Dr. Ali Hassan Sarwar

PROFILE

Ali is a highly effective business professional with over 15 years’ experience in a broad range of SAFe Agile, Scrum and Change Management, ICT delivery, technology architecture, business analysis and operational leadership roles. He has a strong background in leading change in fast-paced, competitive and rapidly changing environments. He has the sound business acumen and a pragmatic approach that is vital for success when leading change across diverse business units, backgrounds and needs. Ali is adept at building rapport and relationships through excellent coaching and listening skills, coupled with a real interest in people and organisations and an optimistic positive manner.

QUALIFICATIONS

+ EE, Harvard University

+ ME, PhD, UNSW

+ PGD, Macquarie University

CAREER OVERVIEW

Jul 17 – Present

Telstra Digital (JV ASG)

Aug 16 – Jun 17

Jan 15 – Jul 16

Jan 13 – Jan 15

Jul 04 – Dec 12

Telstra Consulting (EY – NTT JV)

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)

AT&T

Telstra (JV with Optus, Hutch and VHA)

Product / Program Manager - Jacobs Engineering Consulting (Jul 19 – Present)

Client(s) – Telstra, Department of Defence, Airservices Australia

Responsible to advise on high level framework and deliver excellence in knowledge of the infrastructure stack and features

Deliver with patience and tenacity (in a dubious environment) to complete a tasks despite various difficulties with environment availability

Lead with a proactive approach to further testing requests and results analysis to satisfy operational stakeholders and capacity managers

Take full ownership of results to achieve full signoff and acceptance

Add great value to core platform capacity planning and bandwidth/user/session management

Experience leading technology architecture & design

Broad and deep knowledge of technology and software architecture

Highly developed sense of pragmatism and judgment in making complex decisions

A leadership style that inspires and engages technologists and brings them on the journey

Ability to lead technical teams through ambitious and ambiguous initiatives

Technical design brilliance and hands-on coding abilities that earn you the respect of technical experts

A flair for presentation that captivates and influences C-level stakeholders

A bias towards collaborative decision-making and the skills to facilitate ideation in groups

A diverse set of interests and a deeply curious nature that provides fuel for innovation

Any evidence of personal software development projects, e.g. Github profile, website(s) would be ideal

Mastery of several technology domains and at least one software development lifecycle practice.

Deep technical and industry knowledge on software platforms, open source, trends and innovation

Programming language familiarity in one or more relatively modern languages, e.g. Python, Javascript

Understand of mature DevOps practices and operational environments

Solution architecture in AWS infrastructure and services, with hands-on ability

Knowledge and practical experience in portfolio management benefits realisation, planning and portfolio status reporting are required. As is the ability to effectively present to senior management and provide an end-to-end view of portfolio status, issues and plans to resolve and mitigate.

Telstra Media – Solution Architect, Scrum Master / Service Delivery Manager – Google Smart Home & ATO

Sydney, Australia (Jul 17 – Jun 19)

Coordinate and Manage the Delivery of IT Site Works and Acquisitions from requirement gathering to design and implementation to production of VOIP platforms

Work with the Commercial and Property IT Portfolio Manager to help simplify and standardise end to end processes

Deliver projects from concept validation through closure using Primary’s approved project management and solution delivery methodologies

Prepare project plans, including scope, schedule, costs, benefits, resources, project deliverables

Engineer solutions, Monitor and control each phase and steps of project implementation

Identify and report project issues and project risks to the relevant stakeholders

Find solutions to mitigate and/or minimise project risks and other issues

Prepare and deliver project management deliverables, such as steering co packs, status reports, financial tracking, dependency and schedule tracking etc.

Manage and lead cross-functional teams in order to successfully deliver projects on time, against agreed requirements

Manage a diverse group of business and IT stakeholders along with 3rd party suppliers

Achievements

Achieved the successful launch of Google Smart Home services in record time frame.

