Presentation:

"Building One Great Airline One Change at a Time"

The behind the scenes story of the complexity and the role change management played in the merger of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines creating the new *Delta Air Lines, the largest airline in the world.

The focus of the presentation will be on the integration of major Information Technology systems which were driven by IT activities, but integral to its success was the partnership and engagement of the various business units in change management / business readiness activities.

At a high level we will walk through the major system integration events and then focus on one of the major system cutovers. We will share the series of activities integrated with the business readiness/ change management process and events which were integral to meet the performance success metrics for the successful integration of the two airlines.

Business executive engagement, wall walks, event working groups, swim lane project teams, communication planning, training execution, process impact reviews, dress rehearsals are a few of the change lever activities that will be reviewed.

*About Delta Air Lines: Delta Air Lines is the world's largest airline. From its hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-JFK, Salt Lake City, Amsterdam and Tokyo-Narita, Delta, and Delta Connection Carriers offer service to 368 destinations in 66 countries and serve more than 170 million passengers each year.

 

Biography:

Sara is an innovative results-focused change management and workforce performance consultant with an acclaimed business background. She has proven success in designing, implementing and sustaining change in large scale strategic programs as well as building and leading high performance teams, partnerships and loyal customers in a variety of business environments.

Sara is currently an internal Change Management consultant working in the Information Technology Project Management Office of Delta Air Lines. She serves as a change consultant on enterprise wide projects to ensure adoption and sustainability of change by applying change management best practices throughout the lifecycle of projects. For the past 18 months she has been instrumental in applying change management best practices during the integration of highly complex IT systems of the two airlines. Post merger she will continue to mentor internal business and IT change champions while building a center of excellence for the organization change management practice in the Delta Air Lines IT organization.

Prior to joining the airlines, Sara had her own change management consulting practice and worked with such clients as The Schwan Food Company, Best Buy, United Health Group, Delphi and several others on large scale change.

Sara is past president and board member of PACT (Professional Association of Computer Trainers) and past board member of the Twin Cities chapter of the American Society of Training and Development. As a former executive with Carlson Companies she received the distinguished Carlson Fellow Award in recognition of her business accomplishments and extraordinary contributions to the company in the area of creativity and innovation. As a former educator and athletic administrator she was inducted in the Edina (MN) Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

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