CAPABILITIES 

Testing and Integration

·         Completing over 5 years of high profile Testing for Blue Chip Companies in 4 continents.

·         Covering Hardware, Software, Networks, OSS (Operational Support Systems) and Telecom Systems.

·         Employing Quality Procedures and Project Management at all times. 

Software Engineering

·         Applying sound engineering principles to build processes and systems that facilitate the company's mission-critical operations.

·         Keeping abreast of new developments of software developments and tools that will produce better results through training and by reading appropriate journals, papers and magazines.

·         Deploying development life cycles to meet agreed specifications which are appropriate to company business and product needs. 

IP Network Management & Support - Cisco

·         Ensuring that all networks and elements perform to agreed target levels by continually measuring network performance with strong knowledge of good design and scalability.

·         Maximising network performance by balancing network loads through circuits and routers.

·         Changing networks with minimum disruption to customers and with special regard to mission-critical applications and operations.

·         Avoiding network overload by analysing customer needs and future growth and by anticipating any company changes that might affect network organisation and structure. 

Administration (System and Database Management)

·         Building static and dynamic web pages to display up-to-date information for both customers and colleagues.

·         Keeping accurate and detailed records of all network topology using tools such as MS Visio and NetViz.

·         Building document libraries so that important documents can be quickly and easily o[snip]ained and maintained.

·         Scheduling maintenance work to minimise disruption to customers.

·         Creating database inventories that allow assets to be managed, booked and serviced. 

Project Management

·         Planning all projects with realistic goals and building sensible contingencies into all plans whilst supervising as many as four team members and a £100k budget for as long as six months.

·         Informing all stakeholders of any required changes and securing full agreement before proceeding. 

·         Deploying modern project management tools such as MS Project.

·         Delivering projects on time, within budget and to agreed specifications. 

Staff & Team Management

·         Hiring the best people for tasks and roles by investing considerable time into the recruitment process; securing commitment from higher management to fund this.

·         Establishing and measuring staff goals and targets on a regular basis.

·         Motivating all staff to achieve their individual goals by appraising staff in a balanced way that looks at areas for improvement as well as areas of overachievement.

·         Applying motivation and "hygiene factor" theories from Maslow and Hertzberg for a better understanding of staff members' needs, such as suitable work environments and the required tools to do their jobs. 

Personal

·         Quickly adapting to new working environments, concepts and systems.

·         Getting to the heart of problems by focusing on critical information, tasks and issues.

·         Working with dedication and loyalty to achieve both personal and company objectives.

·         Demonstrating exceptional versatility with high achievements in the fields of Music and the Performing Arts, Sport, Environmental Science and Engineering. 

EDUCATION & QUALIFICATIONS 

Member: IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers)... I[snip]E (Institute of British Telecommunication Engineers) ... Computer Society (Subsidiary of IEEE)

CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), 2006

MSc  Telecommunications, University College, London, 2005

MSc  Digital Techniques, Heriot - Watt University, 1987

BSc (Hons)  Electronic Engineering, Edinburgh University, 1981

Other recent courses attended include Cisco MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) ... BCSI (Building Cisco Scalable Internets) ... BGP (Border Gateway Protocol).

Conversational Italian and French spoken.

PUBLICATIONS 

·         "Publishing Dynamic Information" (Study of database-related web sites), published internally in [snip] and in UCL (University College London) library, 2004

·         “Prediction of Internet Growth (1999 – 2009) ” A study to help [snip] plan their future Networks, published internally in [snip] and in UCL (University College London) library, 1999.

·         "MIDI Data Processing" (Producing one of first MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) sequencers in the UK), published in Heriot-Watt University library, 1987.

CAREER HISTORY 

1997 - 2006       [snip], Ipswich       

[snip], now known as "[snip]", is the Research, Development, Testing and Integration area of [snip] based mostly at Adastral Park near Ipswich.  It is the largest of its kind in the world with 4,000 people on site.

2004 - 2006                Team Leader - Network Integration Testing, Rest of World Networks

Reporting to the Group Leader, MPLS Network Integration Testing; responsibilities included testing and integrating VPN (Virtual Private Network) and MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) services for customers such as Reuters International.  Managed as many as four testers to very tight time constraints.

Major Achievements:

·         Helped the group achieve and exceed targets for the £50m Spring Project by testing 10 types of Interface + Graceful Restart with new IOS for P Routers ... Customer Edge Routers 1800 & 2800 with new IOS ... and Channelised STM-1 with multiple VPNs and software loopbacks.