Telstra Media - SAFe Agile Coach – Digital Solution Architect, & SAFe Agile Product / Project / Program Manager,

Partner NTT / EY

Sydney, Australia (Aug 16 – Jun17)

Consulting to provide Digital (Delivery) Services for Oakton, Dimension Data and NTT customers combined through Earnest and Young JV Channels in an agency environment.

Lead Digital and SAFe Agile Project Strategy and delivery oversight of Dimension Data and Oakton digital products for Telecommunications, Government, Automobile, Aerospace, Sports and Media clients.

Example Clients include AirNZ, FFA, NBN and ALJ Toyota.

Program Manage a series of telephony and network modernisation projects

Engineer solutions, Plan, organise, direct and control the work of other managers and directors to ensure a high-level of accuracy, consistency and integration across business in terms of advice provided or functions managed

Be accountable for planning, organising and managing allocated resources, setting work area priorities, managing complex projects and workflows, developing strategies and evaluating project and business outcomes

Achievements

Added 5 separate accounts to the existing portfolio of Dimension Data and increased revenue by $20m.

Added the Digital Solutions and SAFe Agile Program delivery framework to streamline workflow.

Telstra Media - SAFe Agile Coach - Digital – Solution Architect, SAFe Agile Project Manager, Scrum Master (Business Program Reporting, Product Owner Smart Cities), Verizon

Boston MA / Palo Alto CA, USA (Feb 16 – Jul 16)

Coordinate and Manage the Delivery of IT Site Works and Acquisitions from requirement gathering to design and implementation to production of VOIP platforms

Conduct due diligence on regular site works and acquisitions

Work with business teams and ensure IT plans are well integrated and aligned to the overall plan

Work with the Commercial and Property IT Portfolio Manager to help simplify and standardise end to end processes

Deliver projects from concept validation through closure using Primary’s approved project management and solution delivery methodologies

Prepare project plans, including scope, schedule, costs, benefits, resources, project deliverables

Monitor and control each phase and steps of project implementation

Identify and report project issues and project risks to the relevant stakeholders

Engineer solutions, Find solutions to mitigate and/or minimise project risks and other issues

Prepare and deliver project management deliverables, such as steering co packs, status reports, financial tracking, dependency and schedule tracking etc.

Manage and lead cross-functional teams in order to successfully deliver projects on time, against agreed requirements

Manage a diverse group of business and IT stakeholders along with 3rd party suppliers

Achievements

Supported the Boston City Mayor (Marty Walsh) through the delivery of Digital services and Smarter Communities POC and getting re-elected.

Telstra Media - SAFe Agile Coach - Solution Architect, Scrum / Project Manager – Business Program Reporting – Product Owner MoogSoft / IDF, Silicon Valley Bank / Cisco Systems,

San Jose CA, USA (Jan15 – Jan 16)

Establish and ensure adherence to SOX Compliance procedures for Silicon Valley Bank funded startups.

Accountable for the successful planning, delivery and implementation of JIRA projects on time, within budget and to quality, in a customer facing role responsible for coordination of all resources assigned to the project. Responsibilities include Project planning, delivery, financial management, resource management, reporting and governance.

Engineer solutions, Adept at applying project controls to 4G/LTE/5G Moogsoft including status reporting, change management, quality reviews, archiving of project documentation and identifying lessons learned. As part of National Program Management Operations group overseeing and developing a $20m small cell deployment program, I am involved in event/process evaluation to reduce cycle timeline and increase efficiency.

Achievements

Lead the Team to achieve optimum level SOX Compliance for SVB and relevant startups.

Acted as the single point of accountability for a single change project ensuring successful leadership, delivery and achievement of the change initiative benefits. Supported the building, cultivating, and managing of productive relationships with the business sponsors (Director through VP level of LOB) and initiative / program / project stakeholders to become a trusted advisor and advocate for them.

