PROJECT & PROGRAM MANAGEMENT LEADER
Christopher G. Benavides
Enterprise Transformation | Workforce Management | Operational Excellence
PMP · MBA · Yale MAM · Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
I lead complex technology and operational transformation from planning through implementation and adoption. My work connects business priorities, cross-functional teams, vendors, and delivery governance to measurable results in workforce management, enterprise systems, and operational excellence.
About
I’m a PMP-certified project, program, and product management leader with more than a decade of experience across enterprise IT, workforce management, retail, manufacturing, and supply chain. Through roles at Accenture, Macy’s, Target, and Walmart, I’ve worked across both technology delivery and the operations those systems support.
My experience spans enterprise system implementations, workforce and payroll modernization, store operations, distribution and fulfillment, and digital product development. I lead work from business cases and product roadmaps through implementation and adoption, bringing experience with multimillion-dollar budgets, international teams, and complex delivery dependencies. My focus is on translating business priorities into solutions that improve productivity, reduce costs, and work in everyday operations.
My technical background includes systems integration, data migration, Python automation, Power BI analytics, and full-stack software development. I also build productivity apps, with a portfolio reaching more than one million cumulative users, and wrote Time & Motion Study: From Stopwatch to Smartphone. Building software gives me a practical understanding of the engineering decisions and user needs behind successful products.
As an MBA project consultant, I worked with Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices on inventory and consignment operations, Esquel Group on apparel manufacturing and automation, and Aerospace Composites Malaysia, a Boeing–Hexcel joint venture, on aerospace composite manufacturing. These engagements strengthened my ability to connect process improvement, technology, and operational requirements across industries.
I hold a Master of Advanced Management from Yale, an MBA from Asia School of Business in collaboration with MIT Sloan, and a certificate in Model-Based Systems Engineering from the MIT School of Engineering. I also participated as a researcher in the first Summer School on Cognitive Robotics at MIT CSAIL. A dual U.S.-Brazil citizen, I work professionally in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Selected Impact
$14M
capital budget managed for Macy's workforce transformation
90K / 700+
associates and sites in the Macy's UKG migration
140K / 10
frontline employees and countries in workforce modernization
$9.5M
annual overtime cost reduction at Macy's
$15.6M
annualized distribution savings at Target
1M+
cumulative users across the three-app productivity portfolio
Experience
Accenture | North America & LATAM
Principal, WFM Delivery Lead (Project Manager)-
Workforce Management Technology Practice
2024 – Present
- Lead enterprise workforce management and payroll transformation for Fortune 500 manufacturing and retail clients within an $85M transformation portfolio, aligning HR, Finance, Legal, Labor Relations, and Operations on scope, delivery priorities, compliance, and workforce requirements.
- Direct UKG Workforce Central-to-Pro WFM and WorkForce Software programs from discovery through hypercare, coordinating requirements, labor rules, CBAs/MOUs, integrations, testing, and operational readiness.
- Led modernization across 10 countries covering approximately 140K frontline employees, reducing payroll errors 32%, lowering compliance incidents 21%, and improving time-to-schedule 28%.
- Lead payroll and HRIS integration and testing workstreams with reconciliation and variance controls; present delivery progress through steering committees and quarterly reviews in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Developed Python and low-code automation reducing targeted manual effort by up to 83%.
Macy’s, Inc. | Technology Division | Atlanta, GA / New York, NY
Senior Project Manager / Senior Product Manager, Workforce Management Technology for Stores, Supply Chain and Contact Centers
Mar 2022 – Jun 2024
- Led vendor selection and the enterprise UKG Workforce Central-to-Pro WFM migration for 90K associates across 700+ sites, owning requirements, design, configuration, testing, change adoption, hypercare, and managed-services transition.
- Managed a $14M capital budget, 8 workstream leads, and 120 FTEs; delivered Phase 1 on schedule and 6% under budget through scope, dependency, and integration-risk control.
- Migrated 2.1 TB of workforce data into UKG Data Hub and delivered 50+ integrations with SAP HR, ADP Payroll, POS, and Azure Data Lake at less than 0.5% reconciliation variance; authored pay-rule libraries and automated UAT scripts across 30+ jurisdictions, passing a legal-led compliance audit with zero findings.
- Ran a 600-requirement RFP and license renegotiation securing $4.2M in savings and first-gate board approval; built labor-forecasting and real-time KPI dashboards that cut schedule variance 18% and overtime costs by $9.5M annually.
Ross Stores, Inc. | Dublin, CA
Senior Manager, Store Operations and Industrial Engineering
Nov 2021 – Mar 2022
- Directed the Cassida cash-and-coin counter hardware program across multiple sites, coordinating vendor negotiations, budgets, lifecycle and supply forecasting, SOP redesign, training, and field communications, including deployments in Hawaii and Guam.
- Led StandardsPro labor-standard improvements across approximately 2,000 stores using Lean Six Sigma, MOST, and time-and-motion methods; increased productivity 10%, reduced cycle times 15%, and improved process adherence and task completion 20%.
- Built the company's first Power BI self-checkout labor model, improving checkout speed 10% and reducing wait times 15%; defined requirements, vendor criteria, and integration strategy for an RFID evaluation with stakeholders and Wipro.
Deliverr, Inc. (acquired by Shopify) | Atlanta, GA
Operational Excellence Manager, 3PL Fulfillment Network
Sep 2021 – Nov 2021
- Managed 16 partner 3PL fulfillment centers and a regional parcel sort center across the Southeast, establishing operating standards and cross-site performance benchmarking.
- Led a Logiwa WMS integration and inventory-labeling improvements that reduced lost-inventory incidents 35%; translated field feedback into product-roadmap priorities.
