Profile

A Senior IT Leader with over ** years of progressive experience, with proven track record of leading complex large scale strategic IT projects and programs in Canada and across the Middle East and North Africa Region. Innovative and ambitious, readily accepts challenges in leading complex large-scale strategic IT projects. Combines vision with an analytical fortitude, renowned for patiently and methodically working to eliminate hindrances and advance technology utilization. Instigator of action thrives in a stressful and demanding environment, rallies and excites the team seeking input from specialists, creating a basis for collaborative decision making. Enthusiastic and engaging communicator and avid listener, simplifies technical jargon adapting message to the target audience.

Core business competencies include:

Program Management Budget P&L Project Management

Enterprise Architecture IT Security & Governance IT Outsourcing

Cloud Strategy & Implementation Lean Six Sigma Risk Management

Process Improvement Change Management Business Analysis

Vendor Management IT M&A Digital Transformation

ITIL Block chain Strategic Planning

Professional Experience

Senior Director

iNSolutions Inc. Ottawa, Canada

March 2018 – Present

As the Senior Director & principal consultant of the boutique consulting firm, led multiple project/program management and digital transformation engagements for Canadian Federal Government and Crown Corporation Clients.

Engagements:

Health Canada.

Information Management Service Directorate (IMSD) is responsible for design, development, deployment, and maintenance of various applications for Federal Department. As a part of the Digital Transformation initiative, as Project Management consultant and Technology Advisor to Executive Director, the scope this engagement are to develop the Cloud Migration Strategy for Health Canada IMSD, Perform application readiness assessment for Azure cloud and to standardize and provide a roadmap to optimize the Enterprise Architecture processes, governances and procedures

Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada.

As a Project Management consultant, worked on the Federal Department Infrastructure Modernization initiative, the scope of the project was to migrate AAFC‘s scientific devices throughout Canada from legacy platform and to ensure all mission critical applications related to these specialized scientific devices are tested, migrated and operational as per the new policy.

Export Development Canada (EDC)

Export Development Canada is Canada's export credit agency wholly owned by the Government of Canada. Its mandate is to support and develop and help Canada's competitiveness in the international marketplace. As a Advisor for the technology team, led the development and establishment of technology vendor management governance processes, and standards and procedures for EDC’s “Standing Offer” initiative to comply with Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) between EU and Canada. Deliverables included developing standards, guidelines and systems stakeholders to leverage technology procurement, overseeing vendor selection and performance, demand and demand, contract management, critical analysis of deals to ensure all in compliance with CETA regulations.

Director,

PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada, Toronto, ON.

Jan ’17 to Jul ‘17

As a Director of PwC’s IT Advisory Practice, formulated and managed the Project Management Office (PMO) for Microsoft Dynamics AX and Dynamics 365 Enterprise Application / ERP implementation, to provide project management leadership, expertise, resources, tools and methodologies to enable projects to be executed and delivered successfully.

Engaged with the business leadership to understand business objectives and strategy and determine technology gaps

Evaluated key industry and technology trends and provide thought leadership to the enterprise.

Provided architectural vision to appropriately aligned Client’s IT to strategic business needs and goals

Developed Strategy for Business, Data, Applications, Infrastructure and Information architectures; align with client’s roadmap

Developed and updated the OLA, SLA, MDM Procedures and Processes in line with the roadmap

Drove client satisfaction through delivery excellence, delivery resource development, direction and guidance

Collaborated with other services leadership to deliver on business goals aligned to customer outcomes, financial management of delivery portfolio.

As a team leader, responsible for building a high-performing and sustainable delivery practice focused on customer success by generating a vision, establishing direction and motivating members by creating an atmosphere of trust, leveraging diverse views, coaching staff, and encouraging improvement and innovation

Managed areas of fiscal responsibility, staying within budget, and effectively staffing, and managing resources

Responsible for leading and managing multiple complex concurrent IT projects within a professional services environment. Prepared and presented complex written and verbal materials; and defined resource requirements, project workflow, and budgets.

Head of Program Management Office

PrimeChoice.com, Ottawa, ON.

Jan ‘16 to Dec ’16

●Reporting to the CEO of the ecommerce startup, mandated to provide leadership to digital transformation initiate and to establish and manage the IT project/program management office to efficiently and effectively deploy strategic objective by fostering project/program portfolio and architecture governance.

●Provided advice to management on Technology operations i.e. Incident Management, SLA, BCP, DR and IT Security.

●Engaged and led diverse, cross-functional teams comprised of internal resources, vendors, executives, and stakeholders to design systems, implement process improvements and set PM quality standards to establish and maintain a Center of Service Excellence.

●Provided leadership and guidance to the IT team with respect to technical specifications, application design and function to provide the best service experience online.

Major Accomplishment

• NetSuite ERP and Suite Commerce Advance Application implementation to unify business applications and to provide a streamlined centralized e-commerce platform for order management and CRM, inventory management, create seamless, Omni channel, brand experiences.

●Implemented DevOps, Agile methodologies as well as Gits, Jira and Jenkins to increase efficiency in TTM for product development and deployment.

Head of IT PMO

MAF Group, Dubai, U.A.E.

May ‘08 to Oct ’15

●Responsible for implementing and managing the IT PMO with annual CAPEX of $38m centered on delivering strategic IT solutions.