Lead the Teams at Cisco for successful delivery of Moogsoft and IDF

Telstra International - Solution Architect, SAFe Agile Coach - Program Performance / Compliance Mgr – Product Owner Small Cell PMO (National), AT&T,

San Ramon / San Jose CA, USA (Jan 13 – Jan 15)

Accountable for the successful planning, delivery and implementation of projects on time, within budget and to quality, in a customer facing role responsible for coordination of all resources assigned to the project. Responsibilities include $40m Project planning, delivery, financial management, resource management, reporting and governance.

Engineer solutions, as part of National Program Management (4G / Small Cell) Operations group overseeing and developing a small cell deployment program, I am involved in event/process evaluation to reduce cycle timeline and increase efficiency.

Liaising with internal and external parties to develop retail and marketing campaigns and plans for POS terminals.

Stakeholder Management - convening, attending, presenting at regular forums with business leaders and channel representatives to engage business in change adoption priorities

Achievements

Delivered the full end-end life-cycle management of multiple software (SAFe Agile/SDLC/rally), LAN/WAN and hardware deployment (Waterfall/RUP) projects involving site acquisition, data/Big Data/JDE load, Operations, reporting and building intelligence for asset management.

Telstra, Deployment Operations Manager, Solution Architect, Product / Project (National E2E),

Sydney, Australia (Dec 11 – Dec 12)

(Enterprise Architecture Design, Integration and Network Operations)

Responsible for delivering mobile network project needs while dealing with competing priorities and resource constraints.

This was for both natural and project based growth of Telstra Mobile network in 3G, 4G & LTE RAN LAN, WAN and extended Transmission, keeping network impact to a minimum and controlling CAPEX. Implement ERP systems with an emphasis on Finance, Order to Cash, Supply Chain and BI Business functions.

Stakeholder Management - convening, attending, presenting at regular forums with business leaders and channel representatives to engage business in change adoption priorities

Engineer solutions, Directing Analysis - working with channel leads and program BAs to review and validate audiences, change impacts, training needs, support model (triage) data to ensure change execution is aligning with change need

Achievements

Delivered the full end-end life-cycle management of multiple $10m software (SAFe Agile/SDLC/rally), LAN/WAN and hardware deployment (Waterfall/RUP) projects involving site acquisition, data/Big Data/JDE load, Operations, reporting and building intelligence for asset management.

Telstra, Solution Architect, Project Delivery Lead / Product Manager,

VHA JV, Australia (Jul 07 – Nov 11)

(Enterprise Architecture Design, Integration and Network Operations)

Engineer solutions, Project managed existing and new managed service(s) projects end to end (E2E) on Vodafone sites and services according to policies and guidelines and maintains QoS. Achieve milestones for efficient site delivery and acceptance. Technically governed live Network changes and dynamically support all groups involved. Forecast budget and resource requirements to meet stringent project time frames.

Conducted peer training and perform business meetings nationally and internationally amongst all stake holders. Provided change recommendations on existing and new hardware and software OS.

Stakeholder Management - convening, attending, presenting at regular forums with business leaders and channel representatives to engage business in change adoption priorities

Directing Analysis - working with channel leads and program BAs to review and validate audiences, change impacts, training needs, support model (triage) data to ensure change execution is aligning with change need

Achievements

Delivered the full end-end life-cycle management of multiple software (SAFe Agile/SDLC/rally), LAN/WAN and hardware deployment (Waterfall/RUP) projects involving site acquisition, data/bigdata//JDE load, Operations, reporting and building intelligence for asset management.

Telstra, Network Deployment Consultant, Solution Architect, Design & Operations,

SingTel Optus JV,

Australia (Sep 06 – Jun 07)

(Enterprise Architecture Design, Integration and Network Operations)

Responsible for performing changes to the Optus 3G network whilst ensuring software/hardware changes are performed in a controlled manner using appropriate mobile network Infrastructure procedures.

