career overview

My career in ICT commenced with Food, Drug & Cosmetic Colours Limited, designing and implementing a computerised production and accounts system before founding Electron Systems Marketing (ESM) specialising in office automation and bespoke solutions. ESM was sold in 1988. Subsequently held a variety of senior management and consultant roles in both the private and public sectors.

Through the broad range of assignments, undertaken in the UK and abroad, I have accumulated skills in a wide range of technologies and also have excellent non-technical skills through my experience in presales, bid support, marketing, training, team leadership, staff management and project management.

Accreditations

• CompTIA - Security +
• Microsoft - Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE - Charter Member)
• Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD - Charter Member)
• TickIT - TickIT auditors' training requirements

Professional Memberships:

• Fellow of the Institute of Analysts & Programmers
• Fellow of the Institute for the Management of Information Systems
• Member of the Chartered Management Institute
• Member of the British Computer Society

Education Bsc (Hons) Chemistry and Business Studies (2:1)

click here to download a copy of my CV.

business experience summary

GOVERNMENT:	G-Cloud, Government Digital Services (GDS), e-Government initiatives, CRM, EDRMS, WCM, Infrastructure and Data Centre Design, Information Security, Performance and capacity analysis
FINANCE:	Mid-office systems (retail banking, unit trust accounts), Payment systems (Government), Oil & petrochemical market information.
RETAIL:	Information Security, Service management, CRM
TELECOMMUNICATIONS:	Information Security, Service management, CRM, Voice & data networking
INDUSTRY:	Information Security, Service management, CRM, IT & Internet, Performance and capacity analysis
KEY ROLES:	Technical Design Authority, Data Centre Architect, Solution Architect, Technical Architect, Information Security, Service Management, Systems Management, Consultant, Presales Consultant, Project Manager

achievements

Solutions Design

• Designed a highly secure data centre to support systems at a variety of impact levels to include cross domain desktop and DR for the transition, and subsequent modernisation, of legacy applications to a centralised solution based on a Shared Service solution
• Designed an enterprise architecture for the transition of legacy applications to a centralised solution based on a Service Oriented Architecture
• Designed a solution to support a centralised EDRMS for a central government department with offices linked through a satellite network to the central system.
• Determined the business and functional requirements for establishing a multi-tier web based Customer Services Centre as part of a local authority's e-Government initiative;
• Established the functional requirements for web based Customer Relationship Management systems for a number of private sector organisations.
• Designed a cost effective and secure number provisioning solution for a telecoms company using web technologies.

Technical Architecture

• Significantly reduced the implementation costs and TCO of hosting through the use of virtualisation and cloud technology within the overall architectural design.
• Reduced the overall estate running and support costs through the implementation of a virtual desktop infrastructure and pull print technologies.
• Designed a technical architecture, accredited to Restricted level, whilst achieving cost savings in excess of £1,500,000 for the hosting of the solution
• Determined the hosting architecture, including negotiating costs, for a highly available geographically diverse platform for the delivery of global web services.
• Reduced the costs of implementing a centralised EDRMS through working with the software supplier to design modifications to their application to improve performance over high latency networks.
• Generated savings in excess of £200,000 on voice calls and around £1,000,000 on network infrastructure costs for a public authority through analysis and design of a cost effective voice and data network;
• Reduced costs for public and private sector organisations using hardware and software consolidation techniques;

Project Management

• Managed the design and implementation of an intelligent call handling solution for a large telecommunications company;
• Management of various network design/redesign/enhancements projects for public and private sector organisations.

Service Management

• Establishing and subsequent negotiation with hosting supplier of service levels for the delivery of global web services
• Design and development of support models, process, procedures and service level agreements for public and private sector organisations including complex multi-vendor environments;
• Successfully designed, developed and implemented a Service Centre for delivering managed services to clients of a pan-European service supplier;

Systems Management

• Implemented cost effective disaster recovery solutions for a number of public sector organisations
• Designed a backup solution for a financial services organisation reducing costs from over £300K to £80K;
• Developed capacity plans for public and private sector organisations;

Information Security

• Developed a cost effective methodology and survey tool enabling companies to assess their readiness for information security or best practice audits;
• Defined security requirements and developed a data access policy framework for a local authority;
• Completed security reviews for public and private sector organisations;
• Designed, implemented and administered server and network security systems for a variety of public and private sector organisations.

