3-tier WebSphere/Oracle e-business platform, and led stress-testing teams to eliminate critical bottlenecks.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

Google Cloud Certified — Generative AI Leader (2026) & Cloud Digital Leader (2026)
Master of Science (M.S.), Electrical Engineering (GPA: 3.5) Columbia University School of Engineering

Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.), Electrical Engineering & Mathematics Minor

Manhattan College School of Engineering (GPA: 3.9/4.0, Summa Cum Laude)

Contact & Inquiries

For consulting engagements, architecture reviews, or advisory inquiries:

Email: James.jstroud@gmail.com
Location: Oakton, VA (Available for remote and hybrid engagements)
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/strouja