Provided Back-End Configuration, Fault Handling and Support to NMC for all switches, BTS, RNC, transmission and Core Network and provide efficient problem resolution according to SLA. Integration and configuration responsibility of MGW and HLR within existing network and new topology. Configured and supported Core Switches, RNC, BSC and transmission equipment

Stakeholder Management - convening, attending, presenting at regular forums with business leaders and channel representatives to engage business in change adoption priorities

Directing Analysis - working with channel leads and program BAs to review and validate audiences, change impacts, training needs, support model (triage) data to ensure change execution is aligning with change need

Achievements

Provisioned increased capacity for HSPA. Integrated and test with Vodafone network and provide technical recommendations. Design and provide planning recommendations for existing links and future expansions. Mapped the configuration of transmission equipment and end-end fault testing and resolution with field engineering.

Telstra (Hutchison JV), Change Analyst,

Sydney, Australia (Jan 05 - Sep 06)

(Enterprise Architecture Design, Integration and Network Operations)

Successfully managed upgrades on Telstra’s existing GSM and CDMA network to 3G, one of the biggest joint venture and network upgrades in the Global Telecommunications Market. The change manager was responsible to process, commissioning and monitor the changes to ensure the Base Station Deployment according to Ericsson’s Methods of Procedures, Service Level Agreements and stringent guidelines from Telstra NOC.

Managed projects and change requests for planned work on RBS, Ericsson and Nortel commissioning of Radio Base Stations and transmission equipment, conduct site surveys and perform non-Conformance reports.

Stakeholder Management - convening, attending, presenting at regular forums with business leaders and channel representatives to engage business in change adoption priorities

Achievements

Designed and monitored Core Network Component installations and manage deployment of Alcatel IN modules. Monitor, track, record and report on work progress for multiple projects and activities simultaneously based on demand generation initiatives by mobility customers.

EXPERTISE

Change Strategy

Management Development

Change Management

Stakeholder Management

Communications Management

Team Leadership

Impact Assessment

Training Design and Development

Training Delivery

Workshop Facilitation

TECHNOLOGY MATRIX

Telecoms

IT

Digital

RAN

Managed Services & Advisory

Azure

Transmission

Core

Network Management

Financial Services Compliance

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

Financial Services

Utilities

Silicon Valley Bank

Bank of America

CBA

Westpac

AGL

Energy Australia

ICT

Mining, Resources & Infrastructure

Google

Telstra

Cisco

Verizon

AT&T

BHP

Rio Tinto

Fortescue

State & Federal Government

Gaming

Digital Transformation Agency

Department of Transportation CA

Australian Taxation Office

FFA

AFL

Defence & National Security

Transport

US Marine Corps

Australian Defence Force Academy

Department of Transportation NSW

Health

Fast Moving Consumer Goods

Medibank

Medicare

Dairy Farmers

Cadbury Schweppes

CERTIFICATIONS

Trained Product Owner

Trained ITIL and ITSM expert

Trained Product Owner

Certified Program Manager

Certified Scrum Master, SAFe Agile Coach, Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt

Delivery Methods: WaterFall/RUP, SCRUM, Kanban; SAFE (SPC), DAD, LESS

ENGINEERING AUTHORITIES

+ Institution of Engineers Australia

AFFILIATIONS

+ Intellectual Property, Stanford

+ Entrepreneurship, Wharton School of Business

+ Bank of America, Compliance

SECURITY CLEARANCES

Police Check (several, 2017, 2019)

Background Check (several, 2017, 2019)

AIC, ASIC (2019)

ATC, Gate 18 Site Specific Checks (2019)

Baseline (TBC)

EXPERIENCE

Demonstrated capabilities in full turnkey Project Management: Design, Automation, Site Acquisition, Environmental and Civil Works and Integration as follows:

Experienced in a project management capacity for large technology deployment, including all aspects of process development and execution

Strong leadership or people management experience

Knowledge on finance, contract and subcontractor management

Australian SAED (Site Acquisition, Environmental and Design) experience

Strong understanding of Occupational Health and Safety and risks to people and property as applied to the working environment.

