Seán Lee
"I take on the work that has already been declared impossible, and then I ship it."
Executive Summary
Twenty-plus years of building products and running the delivery organizations behind them — K-12 point-of-sale hardware, enterprise BI through one of the largest retail mergers in American history, and consulting services measured on margin as well as on outcomes.
Schools couldn't get students into the cafeteria, so I brought the cafeteria to the students. The automated meal-distribution pilot converted to a 160-unit purchase for one district, followed by a nationwide rollout.
Industry experts priced a reproducible real-estate immersion room at $250,000 per unit. I designed and built one for $30,000.
Delivered the Albertsons–Safeway merged P&L platform against an extreme deadline. Still one of the most-used dashboards in the company.
Experience
Apex Systems (now Everforth)
Phoenix, AZ · Feb 2019 – Jul 2026Owned delivery, financial health, and client satisfaction across the segment's key accounts, and served as the escalation point of last resort when an engagement needed to be put back on track.
- Kept presales honest — the firm committed only to work that could actually be executed, then delivered it with quality
- Tracked account health across deliverables, satisfaction, and margin, and moved on risk before it ever reached the client
- Grew the book of business through upsells, renewals, and expanded partnerships
- Ran executive business reviews that moved the relationship from vendor to partner
Senior delivery authority for the Energy vertical — ensured engagements landed on time, in scope, and on budget.
- Led the vertical's most complex programs and owned delivery governance, escalation handling, and contract compliance
- Became the trusted advisor on the client side, protecting value realization across a portfolio of concurrent engagements
- Turned one-off wins into repeatable offerings so delivery quality scaled with headcount instead of degrading with it
Built and ran the product-ownership and program-management practice while consulting in the field as a Senior Program Manager.
- Recruited, mentored, and grew a team of consultants — utilization, performance, and career paths built against real market demand
- Shaped proposals, solution designs, and go-to-market strategy for the practice alongside sales and account teams
- Served as the practice SME, providing thought leadership and industry guidance to clients and internal teams alike
Earlier at Apex: Lead Consultant (2020–2022) · Senior Consultant, Apex Solutions Group / Intersys (2019–2020). Advised client stakeholders on data management, business intelligence, microservices, UI/UX, and Agile practice; led cross-functional DevOps teams.
Albertsons Companies
Product Owner, Enterprise Business Intelligence · Dec 2014 – Nov 2018Arrived just after the Safeway merger. The mandate: put consolidated, explorable P&L in front of leadership on a single platform — then bring manufacturing and fulfillment data into the enterprise warehouse behind it.
- Led the team that delivered the merged-entity financial dashboard under an extremely short deadline; it remains one of the most-used and most-cited reports on the platform and the source of truth for financial performance
- Consolidated multiple repositories into a single data lake for advanced analytics and a warehouse serving supply chain and manufacturing reporting
- Worked directly with executive leadership to prioritize deliverables, define requirements, and budget resources for PMO approval
- Wireframed dashboards and process flows so executives and engineers agreed about scope before code was written
- Ran multiple scrum teams — backlog refinement, definition of done, sprint reviews, and end-user demos
- Coached the organization through a fresh Agile adoption and mentored incoming Product Owners
Oracle BI (OBIEE) · Exadata · Oracle Data Relationship Management · Balsamiq
Heartland School Solutions
Product Owner, Point-of-Sale Platforms · Dec 2011 – Dec 2014K-12 food-nutrition software and payment services. Owned hardware and point-of-sale product through a run of acquisitions and mergers.
- Conceived and shipped an automated meal-distribution system that could live anywhere on campus and vend a fully reimbursable meal — the pilot converted to a 160-unit purchase and a nationwide rollout across other districts
- Consolidated and standardized the point-of-sale product line as acquired companies folded into Heartland
- Ran the build-versus-buy call on new technology and managed vendor relationships for availability, quality, and pricing
- Partnered with account executives and district customers to fit the right configuration to each program
Education
- Northern Arizona University — Business, Communications & History
- Arizona State University — History
Credentials
- Certified SAFe® Agilist — Scaled Agile, Inc.
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) — Scrum Alliance
How I Lead
Leadership shows up less in a title and more in what a team, a practice, or a client relationship looks like a year later. A few patterns that hold across two decades of delivery work:
Turn wins into systems
A one-off success is a story. A repeatable offering is a business. I've made a habit of taking what worked once and rebuilding it so delivery quality scales with headcount instead of degrading with it.
Recruit and mentor against real demand
Built and grew a consulting practice by hiring and coaching against actual market need — utilization, performance, and career paths that were honest about where the work was going.
Move relationships from vendor to partner
Executive business reviews, escalation ownership, and account-health tracking aren't paperwork — they're how trust gets built before it's tested.
Coach through change, not around it
Led organizations through fresh Agile adoptions and mentored incoming Product Owners directly, rather than handing them a framework and walking away.
Keep commitments honest
Presales, proposals, and delivery only work together when the firm commits to what it can actually execute — and then executes it with quality.
Sit close to the technical work
From wireframing dashboards with engineers to running the build-versus-buy call on hardware, I stay close enough to the work to make the call myself.
Board Membership
Refined and refocused the company's vision from an e-commerce company dedicated to the sale and distribution of film, video games, music and VOIP/video calls to a small/startup company funding portal.
Volunteering
Colleagues & Clients
The best thing about working with Sean is his adaptability and eagerness to grow. Sean constantly stretches to build new skills and to take on new challenges, and also encourages those around him to do the same. He's a true team player and someone I'm glad that I had the chance to work with.
Sean joined Albertsons as the Albertsons/Safeway merger was finalized. He was chartered with the responsibility of creating a Profit and Loss dashboard for the executive team that had the consolidated data of both companies, and to do that within an extremely short timeline. Sean not only led the team within the tight deadline requirements, but exceeded expectations with the final deliverable.
His analytical skills and ability to familiarize himself with the technical aspects of our work made him an incredibly effective liaison between the development team and our stakeholders.
Contact
Let's build what's next.
Open to remote and Phoenix-area opportunities in product and delivery leadership across energy, industrials, and consulting.
- Email sean@timeisnotlinear.com
- Phone 602.705.2298
- LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/seán-lee-13740098
Based in
- Phoenix, Arizona · Open to remote
Certifications
- Certified SAFe® Agilist
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Focus
- Energy · Industrials · Consulting