Profile 

·        Senior IT Management and Project executive with over 25 years experience in the IT industry

·        Specialist in Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and High availability projects

·        Delivering governance, audit, standards and security, ITIL and best practice within IT globally

·        Built and Managed World Class Datacentre to support Global Operations

·        Project managed large infrastructure solutions using Prince 2 or CITI methodologies

·        Full life cycle project management from planning, thru budget agreement, governance, stakeholder management and delivery

·        Challenging but empowering management style with proven leadership abilities within line management and cross-functional teams, member of IT executive and proven communicator at all levels

·        Managed teams of up to 30 and budgets up to £25 Million p.a.

·        Excellent communicator who is focused on Strategy, Technology, Customer Service, Infrastructure, Service Delivery and Supplier Management with a reputation for delivering against challenging goals 

Career History  

    Interim Manager – Security and Audit Review       [snip] (Turnover £13 billion)

                                                                                                                        Dec 2006 – Mar 2007 

Project to review, report and recommend improvements to eight companies recently purchased by [snip] in UK and Ireland. This was an assessment of infrastructure site backup, security, IT processes and recovery capabilities. The recommendations and way forward to comply with [snip] standards have been approved and now leading to a number of focussed projects to be completed by in house teams.  

    Interim Manager - IT Disaster Recovery       [snip] (Turnover £13 billion)                                                                                                                          Feb 2006 – Nov 2006 

This role involved working as an Interim Project Manager defining and implementing Disaster Recovery contracts and high availability plans one of the UK’s largest FTSE 100 Companies, [snip].

The project included managing a full replication of all 18 SUN, HP and IBM servers and associated SAN and LAN infrastructure within their 2 datacentres as well as an external DR recovery contract to an approx value of £1.8 million.

All project and infrastructure work at [snip] is developed within PRINCE2 and ITIL methodologies. This was also working in a SOX compliance environment.

The project was completed on time and within budget.

Significant press coverage proves testament to the successful project.

    Head of Technology and Projects   [snip] (Turnover £1.3 billion) 2002-2005   

Successfully built and managed Global technology team responsible for defining and delivering technology strategies and projects worldwide to deliver integrated systems to both support and enhance the businesses.

 I managed the Support and Operations function across multiple UK locations covering hardware, networks and software (Intel and Unix). In addition to managing the teams I led the following projects. 

·        Designed and Built a World class Datacentre for [snip] Sector 

Datacentre to support global SAP operations, host web servers and business infrastructure

Designed resilient security and network solution

Implemented scalable disk and backup systems

           Provided automated alerting and managed solution 

·        Defined Network Strategy

Defined and communicated strategic direction for LAN and WAN worldwide.

Managed project to provide single supplier across 30 Countries to replace existing multi vendor solution to enable common infrastructure using MPLS and Cisco and IP Convergence solution 

·        Developed Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans

Disaster recovery contracts in place worldwide, separate plans for Europe, USA and Far East

Full testing program in place that has included 5 invocations within Europe

Initiated Business Continuity awareness programs for senior executives working  

towards BS25999  

·        Developed and Implemented Common Infrastructure and standards across Group

Implemented common standard PC infrastructure and set-up worldwide, approx 8500 users.

Ensured correct software and policies were automatically updated

Measured and demonstrated significant drop in Viruses and Spam mail  

·        Set up Global IT Audit Program

      Established Policies, Rules and Guidelines covering all areas of IT Security, licence compliance in line with BS7799. Instigated self-assessment compliance across 60 sites worldwide including site visits. Bi-annual reports to Audit Committee 

·        Managed Microsoft licence adherence program globally   

Understood Microsoft software licencing agreements

Managed licences bought centrally to those bought locally

Managed Microsoft audit expectations and agreed worldwide licence position 

·        IT Customer Service Improvement Program   

Led program to radically improve IT service levels

Provided common service levels worldwide

Improved SLA adherence from 45% to 85%

Achieved through changes to IT structure, addressing cultural issues, process improvements, training and leadership 

        Project Manager / IT Manager [snip]  2000 – 2002 

          Project Manager at Corporate Head Office covering wide range of projects covering     

          Outsourcing, Acquisitions and Divestments, Security, Corporate IT compliance, 

Networks and voice systems, major projects listed. Used CITI (similar to PRINCE2) project methodology 

·        Successfully managed outsourced implementation of SAP 

Developed and agreed Contract and Service delivery terms for outsourced SAP Managed Service

Managed successful service delivery for 3 years

Managed transition of service to In house model 

·        Managed IT Integration of [snip],  £100m Turnover

[snip] integration successfully completed. This included operations in Germany, France and UK. The integrations required the understanding of different cultures and practices and Gap analysis. Significant savings of over £2million made on original IT integration budget.  

          Divisional IT Technical Services Manager    [snip]                 1997 - 2000                                                                                                

Managed a small technical team supporting the year 2000 compliance and technology moves to support a new SAP implementation. The SAP system, approx 1100 users, involved outsourcing and subsequent relationship management with IBM.                                                                                               

          Operations and Technical Support Manager    [snip] 1987 - 1997 

Managed a team of up to 27 operations, support and control staff within IT covering all systems from PC to Mainframe.  Member of IT Executive team. 

 One major achievement here was to build a brand new datacentre, site infrastructure and relocate all IT operations into this new Datacentre. This included working with architects and all Building consultants 

          Systems and Technical Support Manager     [snip]                 1983 - 1987

          Programming and Analysis                             [snip]             1977 - 1983

          Warehouse Management                     [snip]                 1973 - 1977  

Education 

Leadership and Management Development

General Management Ashridge

Project Management (CITI)

ITIL

Total Quality and First in Service

Financial Awareness

Many IT technical courses and seminars 

3 A Levels

8 O levels

Degree in Industrial Chemistry  

Volunteer/Community Work 

Regularly support the RNLI in fundraising activities and collections.

Committee member of Romford Branch

Formerly School Governor within Havering 

Interests 

Interests are Travel, Rugby, Cricket and most sports; gardening