INDUSTRIES

Digital, IT, Telecom, Aerospace, Automobile, Strategy, Financial, Marketing

PUBLICATIONS

Articles

Sarwar, A., Li, B. & Dempster, A. (2009), ‘SPOT in Location Based Emergency Services, LBES, Detailed Analysis’, IGNSS Symposium, 1 – 3 Dec, 2009

Sarwar, A., Li, B. & Dempster, A. (2009), ‘All-Scenario Health Monitoring Intelligent (Multiple Assisted GNSS) Positioning System’, IGNSS Symposium, 1 – 3 Dec, 2009

Sarwar, A., Glennon, E. & Rizos, C. (2011), ‘Proposing a Multi-GNSS Assisted GNSS-Concept and Performance’, IGNSS Symposium, 15-17 Nov 2011

Sarwar, A., Glennon, E. & Rizos, C. (2011), ‘Test results of a Wireless Sensor Networks Assisted GNSS’, IGNSS Symposium, 15-17 Nov 2011

Sarwar, A., Glennon, E & Rizos, C (2012), ‘Performance of High Sensitivity Open Source Multi-GNSS Assisted GNSS’, Journal of Applied Geodesy, Dec 2012

Sarwar, A., Glennon, E. & Rizos, C. (2012), ‘RRLP (LPP and LPPe) Based Open Source Mobile Multi-GNSS Assisted GNSS Assistance Model’, IPIN, 13-15 Nov 2012

Sarwar, A., & Li B., (2012), ‘SPOT GNSS in Emergency and Location Based Services’, Dec 2012 issue, Journal of GPS

Sarwar A., (2012), ‘Mobile (Operators, Platforms and GNSS), Technology Dynamics and Industry Economics’, pp35-36, Coordinates, Jun 2012

Sarwar, A., Glennon, E. & Rizos, C. (2013), ‘Cooperative Wireless Sensor Nodes based Acquisition for Mobile Location Services (MLoC)’, IGNSS Symposium, 16-18 Jul 2013

Sarwar, A., Rizos, C., (2013), ‘Architecture Proposal of OSGRSv4 following the Convergence of Mobile Network Infrastructure’, IGNSS Symposium, 16-18 Jul 2013

Sarwar, A., (2013), ‘Performance Characteristics of LPP/e over OSGRSv3 in Weak Signal Environments Pertinent to GNSS Network Latency and Data Processing’, JoGPS, 2013

Sarwar, A., (2013), ‘Performance of Location Determination Techniques in Weak Signal Environments employing Reference Server, Caster, Cellular and Sensor Networks and Multiple Assisted Global Navigation Satellite Systems’, NLA, 2014.

Sarwar A., (2014), ‘Assimilation of Wide Area Cumulative Fingerprinting mechanism of Wireless Sensor Networks enabled Multiple Assisted Global Navigation Satellite System Server’, IPIN, 2014

Presentations

Conference on Global Positioning Systems and Global Navigation Satellite Systems, 2009

Symposium on Global Navigation Satellite Systems, 2011

Journal of Applied Geodesy, 2012

Journal of Global Positioning, 2012

Coordinates Magazine, 2012

AWARDS

CIO AGILITY AWARD FOR AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND TRAINER PIONEER

NOKIA LEAD ARCHITECT AND TRAINER

ERICSSON, HUAWEI AND SIAE TRAINER

TOOLS

PROJECT MANAGEMENT: ATLASSIAN JIRA, CONFLUENCE, MS PROJECT PROFESSIONAL, MS VISIO, ADOBE ACROBAT

OFFICE HAND: MS OFFICE PROFESSIONAL (WORD, EXCEL, POWERPOINT, FRONTPAGE), OPEN-OFFICE

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS: CITRIX METAFRAME, VIRTUAL PC

MULTIMEDIA: ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, HTML, FLASH

DRAWING: AUTOCAD, MS VISIO

REMOTE: LOGMEIN, PCANYWHERE

LANGUAGES

English

CASE STUDIES - HIGH PROFILE CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS

