Carlandra protrait

Hi, I’m Carlandra — passionate about FinOps, Cloud Governance, and how emerging tech can shape smarter growth.

I combine a background in IT Operations with FinOps expertise to help organizations scale with clarity and control. I focus on building Cloud environments that remain transparent, efficient, and accountable—without slowing innovation.

Whether it’s a fast-moving startup or a growing enterprise, I enjoy crafting systems that balance creativity with structure and growth with purpose.

Career

  • 10+ years Business Analytics
  • 6 years Project Management
  • 5 years Cloud FinOps Analytics
  • 4 years IT Operations

Certifications

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Interests

  • AI Governance & Compliance
  • AI/ML
  • Cybersecurity
  • Data Engineering
  • Cloud Engineering
  • IAM

Expertise & Focus

FinOps Leadership

Directed enterprise-wide FinOps strategy overseeing $200M+ AWS spend; achieved $1.5M+ in cost avoidance.

Developed executive dashboards and KPIs monitoring usage, unit costs, and Savings Plan utilization.

Partnered with IT Finance to implement cost allocation frameworks and enhance showback/chargeback processes.

Cloud Governance & Strategy

Established cloud data governance standards integrating Cloudability, Apptio BI, and AWS native tools.

Drove automation of cost reporting and anomaly detection to improve forecasting accuracy by 15%.

Led FinOps culture initiatives—training 50+ stakeholders to embed financial accountability across teams.

Business Analysis & Insights

Consolidated multi-source reporting to support executive decision-making and performance analytics.

Designed and tested data reporting solutions in Salesforce Lightning, Apptio BI, and Power BI.

Partnered with technology teams as the key liaison between business units and development teams.

Analytical & Technical Expertise

Skilled in AWS Cloud cost modeling, Cloudability, Apptio BI, Power BI, SQL, and Excel-based forecasting.

Experienced in SaaS data integration, cost tagging, and usage-based chargeback automation.

Strong foundation in data validation, QA processes, and Observability metrics for cloud spend analysis.

Strategic Impact

Implemented Smarsh’s first FinOps program by defining requirements, personas, and governance processes.

Delivered recurring reports to Executives and Board, improving cloud visibility and accountability.

Led cross-functional initiatives that modernized financial reporting and reduced waste across environments.

IT Operations & Reliability Governance

Led initiative with Infrastructure & Reliability and InfoSec Governance teams to redefine measurable SLAs — reducing operational risks by 63%, strengthening enterprise resilience.

Identified inefficiencies in IT workflows and system operations, driving measurable improvements in uptime, reliability, and compliance.

Involved in Root Cause Analysis and risk prioritization workflows by transforming raw IT data into actionable insights.

Featured Projects

Cloud Resume Challenge

🔧 Cloud Resume Challenge

Turned an AWS certification into a deployed full-stack project — static site on S3, visitor counter via Lambda and DynamoDB, CI/CD pipeline via GitHub Actions. The portfolio site you're on right now is the output.

AWS • S3 • CI/CD • IAM • IaC • DevOps
FinOps Case Study

💰 FinOps Case Study

Built the infrastructure, then turned the lens on the costs. Analyzed real AWS Free Tier usage, deployed budget guardrails, and built tagging-based visibility from scratch. What does a FinOps audit actually look like on a $0 budget?

FinOps • AWS Cost Explorer • Budget Guardrails • Tagging • Optimization
Cloud Governance Playbook

📘 Tags, Budgets, and Guardrails: How I Think About Cloud Governance

A curated framework designed to bring clarity, consistency, and control to scalable infrastructure.

FinOps • IAM • Cloud Governance • Tagging Strategy • AWS Organizations
Intelligent Document Processing Pipeline

🧾 Intelligent Document Processing Pipeline

Built a serverless AWS document pipeline with Lambda, Textract, and Comprehend. Hit 80% success rate, documented the wall, decided to ship anyway. The engineering decisions — including the ones that didn't work — are all here.

AWS Lambda • Textract • Comprehend • S3 • Python • Serverless

Let's Collaborate

Email

carlandra.williams@gmail.com

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