Full Resume — Version A
G. Joel Hager
Strategic Operations Leader · Regional Operations Director · Global Committee Chair
linkedin.com/in/joelhager | your-next-hire.me
Professional Summary
Strategic operations leader with a proven corporate background and demonstrated success in multi-state program management, team leadership, and operational excellence. Expert in scaling organizations, optimizing processes, and delivering measurable results across telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare technology, and large-scale community operations. Currently serving as Regional Operations Director managing a multi-state volunteer program while directing the development of a production operational intelligence platform and chairing a global onboarding committee — all concurrent with an active job search.
Leadership & Strategic Operations
- Regional Authority: Top operational authority for a multi-state region, with promotion and demotion responsibility across a multi-tier volunteer structure and third-level conflict resolution jurisdiction; reports to the Organized Play Foundation with operational accountability to Paizo Organized Play.
- Multi-State Operations: Manage a multi-tier team of senior coordinators and volunteers across a 6-state footprint (VA, WV, TN, NC, SC, GA), coordinating strategic initiatives with national leadership.
- Growth Leadership: Delivered 183% increase in program participation; as Venture-Captain, reduced Atlanta operational cancellation rates from 30.41% to 20.92% through a custom Google Forms/Sheets/Apps Script operational dashboard — commended directly by Paizo Organized Play leadership. Dashboard served as the conceptual foundation for the current regional platform.
- Convention Operations: Sole planner for Paizo Organized Play at DragonCon (Atlanta); achieved first post-pandemic Tier 1 convention status in the Appalachian Region.
- Municipal Partnership: Manage Atlanta’s relationship with the City of Marietta, GA — annual partnership since 2022 for “Marietta the Gathering” event.
- Operational Intelligence Platform: Authored full product specification and served as product owner and QA lead for the Appalachian Regional Health Dashboard — a production operational intelligence platform aggregating multi-venue data into a single regional health view, built for replication by other regional coordinators. Stack directed: React/JSX, Supabase, Node.js, Vercel, Cloudflare, GitHub.
- Digital Infrastructure: Built and operate two WordPress sites (atlantapfs.org, appaopregion.org) and a 13-applet IFTTT automation network distributing content across web, Facebook, X/Twitter, BlueSky, and a 400+ member Discord server I own and manage.
- Community Safety: Developed and implemented comprehensive community safety and inclusion framework for convention operations; framework designed for broader regional rollout.
- Global Scope: Chair global committee serving all Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society players, GMs, Venture-Officers, and lodges worldwide across 18 international regions spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Russia, the South Pacific, and online communities.
- Document Leadership: Oversee creation, revision, and publishing pipeline for onboarding documentation with accessibility compliance requirements; co-authored the publicly available VO Handbook.
- Organizational Change: Successfully petitioned to merge VO Handbook Task Force duties into Onboarding Committee, consolidating redundant organizational functions at the national level.
- Systems Development: Designed and deployed Google Forms/Sheets-based ticketing system for technical issue reporting and escalation tracking.
- Operational Support: Provided research and operational support for merchandise line launch; ongoing advisory relationship.
Professional Experience
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborated with product managers, engineers, and business leaders to ensure stable delivery of financial technology products while managing regulatory compliance requirements.
- Risk Management: Identified and resolved delivery blockers, managed complex dependencies, and advocated for resource alignment achieving consistent project delivery timelines.
- UAT & Product Feedback: Participated in user acceptance testing cycles; provided structured feedback to product teams to address issues and support clean regulatory outcomes throughout tenure.
- Stakeholder Relations: Built strategic relationships across all organizational levels, improving stakeholder satisfaction through proactive communication and issue resolution.
- Healthcare Systems Documentation: Worked within existing Jira/Confluence framework to document processes and procedures for TeamSupport platform and Sales Demo environment; collaborated directly with TeamSupport team to surface and discuss system issues and proposed changes.
- Compliance Operations: Worked within HIPAA and GDPR compliance frameworks; held direct responsibility for issues originating from the Denmark office, serving as the primary point of contact for international incident coordination.
- Cross-Border Issue Resolution: Identified and escalated a video codec issue originating in the Denmark office affecting physician call quality; coordinated with technical teams through to resolution, requiring a codec change that prevented broader service disruption.
- Quality Assurance Participation: Participated in testing initiatives ensuring system stability and reliability, supporting successful product demonstrations and customer onboarding.
- Enterprise Operations: Served as one of six Tier 2 support leads for 400+ mission-critical software applications serving 20,000+ employees nationwide, maintaining 24/7 operational availability.
- Technology Transformation: Contributed to team-wide migration to ServiceNow ITSM platform; team collectively owned the service catalog workstream including requirements gathering, testing coordination, and implementation discussions with IBM as the platform builder.
- Service Excellence: Partnered with service owners to redesign onboarding procedures and operational processes, significantly improving service desk performance metrics.
- Team Leadership: Mentored junior analysts and coordinated cross-team initiatives, ensuring consistent service delivery standards across the organization.
Key Achievements & Recognition
Regional Operations Director
Advanced to top authority role managing multi-state operations with direct reporting accountability to national organizational leadership and promotion/demotion authority across a multi-tier volunteer structure.
Global Committee Chair
Appointed Chair of Paizo Organized Play Onboarding Committee — global scope serving all organized play participants across 18 international regions worldwide; co-authored the VO Handbook.
Operational Intelligence Platform
Authored product specification and directed production deployment of regional health dashboard on enterprise-grade stack at zero incremental budget.
Thought Leadership
Published research-backed analysis of ATS bias in hiring systems; post reached 59,000+ impressions, 507 reactions, and 228 comments on LinkedIn within 30 days.
Convention Excellence
Delivered 183% growth in program participation; achieved first post-pandemic Tier 1 convention status in Appalachian Region.
Cross-Industry Success
Demonstrated adaptability across telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare technology, financial services, and community operations — clean compliance outcomes in all regulated environments.
Emergency Preparedness
CERT-trained through the City of Smyrna, GA; certified and available for activation upon city callup — integrating community safety awareness into professional risk management practice.
Core Competencies
Technical Proficiencies
Education & Certifications
- Coursework: Information Science (Widener University), Communications (University of Delaware), Justice, Law & Society (American University)
- ITIL Foundations (V3) Certification – Service Management
- FCC Restricted Radiotelephone Operator License
- CERT Emergency Response Training – City of Smyrna, GA; certified and available for activation
Earlier Career
Rodel / Rohm & Haas Electronic Materials — Customer Service, then Quality Assurance; co-lead ISO auditor; contributed to zero-nonconformity transition from ISO 9001:1994 to ISO 9001:2000 standard as part of four-person QA team.
E.I. du Pont de Nemours (contract via Kelly Mitchell Group) — International Customer Service.