Maia Shwartz is a Business Automation Consultant. She also works as the Finance Director at the Buttonwood Park Zoological Society in New Bedford, MA.
As a business automation consultant, I will unlock organizational efficiencies and streamline the way you do business. First, I will analyze your workflows and systems, then I will create and implement a customized plan to increase efficiency, minimize errors, and create a better experience for you, your team, customers, and stakeholders.
EXPERIENCE MATTERS
Buttonwood Park Zoological Society
Finance Director
2021 – Current
The Buttonwood Park Zoological Society is the nonprofit wing of the City owned Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford, MA. The Society has an annual budget of roughly $2M and a staff of roughly 30 FTE, including many seasonal employees.
In this position, I overhauled the financial management system, reducing the staff time required to manage finances by 50% and vastly increasing financial transparency for the Executive Director and the Board of Directors. I overhauled the organization’s payroll system and ended a third party payroll service contract costing thousands of dollars. Looking to public facing systems, I improved the way people interacted with our database - memberships, event tickets, camp registrations, etc. Most recently, I implemented a new database solution that has already proven to increase revenue through membership sales and donations.
YMCA SouthCoast
Branch Executive Director
2018 – 2020
As the Executive Director of the Dartmouth YMCA, I consolidated service delivery options and implemented new systems to create efficiencies and reduce expenses. The Dartmouth YMCA branch is one of six locations under the same organization. My next project was to move all six locations off an on-site server and on to Office 365. This allowed for cloud based work, increasing collaboration and flexibility. One year after this migration, Covid hit. Without this migration employees would not have been able to work from home as they did during the pandemic. Once that project was complete, I implemented an electronic purchase order system for all six locations.
Portland Animal Welfare Team
Executive Director
2016 - 2018
This is where I gained a true passion for business automation. PAW Team was the definition of a small grassroots organization with one paid staff member and a fleet of volunteers. First as a board member and then as the Executive Director, I developed numerous systems to increase efficiency and grow the organization from an annual budget of $50k to over $250k with four paid staff in less than two years. I implemented an electronic records system for volunteer veterinarians to keep track of medical records and to accurately report on and analyze program data. I implemented QuickBooks to track grants, donors, and expenses, and I created HR policies and procedures to ensure consistency and employee satisfaction.