Target Corporation | Minneapolis, MN
Senior Manager, Store Operations and Replenishment Systems
Aug 2020 – Sep 2021
- Led inventory-system improvements, including an Unlocated workflow and advanced modeling, that reduced inventory discrepancies 40% and improved real-time visibility across the store network.
- Designed training and system adoption for 2,000 stores, improving operational efficiency 25% and reducing out-of-stocks 30%.
- Developed a macro-enabled inventory-correction tool reducing lead time by more than 60%, plus an administrative utility reducing item-order-eligibility lead time by more than 90%.
Senior Process Engineer, Enterprise Operations
Jul 2019 – Aug 2020
- Co-led and mentored Operational Excellence managers across 25 regional distribution centers, delivering $15.6M in annualized savings and training teams in statistics, Excel, Minitab, and data visualization.
- Engineered time-study and rate-modeling tools for labor-standard adherence across supply chain and stores; co-created an enterprise Operational Excellence toolkit consolidating more than 40 tools.
Walmart eCommerce | San Bruno, CA
Operational Excellence Manager, U.S. Fulfillment Network Operations
Jul 2018 – Jul 2019
- Led outbound benchmarking across five sortable fulfillment centers, identifying network practices supporting $78M in ROI and the lowest variable cost per unit.
- Built VBA time-study and cost-per-unit tools, seven outbound process maps, and 5S pack-station layouts; led picking and packing improvements generating $14.85M in annualized savings.
Independent Software Products | Remote | Concurrent with the roles above
Sep 2017 – Present
Founder, Product Manager and Full-Stack Software Engineer
- Evolved the VBA time-study tool built at Walmart into Time & Motion Study, a labor-standards app with real-time statistical analysis and CSV/JSON export; the three-app productivity portfolio across iOS and Android exceeds 1M cumulative users. Product details are under the 'Built' section below.
MBA Consulting Projects | Asia School of Business | Malaysia and Vietnam
Aug 2016 – Apr 2017
MBA Project Consultant
- Aerospace Composites Malaysia (Boeing / Hexcel joint venture), Kedah, Malaysia — Process Engineering, Jan – Feb 2017. Consolidated seven commercial-data workbooks into a VBA master database and automated quote-entry tool, reducing RFQ estimation lead time by more than 40%.
- Esquel Group, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — Industrial Engineering and Automation Strategy, Dec 2016 – Apr 2017. Developed three end-to-end factory automation evaluation tools covering quality, cost and savings, and PFMEA, reducing evaluation lead time by more than 15%; automated the employee exit-interview survey and turnover-analysis workflow.
- Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — Logistics and Supply Chain Engineering, Aug 2016 – Jan 2017. Diagnosed 40–50% consignment-inventory loss representing more than $1.28M in annual exposure through process mapping and 80+ stakeholder interviews; built a consignment-risk tool and evaluated RFID and inventory-management options.
Earlier Roles | United States, Singapore and Malaysia
2015 – 2018
Morgan Stanley (Wealth Management) · Motorola Solutions (Singapore) · UNHCR (Malaysia) · Orlando City Soccer Club
Built
Software I design and ship alongside my enterprise work, as complementary evidence of product delivery and technical capability. The three-app productivity portfolio (Time & Motion Study, Timer Machine, and Timer Machine Pro) exceeds 1M cumulative users across iOS and Android.
Time & Motion Study
Industrial engineering analytics with real-time statistical analysis and one-click CSV/JSON export. Grew out of the VBA time-study tool I built at Walmart and became the basis for my book.
Timer Machine
Interval and productivity timing for training, cooking, and focused work. Published as Timer Machine and Timer Machine Pro.
GitHub
Code, tooling, and experiments — including Domain Content Validator on the Chrome Web Store.
Montage
A marketplace pairing travelers with credentialed tour guides in Rio de Janeiro. Cliente is the traveler app; Pro is the guide app.
Time & Motion Study: From Stopwatch to Smartphone
SIX EDITIONS IN FIVE LANGUAGES
A practical guide to time and motion study for the modern floor — how the discipline evolved from the stopwatch era into software, and how to run studies that hold up to scrutiny. Written for industrial engineers, operations managers, quality teams, and anyone responsible for measuring how work actually gets done. Available in English, Spanish (Spain and Latin America editions), Brazilian Portuguese, German, and Italian.
Education
Yale School of Management
Master of Advanced Management (MAM) — May 2024
Asia School of Business with MIT Sloan
Master of Business Administration (MBA) — Apr 2018
MIT School of Engineering
Certificate, Model-Based Systems Engineering — Jan 2017
MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab
1st Summer School on Cognitive Robotics — Summer 2017
Florida State University
B.Sc., International Affairs & Urban/Regional Development (GIS), May 2015
Credentials
Certified Scrum Professional – Product Owner (CSP-PO), Scrum Alliance — Jul 2026
Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute (PMI) — Jun 2026
Reinvention with Agentic AI, Accenture — Jun 2026
UKG Pro Workforce Management Forecasting Certification — Jun 2025
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (ICBB), IASSC — Oct 2024
Google Cloud Digital Leader, Google — May 2024, valid through May 2027
Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (A-CSPO) — Apr 2023
MOST Work Measurement Certification, Connors Group — 2023
Program on Negotiation (PON), Harvard Law School — Jun 2021
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Scrum Alliance — Apr 2021
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Scrum Alliance — Oct 2020
Certificate in Lean Manufacturing, Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) — Feb 2018
Additional training
Generative AI APIs for Practical Applications, Skillsoft — Sep 2024
Sustainable Business Strategy, Harvard Business School Online — Jan 2018
iOS Developer, Apple — Jan 2017
Digital Excellence Program for Minority Entrepreneurs, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth — Apr 2015
Certificate in New Ventures Leadership, MIT Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp — Jun 2014