·         Enabled access to testing assets including routers, switches, cards, and parts for all testers and managers for the first time after producing 20,000 lines of working code to make the team's web-based inventory database.

·         Improved test case, workflow and people management by introducing a Test Case Database tool which automatically generated Test Case Documents from chosen components ... a Tracking tool that allowed Test Progress to be monitored ... and a Staff Management tool that enabled large amounts of testing to be allocated to Team Members and monitored on an individual basis.

·         Helped team newcomers to immediately find important project or generic documents and therefore get up-to-speed quickly by producing a web-based documentation library. 

2003 - 2004                [snip] Team Leader

Reporting to the Group Leader of [snip] Testing Group, responsibilities included testing and integrating business-critical products for the [snip] UK IP networks. Also managed one staff.

Major Achievements:

·       Improved disaster-recovery processes by industrialising Autosave, an internal product that captured and saved the configurations of 27,000+ routers from multiple manufacturers and logged all changes on a daily and hourly basis.

·       Enabled [snip] to be one of the first ISPs to monitor and prevent Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on customers by helping to introduce "Arbor Peakflow" to detect traffic anomalies. 

2000 - 2003                Team Leader - Bandwidth Acquisition and NVT (Network Verification Testing) Testing, [snip]

[snip] was a joint venture between [snip] and [snip]. Reporting to the Head of NVT Group in Atlanta, USA, responsibilities included testing SDH circuits supplied by external companies such as Level 3 or Global Crossing and assessing the company's suitability to supply circuits and services to Concert. Travelled to the USA, Singapore, Australia, France, Holland and Germany and also tested from home using dial-up connections. Managed and serviced test equipment and produced regular test specifications and reports.

Major Achievements:

·         Established a development milestone for the company by testing and recommending authorisation of Concert's first wholly-owned STM-1 (Synchronous Transmission Mode, 155MB/s circuit) between Sydney and California.

·         Helped save Concert $1m by finding serious faults in Level 3's supplied circuits.

·         Enabled group asset tracking and scheduled maintenance after designing and developing an equipment database. 

1997 - 2000                Team Leader - Reference Models and Lab Management

Reporting to the Head of Reference Model and Lab Management Group, responsibilities included designing, building and managing Network Reference Models and Test Labs at Adastral Park. Also managed between two and four staff.

Major Achievements:

·         Helped [snip] transform from a telephone company to an IP network company by building the first IP Test and Integration Labs and installing equipment worth more than £30m.

·         Built a lab to test the world's first IP Telephony Network for [snip] Tel, a joint venture company in Spain. 

1990 - 1997                Software Engineer, [snip], Cambridge HQ       

The [snip] is a component of the government-funded, Natural Environment Research Council which for almost 60 years has undertaken most of Britain's scientific research on and around the Antarctic continent. Its most famous discovery was the "hole in the Ozone layer" in 1985. Reporting to the Head of Computing Services, responsibilities included supporting the IP, Dec, Netware, Unix/Solaris and PC networking needs of scientific users both at HQ and on scientific cruises to Antarctica. Managed Oracle databases, logged and processed data, and programmed specialist applications whilst sometimes working in some of world's roughest seas.

Major Achievements:

·         Saved considerable money over the old voice and facsimile system by helping to produce the specification and oversee the development life cycle for the Antarctic WAN messaging and data transfer systems.

·         Implemented various Antarctic databases and was Oracle DBA (Database Administrator) for the different Geophysics, Glaciology, Geology, Life Sciences and Upper Atmosphere areas of studies.

·         Enabled scientists to recover from database corruption and mis-entered data by devising an appropriate roll back system - to any point in the previous three months.

·         Introduced and customised a DataFlex database application for the Building Service manager's business needs at BAS HQ.

·         Provided the best data security of all Natural Environment Research Council sites by analysing and streamlining Distributed File System Backups utilising free CPU cycles at night.

·         Oversaw the installation of a Preventative Maintenance System on Antarctic bases. 

1987 - 1990                Software Engineer, [snip] Labs, St Vincent House, Ipswich

·         Built a portable version of OMC (Operations and Maintenance Centre, later known as "Switch Manager"), a generic software package that allows administrators to configure, control and change customer requirements on telephone exchanges.

·         Facilitated OMC sales by demonstrating the package at National and International Conferences.

·         Enabled managers to allocate and prioritise work to suitably skilled staff by developing and demonstrating the portable version of a Knowledge-based Management System (KMS) which was rolled out in the field (within [snip]) as "Work Manager".