Silicon Valley Bank

IT Compliance Program

& AT&T Small Cell

Change Manager

Scrum Master

Program Manager

Enterprise Architect

Ali was tasked to establish and ensure adherence to SOX Compliance and associated procedures for Silicon Valley Bank, its systems and its funded startups. He was made accountable for the successful planning, delivery and implementation of SAFe Agile projects on time, within budget and to quality, in a customer facing role responsible for coordination of all resources assigned to the project. Responsibilities include Project planning, delivery, financial management, resource management, reporting and governance. As part of National Program Management Operations group overseeing and developing a $20mil small cell deployment program, he was involved in the event/process evaluation to reduce cycle timeline and increase efficiency. He led the team to achieve optimum level SOX Compliance for SVB and relevant startups while minimizing the risk. Supported the building, cultivating, and managing of productive relationships with the business sponsors (Director through VP level of LOB) and initiative / program / project stakeholders to become a trusted advisor and advocate for them. He successfully delivered ground breaking products such as Moogsoft and IDF powered by Cisco. Similary he was compliance managing the $40m AT&T small cell deployment for a variety of high profile customers, such as GMC, TESLA, KAISER and NASA.

Medibank Health Solutions

Workplace Health

Scrum Master

Enterprise Architect

Medibank offers a broad range of specialist clinical services to employers to help them effectively manage the occupational health of their workforce. Medibank recently embarked on a program to develop a nationally consistent service model. Ali worked closely with senior clinical and operational stakeholders to define the national service offering as well as the administrative, minimum risk and operational processes to support delivery.

Google – Smart Home, Google Fiber and Verizon – Smart Cities

Scrum Master

Solution Architect

Google Smart Home Project Management Office approached SMS for assistance in determining their way to improving project delivery and benefits realisation through enhanced change management and deployment capability. Ali customised a change management maturity assessment model, questionnaire set and method to engage a range of stakeholders, determine maturity across process, people, structure and tools / technology. From this he created a flexible implementation plan to help raise development and deployment management capability with Group ICT and beyond. He was responsible to advise and deliver excellence in knowledge of the infrastructure stack and software features. He accomplished the delivery with patience and tenacity (in a dubious environment) to complete a tasks despite various difficulties with environment availability. He lead the team with a proactive minimal risk approach to further testing requests and results analysis to satisfy operational stakeholders and capacity managers by taking full ownership of results, full sign-off and achieving acceptance hence achieving good business results.

Telstra – Change and Communications Manager

Scrum Master – Prg Manager

Solution Architect

Telstra took the decision to transition part of its Group ICT function to a local outsource partner. Ali was engaged to assist the transition 3G, 4G and 5G program to plan and then execute change, communications and education activities. After the transition was successfully in place, Ali was invited to return to assist with change and communications on the Service Improvement Program and also to assist the CIO with a Team Planning Day to help develop operational plans as well as to develop their value proposition.

ATO (APSC) – Delivery and Implementation Manager - ESR

Scrum Master

SAFe Agile Coach

Product Owner

Enterprise Architect

ATO decided to adopt SAFe Agile and Transition its External Service Registry Group in EST branch to a combined SAFe Agile PMO Framework. Ali was engaged to assist the End to End transition program to plan and then execute change, communications and education activities. Ali not only functioned as ESR product owner (the heart of all ATO products) but also managed the combined backlog for the whole branch. IBM was tasked with assisting in auditing and compliance process to achieve the desired outcomes. After the transition was successfully in place, Ali was invited to return to assist with change and communications on the ITIL Service Improvement Program and also to assist the CIO with a Team Planning Day to help develop operational plans as well as to develop their value proposition. Also been part of the APSC taskforce to synergize the agile workforce requirements and obligations through steering committee and policy making. During this transition, Ali assisted ATO and APSC to successfully establish the Single Touch Payroll (STP) systems and overhauled the software development and coding practices for the individual, banking and auditing clients.

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