OBJECTIVE 

Seeking an IT Executive or Senior Programme/Project Management role in a community based global reaching organisation. 

PROFILE 

A senior IT Manager with extensive IT experience in the public sector and at global, strategic and management levels in a range of other sectors including financial services, retail, transport and computer service organisations.  

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS 

Managed the national implementation programme of a Project Management Control System for a Public Service Organisation. Streamlined the recording and reporting of project data enabling a consistent approach to be applied across the UK. This permitted economies of scale to be applied to infrastructure/construction projects in excess of £2bn. 

Developed and negotiated a transformational IT strategy which underpinned the business plans of a University, including a reduction in headcount costs. Convinced them to commit to the £1.7m capital financing required to commence implementation. 

Led the project to replace the University’s 3000 desktop/user access facilities. Co-ordinated the project, oversaw the OJEU procurement process and directed suppliers and staff to successfully introduce a much upgraded system. This reduced start up times by 90% and cut desktop application deployment from 2 months to 2 days. 

Conceived and created the University’s web services team and overhauled the management and deployment of web content and associated support services. Procured and implemented a content management system. This reduced licence costs for over 200+ contributors and streamlined the web publishing process allowing more agile marketing and web service delivery. 

Negotiated and led the transformation of the IT support service for Epping Forest College. Reorganised service delivery and expanded library capability. New income streams were created which earned £100k in the first year of operation. 

Convinced senior staff of the capability of “new technology”. Led the project that pioneered the use of the web for providing public access to train timetable data. Reduced the cost of conventional access whilst significantly widening public availability of this information. 

Oversaw Sanwa’s disaster recovery and directed the emergency response teams to rebuild and restore services following a massive City of London - wide disaster. Collaborated with staff and key suppliers and led a team to enable the Bank to reduce its international trading losses and recommence trading weeks before many of its competitors.  

Coached and developed University staff in web based application deployment and enabled the service to launch an e-learning system. This created a new market/revenue stream from over 5,000 students within the first year. 

CAREER HISTORY 

Currently:-  Engaged as an interim IT Executive on a number of assignments 

[snip] – (Current) As Head of IT I am responsible for service operations, maintaining efficient systems and making recommendations for improvements in the ICT provision. Work outputs include progress towards establishing a recognised quality framework for service delivery, the introduction of formal progress reporting creation of revised SLA’s with clients, staff appraisals, and completion of a programme of operational changes including upgrading Internet bandwidth,  office moves, telephony changes and software upgrades.  More recently I have been developing strategies for a technology refresh, staff and service development and information management that supports the organisations business goals. 

[snip] – (2005-2006) Engaged within the Connecting for Health Programme in the East Cluster. Initially project managing the implementation of a Community Health System to over 600 users in the NE Essex area; Subsequently I developed the programme for a replacement Patient Administration System (PAS) and the implementation of a Picture Archiving Computer System (PACS) for a major hospital trust in Mid Essex, working with clinicians, estates and facilities teams and architects to ensure full integration of the new services into the hospitals redevelopment plans. 

[snip] – A long serving board member I am now providing IT governance and executive leadership to the project replacing this organisations Housing Management and Development systems. The complex programme of work also incorporates major infrastructure developments including the transfer to a Citrix based environment and remote hosted services. 

[snip] – Provided IT governance and executive advice to a small CAD design organisation commissioned to record and redesign national pub chains premises.

Jul 2001 to Jul 2005: - Computing Services Director - City University  

A member of the IS senior executive team reporting to the CIO with 6 direct reports and 50 staff managing a £3m+ operational and £1m annual capital budget including income generation activity. Responsible for the delivery of a high quality computing service that included, User support, application development, web services, procurement, technology and IT production services to a complex organisation of 1500 staff and over 20000 users. Key activities have included:-

• Creating the University’s first IT strategy and setting up a cross representative group of academics and other staff to gain the appropriate buy-in for approval and implementation.
• Successfully replacing the user desktop system with a new streamlined service saving significant start-up time for staff and students.
• Implementing a change programme that transformed IT service delivery along ITIL lines into a much more cost effective customer-focussed experience to much applaud from both the staff and student user communities.
• Recruiting and developing key staff and leading and developing diverse teams of staff to support this transformation programme.
• Managing the MIS applications development group and initiating the transition to a more project orientated PRINCE2 based culture within the University.
• Implementing a help/desk incident management system as the focus of improved staff and student service delivery that brought about service performance improvement seven fold over two years.
• Increasing staff efficiency by broadening the central service coverage to include support to other business. (Traditionally schools and faculties at City University managed their own IT support.)
• Undertaking a detailed risk assessment and establishing and testing a business continuity program for the University ensuring business continuation in the event of a major problem.
• Creating a business assurance function to provide better governance over projects, and software and hardware release/change management.
• Taking a continuous improvement approach to service delivery, improving VfM and realising headcount reductions whilst simultaneously increasing service performance capacity.
• Upgrading the network to enable high-speed access to residential students and introduced wireless facilities to support mobile computing to over 10,000 users.
• Establishing a web services team as the focal point for application development and service delivery for future systems.
• Introducing a content management system that has streamlined the preparation and presentation of web material for both Intranet and Internet access and enabled a number of new service features to be established reducing web material deployment time from days/weeks  to minutes.
• Project managing the introduction of the University’s e-learning platform, now used by over 5000 students worldwide.
• Developing links with international bodies and representing the University at key events both nationally and in Europe.