assignments

Consultancy assignments on information security, service management and technical infrastructure including:

• Defra (CAP Delivery Programme. The CAP Delivery Programme has been set up to design, procure and implement the solution that will deliver the European Union’s new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). As part of the cross-government initiatives led by the Government Digital Service (GDS) in the Cabinet Office, Defra is redeveloping the high transactional services delivered by the Rural Payments Agency. Responsible for managing the infrastructure architecture to ensure availability of appropriate technical platforms to support the main application work streams. In addition, responsible for defining the requirements for hosting and inter-site connectivity for Defra delivery bodies allowing them access to the CAP DP solutions. Taking the technical lead in the G-Cloud procurement of these services ensuring alignment to the Cabinet office and GDS standards.
   
• Non-departmental public body under Home Office sponsorship. The client is undergoing a large modernisation programme involving establishing new data centres, modernisation of legacy applications, desktop virtualisation, VOIP, meeting room video conferencing and implementing collaboration facilities for working with partners. Working with the CTO in establishing an Enterprise Architecture to support the business throughout the UK. Responsible for defining the technical architecture and establishing the appropriate secure data centre hosting infrastructures, accredited from RESTRICTED through to SECRET, to support client applications and operations. In addition to being responsible for hosting specifically, the TDA role is across the whole of modernisation and is responsible for ensuring that Technical Architects within the programme understand and adhere to the hosting standards to meet security requirements. Responsible for establishing and leading the Technical Authority for the Modernisation programme.
   
• Ministry of Justice (Formally Department for Constitutional Affairs). Working within the Design Authority group in establishing an Enterprise Architecture to support applications used at Crown, County and Magistrate courts throughout the UK. Responsible for defining the architecture and establishing a secure network infrastructure accredited to restricted level, including working with sub-contractors and security consultants to gain accreditation.
   
• The Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Responsible for establishing a technical design for the FCO's next generation of Web services and defining the hosting requirements to meet their requirements. Working with the bid teams in preparation of the response to an RFP and then in establishing costs for BAFO. Following contract award, working with the Technical Architect in implementation of the initial environments to allow development to begin.
   
• Department for International Development. Responsible for the design and implementation of a highly available architecture to support OpenText's (originally Valid Information Systems) R/KYV v9.1 EDRMS and Stellent Web Content Management Systems. Also responsible for establishing a disaster recovery strategy for the department. Managed LogicaCMG and DfID development and technical staff for the development and implement of integrations between existing DfID business systems and in establishing a development framework for the future. In addition, worked with a number of departments to give advice and guidance in a variety of technical and business matters.
   
• The IT Group. Responsible for determining the technical direction for the business and day to day management of technical departments. Designed and implemented a secure production environment for the delivery of a variety of multi-tier web based services. Also responsible for establishing a service management framework for the delivery of these services.
   
• London Borough of Bromley. LINKS is an eGovernment initiative providing a complete service that anticipates customers' needs, responds to their views and encourages involvement. Established the technical architecture and managed the development and implementation of a multi-tier web based Customer Services Centre. Defined a security framework to support the LINKS programme.
   
• East Lindsey District Council (ELDC). Responsible for considering and presenting the business benefits to ELDC in outsourcing their infrastructure and IT support. Also responsible for reviewing the existing voice network and telephony systems and recommending a solution that would enable ELDC to meet the requirements of their customer service network.
   
• Hampshire County Council (HCC). Analysed HCC's voice traffic, data network and general service requirements and recommended they implement a countywide voice and data network. Conducted workshops and established the requirements for the voice and data network. Responsible for designing the network, writing the ITT, meeting with suppliers, preparing a specification for use within a PFI tender process. Advised HCC on voice and data network solutions and their subsequent implementation.
   
• Ciber UK (formally ECsoft plc). Designed, developed and delivered a variety of specialist security services to help companies measure themselves against a variety of standards including BS7799/ISO 17799, SSE-CMM (ISO/EC 21827:2002 and the Data Protection Act.
   
