VisualCV

A distributor and wholesaler of over 1 billion periodicals across North America.

Responsible for managing corporate IT development across North America, working with senior business & IT professionals to deliver major system changes impacting Finance, Customer Services, Distribution and other departments across the company. Created internally marketed and implemented strategies and business plans, enabling the execution of company’s objectives.

Proposed and implemented major change to the application landscape:

• Email domain consolidation.
• Managed implementation of Microsoft CRM to provide centralized Customer Services facility
• Implemented new Financials system: Lawson.
• Managed a major database update for the Legacy system, upgrading from an old Sybase version to SQL Server 2005.
• Implemented an Enterprise Data Warehouse providing a central point for Business Intelligence for the first time in the company’s history.

Achieved $400,000 savings by re-negotiating existing proposed implementation approach.: Lawson Financials Project. Renegotiations included licensing and consulting costs. Achieved additional savings of $200,000 on consultancy expenditures

Lawson implementation provided the ability for the business to view profitability across business lines (customers and suppliers) throughout the organisation.

Prepared the company to meet IFRS compliance should the company be made public.

Built an energetic and focused team of dedicated professionals.

Responsible for serving as Consultant with Senior IT & Business Professionals for the key clients. Created and implemented strategies and business plans, enabling the execution of company’s objectives in gross profits and net operating income, increasing its positive profitability.

Programme Strategy Consultant- BBC - TV Licensing   

• Total project cost for transformation initially at $54 million with outsourcing contract worth $1 Billion to Capita over 10 years collecting an extra $5.6 billion a year from 24 million homes and businesses on behalf of the BBC.
• Approved architecture components during the CRM implementation.
• Implemented IT risk strategy and contributed to corporate risk plan.
• Served as liaison with program management, building the business plan for various stages of the project.
• Assessed technical options available to the project team and approved or defined solutions for each project stage.

Project Manager –Post Office

• Turned around a failing project circumventing potential penalties of over $2 million per day, by leading two parallel Data Warehouse projects and providing interfaces between the payment system and third party vendors.
• Managed complete lifecycle projects, delivering on time service, generating loyalty and excellent referrals.
• Negotiated architectural components with client representatives and balanced the workload of multiple simultaneous work streams.

Strategy Consultant- Scottish Water

• Revolutionized Scottish Water’s customer service and delivery reputation by providing them with the IT tools to quickly analyze water telemetry readings both operationally and through Data Warehouse, enabling the delivery of rapid response teams to correct off-site emergencies.
• Defined the Data Warehouse architecture and approved designs from multiple simultaneous project work streams.
• Provided strategic lead throughout the project lifecycle.

Lead Solution Designer -O2 Telecoms

• Reduced licensing fees by $2 million, through feasibility studies, identifying a correct SAS replacement solution.
• Increased average revenue per unit (ARPU) by 15%, enhancing direct marketing and offerings delivered to consumers.
• Lowered consumer churn by 10%, through the effective analysis of usage patterns and projecting future usage accurately. 
• Managed a team of 15 designers responsible for the selection process of Data Mining tools, including definition of RFI, selection criteria and facilitating meetings to resolve business and technical queries or issues.
• Performed a feasibility study on behalf of the CRM Transformation Programme.
• Defined Data Mining and Analytical options available for the project, incorporating O2 standard
• Defined the programme architecture and managed technical implementation by software vendor.

Consultant- Nationwide Building Society

• Performed feasibility study for Basel II project in preparation for external consultancy managed project.

Responsible for leading the sales force in a pre-sales capacity, building corporate relationships, responding to Client RFP’s, project and people management, including selecting/managing teams and consultancy, systems architecture selection and software design.

• Increased margins and profitability while attracting new clients at higher than average bid, by personally delivering and managing the most comprehensive and effective IT solutions.

• Saved clients millions of pounds by working with client IT directors, assessing strategic IT policy and project impacts while managing the processes through Project Board meetings. Ex: Canada Life saved over $20 million over a five-year period at a migration cost of only $1 Million.

• Reduced the amount of analysis work for Glaxo-Welcome, through the introduction of Data Warehouse technology, effectively transitioning the business competencies from 75% data-loading to 75% analytical and lowering headcount by 10%

• Eliminated project costs for a full year by identifying a multi-year Return On Investment for British Airways.

• Identified compliance requirements for International Financial Reporting Standards for ABN AMRO Bank, Canada Life, and the need to update from prior GAAP standards.

• Saved British Airways $250,000 initially, by eliminating variances in levy fees for meals loaded onto their aircraft and correctly calculating waste levy, providing continuous annual saving ranging from $54,000 to $150,000.

• Reduced the data-loading competencies of British Airways’ Business Intelligence Reporting unit from 95% loading to 90% analytical and ensuring that the unit was more effective and able to perform enhanced analysis.

• Managed the definition of best practice guidelines to allow the implementation of new technology for clients including Riyad Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, Canada Life, British Airways, and Thomas Cook Financial. Defined direction for project teams.

• Responsible for delivery of multi-million GBP projects on behalf of clients ensuring adequate resources to ensure on-time and on-budget delivery of projects. Defined and justified multi-year/multi-phase programme budgets to ensure continuing budgets throughout the lifecycle.

• Provided expertise in Corporate systems, including Business Intelligence applications for Nationwide Building Society, Riyad Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, Consignia, Canada Life, GlaxoWellcome, and British Airways in order to initiate projects, including analysis of return on investment and technology risk assessments.

• Defined innovative solutions deploying integration technologies, including the use of middleware and messaging systems, links to ETL environments (for Thomas Cook, Canada Life, and Riyad Bank). Acted as an interface between the business and technologists ensuring proposed changes provided benefit for the whole corporation.

• Carried out feasibility studies (on behalf of ABN AMRO Bank, British Airways, and Thomas Cook), relating to the introduction of new technologies within major development projects. Ensured a collaborative approach was adopted through the project Board.

Lead development projects and consultancy services for major Data Warehousing projects on a worldwide basis. Involved in pre-sales capacity, defining project scope, responding to RFP’s defining project goals and setting budgets, liaised with client representatives to ensure project deliverables remained on-course, sitting on Project Boards. Key clients included British Telecom, UB European Snack Foods, Sainsbury’s, Birds Eye, and Johnson & Johnson.

• Reduced marketing campaign costs for British Telecom between $40,000 and $250,000 through the deployment of technologies that improved the effectiveness of hundreds of annual direct and indirect annual campaigns.
• Eliminated the need for UB European Snackfoods to set up an additional plant by adding manufacturing data into the corporate Data Warehouse, effectively filling the gaps in the manufacturing schedule of existing plants.
• Advised clients on the most appropriate Warehousing strategies and architecture to employ that included both the building of a subject area business methodology and the technologies to support the adopted strategy.