Professional Summary
FinOps Certified Practitioner, PMP, and AWS Technical Account Manager with 20+ years across cloud, infrastructure, and operations. Sole US TAM for a globally distributed product team, supporting enterprise Media & Entertainment customers with $20M+ in annual cloud spend across US, India, and South Korea time zones. Owns operational cadences, FinOps and billing governance, AI/LLM token-spend tracking, and executive relationships while mentoring three other TAMs. Recovered $1.3M for a single customer by finding a billing discrepancy no one else caught.
Core Competencies
FinOps / Cloud Cost & Billing Governance • Showback / Chargeback & Cost Allocation • Budgeting, Forecasting & Variance Analysis • AI Cost Governance (Token & LLM Spend) • Technical Account Management • Mentoring & Enablement • Executive & C-Level Stakeholder Management • Escalation & Incident De-escalation • Global / Cross-Timezone Collaboration • Technical Program Management • FinOps Operating Model • Vendor & Contract Management • Automation & Scripting (Python)
Professional Experience
Technical Account Manager — Amazon Web Services (AWS)
July 2022 – Present
- Mentor 3 Technical Account Managers in the audio segment of the Media & Entertainment portfolio—coaching on FinOps practices, escalation handling, and account strategy, and setting delivery standards across the portfolio.
- Recovered $1.3M for a customer by uncovering a billing discrepancy outside standard TAM scope: a service billing at public rates instead of the customer's negotiated private pricing in regions launched after contract signing—undetected for six months, until the overage equaled 115% of the account's typical monthly cloud spend.
- Drove that remediation end-to-end across teams in the US, India, and South Korea—securing a contract amendment covering all current and future regions and leading business case development and defending it to senior executive leadership, who approved the full amount as a customer credit.
- Serve as primary technical point of contact for enterprise Media & Entertainment customers—including a global music label, a national audio & radio network, and a leading smart-TV streaming platform—owning operational cadences and executive relationships across the portfolio.
- Grew a major streaming and ad-supported media customer's cloud footprint 4.3x in monthly run rate over three years by driving adoption, architecture improvements, and new workloads.
- Drive FinOps and cloud financial management engagements—monthly billing and usage reviews, budgeting, forecasting and variance analysis, cost-allocation and tagging hygiene, rightsizing, cost-anomaly detection and root-cause analysis, and rate optimization via commitment planning (Savings Plans / Reserved Instances)—to align cloud spend with business value and unit economics.
- Track token-based AI spend across Anthropic and OpenAI models—mapping consumption pricing, usage metrics, and per-model rates as AI becomes its own cost category, and advising customers on attribution and spend guardrails for LLM workloads.
- Support quarterly live concert events for global media brands—$50M+ in revenue at stake per event—coordinating cloud service teams, connecting customers with subject-matter experts, and protecting availability under pressure.
- Led a program to improve ad fill rates for a major media-streaming customer, applying Agile methodologies across multiple service workstreams to achieve a 24% increase over an 8-month engagement.
- Automate recurring reporting and operational tasks with Python and AI agents, saving 6+ hours per week and improving accuracy.
OpsTech IT Engineer II — Amazon
July 2021 – June 2022
- Owned top-level IT projects and escalations for a 2-million-square-foot fulfillment center, serving as the final escalation point and leading the North Dallas on-call rotation.
- Managed vendor relationships—negotiating pricing and contracts and aligning spend with budgets—and authored change-management policies and processes.
- Diagnosed a chronic power-board and cable burnout failure on mobile computer carts by proving the wiring-harness and board-connector design could not handle the electrical load; presented the evidence to the manufacturer, which accepted fault and replaced every board and harness with a redesigned version across thousands of carts network-wide at no cost.
IT Systems Lead — Uline Shipping Supplies
July 2015 – June 2021
- Served as sole on-site lead for the Tijuana, Mexico office buildout during COVID-19—owning IT, operations, and facilities setup end-to-end to stand up a new international site.
- Led the companywide Windows 10 migration, writing automation scripts to upgrade 6,000+ devices across all company locations.
- Identified a Windows 10 defect affecting an in-house Eclipse-based application; analyzed crash dumps and engaged Microsoft, prompting a fix released in update KB4571744.
- Owned the site IT budget—hardware, connectivity, and services—presenting and defending it with audit-ready documentation directly to the company's owner and executive team in biannual reviews prepared months in advance.
- Passed rigorous annual audits demanding 100% IT-asset accuracy—every device mapped to location, desk, and assigned user—plus standardized configurations, cable management, MDF/IDF, Active Directory, and software, all verified against strict SOPs.
- Administered 700+ IT assets supporting 150 on-site users within a 500-user Mexico operation; managed staff workflow and procurement.
- Supported project delivery and technician training across U.S., Canada, and Mexico—including standing up and training the Edmonton, Canada team—and directed IT for 300,000 and 200,000 sq ft warehouse expansions.
IT Consultant — Mr. HelpDesk
August 2010 – June 2015
- Ran an independent IT services practice end-to-end—client acquisition, service delivery, and retention—supporting 25 recurring clients and 100+ call-in customers across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.
- Delivered backup, network-monitoring, and disaster-recovery services and resolved two ransomware incidents (a law office and an eye-care practice) with minimal data loss; maintained HIPAA and PCI-DSS compliance for medical and legal clients.
Network Administrator — Buxton Company
March 2006 – July 2010
- Provided technical leadership for networks, servers, desktops, and printers supporting 150 employees; managed Active Directory and Exchange on Windows Server 2003.
- Maintained network hardware (firewalls, switches, routers, cabling) and resolved connectivity issues for on-site and remote devices.
Education
Western Governors University — B.S. Cybersecurity and Information Assurance, in progress — expected May 2027
Certifications & Accreditations
FinOps: FinOps Certified Practitioner — FinOps Foundation (2026)
AWS: AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (2026) • AWS Certified Security – Specialty (2026)
Project Management: Project Management Professional (PMP) — Project Management Institute (2026)
AWS Accreditations: AI – Technical Intermediate (L200) • Generative AI – Technical Intermediate (L200) • AI – Foundational (L100) • Media & Entertainment: Direct-to-Consumer & Broadcast Foundations
Additional: CompTIA A+ • CompTIA Network+ • CompTIA IT Operations Specialist • MCSE: Mobility • MCSA: Windows 10 • MCP • ITIL Foundations • CIW Site Development Associate
Verified credentials: credly.com/users/sean-roark
Technical Skills
AWS • Cloud FinOps & Cloud Financial Management (Cost Explorer, Cost and Usage Reports, Savings Plans / Reserved Instances, Rightsizing, Budgeting & Forecasting, Cost Allocation & Tagging, Cost Anomaly Detection, Showback / Chargeback, Variance Analysis, Unit Economics) • AI/LLM Cost Tracking (Anthropic & OpenAI token-based billing, API pricing tiers) • Python • Excel • Active Directory & Exchange • Windows Server • Networking (LAN/WAN, firewalls, switches, routers) • ITIL • Agile / Scrum • Change & Configuration Management • Disaster Recovery & Backup