• Ciber UK. Responsible for the continued delivery of risk assessment and security profiling services for clients in both the private and public sectors. Services were delivered using the services developed as part of bringing CIBER's security proposition to market.
  Security Profiling. Used a combination of security assessment tools and a questionnaire to create an information security profile that produces a gap analysis and identifies security shortfalls which then allowed clients to carry out focussed risk assessments.
  Risk Assessment. Ran workshops using Security Profiling deliverables. The resulting the risk assessment enabled companies determine the business imperative associated with implementing the identified measures which also included an action plan.
   
• ECsoft plc Successfully expanded ECsoft's OuTTasking group's services. Responsible for defining the service and service level agreements as well as establishing the tools and operational processes for delivering the service. Also responsible for implementing the systems used in the creation of the ECsoft Service Desk.
   
• Torch Telecom (now Kingston Telecommunications). Responsible for specifying the required production environment and managing the migration of TCCS from an Access database to a CRM solution using Oracle and ensuring that the system went into production on schedule.
   
• Torch Telecom. Designed a secure provisioning solution to enable Torch to provide intelligent call handling for Centrica's residential telecommunications customers. Managed the development, testing and implementation ensuring that the system went into production on schedule.
   
• Professional Affinity Group Services (PAGS). As part of their continued program of service improvement, PAGS initiated a project to improve support for members of the British Medical Association (BMA). Established the business and functional requirements to enable PAGS improve support for members of the BMA. Also, designed the changes to the existing systems to support the required functionality.
   
• University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES). Designed the system architecture for the production environment required to allow Manpower Plc to supply their CD Based Linguaskill application using web technologies. Also constructed a test plan to be used when moving the application from development into production.
   

technical skills

SECURITY:	Cisco, Checkpoint Firewall-1, GNATBox, Symantec ESM, Evidian Access Master, Cryptography (PKI, SSL, RSA, SHA1, MD5)
IDENTITY SYSTEMS:	GDS ID&A, Public Sector Internal Identity Federation (PSIIF), Government Gateway, Oracle Identity Management, Active Directory Federation Services
HARDWARE:	Servers: Sun, HP, IBM, Dell Storage: EMC (Incl. VTL), Hitachi, IBM, HP, Symantec NetBackup Appliances Networking: Cisco (Switches, Routers and Firewalls), Bluecoat, BigIP, Infoblox
OPERATING SYSTEMS:	All Microsoft operating systems, Novell NetWare, Some UNIX (Solaris and Linux), Active Directory, LDAP
VIRTUALISATION:	VMWare, Citrix (XenApp), Oracle VDI
RDBMS:	Oracle, SQL Server
APPLICATIONS:	EDRMS, WCM, CRM, IIS, Case Management
DEVELOPMENT:	PL/SQL, Transact SQL, HTML, XML, ASP, some Java
METHODOLOGIES & FRAMEWORKS:	Experience in PRINCE2, ITIL, TOGAF, COBIT, SOA and SSADM

career to date

2013 - Date Defra (CAP Delivery Programme) Infrastructure Architect - Responsible for defining the requirements for hosting and inter-site connectivity for Defra delivery bodies allowing them access to the CAP DP solutions. Taking the technical lead in the G-Cloud procurement of these services ensuring alignment to the Cabinet office and GDS standards.

2004 - 2013 Logica (now part of CGI) Senior Technical Architect - Working with Public Sector clients to define and implement solutions covering a range of business areas including Enterprise Architecture Design, SOA, EDRMS and WCM.

2004 The IT Group CTO (Contract) - Determining technical direction for the business and day-to-day management of technical departments .

1997 - 2003 CIBER UK Ltd (formally ECsoft plc) Senior Consultant - Part of an international IT services company delivering a broad range of consulting, applications development and systems integration services. Undertaken a diverse range of assignments to both public and private sector clients..

1997 Iridium LLC Data Centre Architect (Contract) - Designed a secure network infrastructure and commercial services environment with resilience and security. Managed the build-out of a Data Centre to supply a secure, 24 x 7 operational facility for all commercial and development systems to be used in North America..

1996-1997 Preferred Health Systems LLC Director of Systems Architecture (Contract) - Designed and implemented a secure network infrastructure and commercial services environment. Managed the creation of procedures and policies for the testing, operation and maintenance of corporate and commercial systems prior to roll-out of a bespoke healthcare system.

1978 - 1996 Various - Held a variety of roles including Production Director, Managing Director, Computer & Distribution Manager, Consultant, Systems Division Manager and Operations Manager.