1997 to Jul 2001: Director of Information Services – Epping Forest College 

A member of the College’s senior management team reporting to the Principal. With 6 direct reports and 55 divisional staff. A complex role that included management responsibility for IT, Exams and Registration, Fees, Library and Industrial Training. Key activities included:

• Creating the colleges IT strategy, getting buy-in from the Corporation Board and peers and leading its successful implementation.
• Implementing a significant change program that enabled more focus on core business and ensured business continuity and growth into the future.
• Changing the college’s registration processes and cutting student registration time by 50%
• Making better use of staff resource by developing the Library into an IT based learning resource centre and broadening the function of learning support services to function as an IS support centre.
• Introducing new technology (i.e. the Internet) for both marketing and as a teaching tool purpose increasing student numbers and providing a new route for teaching.
• Improving data quality and streamlining registration processes through the procurement and managing the implementation of the College’s replacement Information Management system.
• Achieving significant growth in the use and availability of systems throughout the college
• Leading the Industrial Training Unit, a separate business unit within the college to increase its turnover to over a  £1m pa.
• Introducing an activity based cost system to support product/service development, charging and enable a financial focus for continuous improvement activities.
• Assisting the Corporation Board on IT matters to ensure better understanding of how appropriate technology could be used within the college context.

1993 to 1997: Various Roles, [snip] 

• As Emerging Technologies Product Manager I directed the introduction of leading edge technologies to enhance business processes and performance and Project managed the creation of the company’s 1st Internet and train timetabling website.
• As Systems & Technical Architecture Manager I promoted a cultural change programme, initiated a corporate project to review business processes and promoted a strategy of easy access to quality company information to 6000 staff that included the development of a systems architecture framework to meet the companies emerging business needs, and provided a migration plan to enable the transition.
• Progressed the migration through the likes of creating a corporate data model, establishing a WAN to improve system access, introducing business assurance reviews as part of the project life-cycle process and developing a £20m impact technology statement.
• As IT Director for the Major Projects Division I managed the development and national implementation of a Project Management Control System. Lead the management and development of all systems nationally for the major projects division serving 850+ users throughout the country.

1989 to 1993: IT Director [snip] 

Leading all aspects of technical & operational management to support dealing room and trading and financial management systems. This role included such activities as:

• Formulating, presenting and seeking approval for the ICT strategy and annual business plans (£10m pa)
• Developing a new organisational structure, reporting lines & job descriptions and coaching team members to deliver top rate service.
• Implementing standards & processes to ensure delivery of best practice.
• Specifying technical requirements & preparing responses to RFQ’s/RFI’s.
• Successfully project managing two dealing room re-building activities.
• Managing the successful recovery from a major London disaster (IRA bomb) including the introduction of an outsourced IT managed service facility.
• Successfully obtaining approval to replace the mission critical application trading system.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS 

Early Career 1976-89 Included:

• Working as the Applications Development Manager for [snip], leading the development and support of their financial trading systems.
• Many roles at [snip] (part of Nat West Group)  from Programming through to Service and Project Management working on Accounting, Retail and Financial Systems.
• Programmer and Business Analyst for [snip] working on Pension, Manufacturing and Accounting systems.

Technical Experience Summary, Qualifications, Memberships and Other information 

• Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, UNIX(Solaris), Linux, Apache
• Oracle, MS-Office, MS-Exchange, MS-Outlook
• MS-Project
• Cobol, Fortran, PL1, HTML
• Knowledge of MS SQL, Informix, CGI, ASP, C, Apache, Java & VBA, Cisco works
• Applications: SITS, Business Objects, FEMIS, SAP(Finance, HR, Procurement), Serena CMS, WebCT, Richmond Help Desk, TPP SystmOne
• Chartered Member of the British Computer Society
• Member of the Association for Project Management
• PRINCE2 Practitioner
• Prince’s Trust Mentor
• Board member of [snip] (Responsible for IT, and Strategic change)
• School governor, (Chair of finance committee) of Chingford Foundation School 
• Masters Degree in Change Management 2001
• Post Graduate Diploma in Business Research 2000
• BSc(Hons) Degree in Computing and Statistics 1976
• Various in-house & external training programmes attended over the years for CPD reasons.

Summary of key characteristics: 

• A professional senior manager with over 20 years experience of developing, implementing and managing major systems change to meet business goals, working closely with clients, suppliers and colleagues to ensure high quality, efficient service delivery.
• Extensive programme and project management experience with the ability to bridge the gap between technology and business issues.
• A qualified change manager with extensive BPR experience.
• Leading, motivating and developing diverse teams to achieve corporate aims.
• Being commercially astute, setting and managing multi-million pound budgets.
• Being results orientated & project-focused with system infrastructure planning skills.
• Operational experience covering financial management with direct budgets ranging from £1m to £10m, staffing responsibility for both large (100+) and small teams in multi-sites.
• Planning, formulating, implementing and managing IT strategy with business managers.
• Wide knowledge of IS infrastructure management, system and application architectures including web services and other core technologies.
• Taking a holistic approach in setting clear objectives to achieving business goals.
• Specific experience in the introduction of Internet and emerging technologies
• Knowledge of the legal, security and compliance requirements of IT and the management of information.
• Governance of client liaison and incident management activity.
• Corporate representation at national and international forum.