Jennifer Gertel

Biography

Jennifer Gertel is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal in Philadelphia. She specializes in finance solutions and leads complex program management and process improvement initiatives within the financial services, construction management, public utilities, media and telecommunications, retail and consumer products industries. With more than 10 years of performance improvement and analytical experience, Ms. Gertel brings expertise in finance, analytics and process improvement to maximize investments for her clients. Her strong organizational and program management skills, as well as her ability to work in complex environments, allow her to excel in identifying, prioritizing and managing large-scale initiatives. Recently, Ms. Gertel served as an interim program management office leader to define and implement a program management office as part of a utility company's complex transformation of its finance function. A fully functional internal PMO was established that reduced annual project spend $75 million by rationalizing the project portfolio. Ms. Gertel's other notable achievements include serving as an interim senior leader in a global bank's program management office, supporting the delivery of public regulatory enforcement action requirements. Included in her responsibilities were project management, issue tracking and resolution to ensure benefit realization and reporting to executive steering committees. Ms. Gertel led the implementation of an international construction company's financial system for multiple functions after the system was unable to exit the testing phase with no clear go-live date. Leveraging A&M's analytical approach, a forecast of the likely completion date and a root cause and mitigation analysis were developed. The revised approach enabled the financial system to be successfully rolled-out to the business on the revised schedule and budget. Additionally, Ms. Gertel assisted a major U.S. telecommunications company in building the organizational and process capabilities of a new digital media distribution business unit. She supported the development of the policies, procedures and the associated process documentation for all core operation functions as well as designing KPIs, dashboards and reports for day-to-day operations management. Ms. Gertel began her career as a Senior Financial Analyst with Unilever Foods North America, where she provided financial decision support within the corporate finance department and multiple brand teams. Ms. Gertel earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Research Interest

Jennifer Gertel specializes in finance solutions and leads complex program management and process improvement initiatives Experience in the financial services, construction management, public utilities, media and telecommunications, retail and consumer products industries 10+ years of performance improvement and analytical experience