●Developed and maintained the governance framework and oversaw the approvals process across the program/project delivery.

●As the IT PMO Leader, prioritized and assigned projects to the team and formulated strategies to ensure the successful implementation of designed business solutions through efficient utilization of resources and consistent interpretation and application of the project management methodology.

●Established departmental goals, objectives, operating procedures and KPIs.

●Reviewed all program portfolio status, assessed risk to timeline, budget, and delivery quality as well as negotiated change requests as necessary to achieve objectives and timelines.

●Monitored of strategic level risks which may pose a threat to business operations and ensured that actions can be clearly identified, tracked and executed to suitably mitigate risks.

●Partnered with the CxO and business leaders to develop the vision and strategy of the service and application support ensuring they are aligned with the corporate goals and strategies.

●Partnered with Information Security, Infrastructure/Engineering and Technology Initiatives to ensure technology deployments and department procedures are in alignment with ITIL best practices

●As the Senior Program Manager, led all phases and components of the PMLC of large complex projects and programs with budgets ranging from $15m - $25m and up to 25 reports.

●Provided leadership to continuous improvement the of the staff, equipment, and procedures to maintain pace with technological progress, economic change, and business needs by fostering process improvements to achieve higher CMM standard through adoption of ITIL processes.

●Standardized and Implemented strategic sourcing process (RFI/RFQ/RFI), vendor/solution evaluation and SLA. Also negotiated contracts & SLA with vendors for hardware or services to support the IT operations and projects.

Major Initiatives

• Reporting to the CISO and VP IT of MAF Group, responsible for MAF’s ~$8m Cyber Security Enhancement Program to secure IT Infrastructure for All MAF Business Units & Remote sites. The scope of the initiative was to lead multiple programs to implement IT Security policies, standards, and ongoing security monitoring procedures within the organization. Scope of the programs included to identify the gaps in the IT landscape through Penetration testing and vulnerability assessment. Implement remediation through hardening Perimeter Firewall, FWSM on Core Switches, Remote Site Firewalls, Core Switches, Routers, IPS/IDSMs, ACS, Wireless Controllers, Distribution Switches, Servers, Corporate websites, Initiating Encryption and Identity and Access Control for MAF Corporate Systems.

• Led the ~$1.5m Business Transformation initiative to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R2 ERP for MAF Ventures LLC and its entities in multiple verticals i.e. Cinemas, Unique Theme Parks, Family Entertainment Centers, Fashion, Specialty retail Stores, Finance, Facilities Management, Health Care and F&B. Scope of the initiative included programs for solution & vendor selection through RFI/RFP process, Contract negotiation and deploying financial & Consolidation modules for 80 legal entities, 50 transactional entities and 30 Consolidation entities, data migration from legacy systems such as Persis and JDE. Additional programs included POS implementation in 53 retail stores in 7 countries as well as to integrate multiple vertical specific applications with the ERP. As a part of the HRIS/HCM transformation program, led the Implementation of Adrenalin HCM application for 1458 users. Scope of the program was implemented Core HCM module, Payroll, Leave management, Talent management and succession planning. Scope also included to integrate Adrenalin with MS Dynamics AX 2012 ERP application.

As part of the Digital Transformation initiative, designed, developed, and executed programs to implement Systems, Process and Governance for Data Analytics. Scope of the programs were to implement MDM, Data Cleansing, Creating Data Mart, and Data warehouse.

• As a part of M&A Program, led the Implementation of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 ERP and LS Retail across 3 brands with multiple retail outlets, 4 warehouses and integration with other existing Business applications to ensure the consolidation of all transaction in Dynamics NAV.

• Using the Agile Methodology, as Program Manager Initiated RFP process, selected and engaged venders to launch MAF Leisure & Entertainment’s ~$500k initiative for eTicketing portal for 9 brands that included Ski Dubai, PlayNation, Wahooo and Magic Planet. Scope of the program included working with onsite & offsite development model to lead a multifunctional team with 6 project managers and teams of developers in multiple countries to design, develop and to deploy e-commerce application and to integrate with OMNITicket systems, EMBED Debit/ Loyalty Card System, Galaxy system, Waldhart system and MiGS payment gateway.

• Reporting to the CEO of MAF Financial Services, implemented ~$10m end to end IT solution for Najm-JCB Credit Card. Working with internal multifunctional team and external vendor, implemented AppSmart”, collection tracking system “CWX”, application tracking solution “Tracksoft”, and “SAS” for Analytics; scope of the project included hardware and solution implementation and integration with VisionPlus and launch JCB Online Portal, UAT and training, Business Impact assessment, BCP, DRP and SLA negotiation and to ensure that architecture and security governances complied with PCI standards.

• Reporting to the CFO of MAFAM, implemented ~ $3m Sophis Portfolio Management system solution for MAF Asset Management (MAFAM) LLC. Working with multifunctional team, scope of the program included hardware and application implementation in a Tier 3 Data Center and integration with Bloomberg and Reuters services, UAT and training, Business Impact assessment, BCP, DRP and SLA negotiation. Project scope also included data migration from Advant’s Axys system. Ensured program met the requirements of DIFC & UK standards, policy and procedures; and all necessary risk assessments and risk assessment processes are carried out at the appropriate time including Architecture Governance, Security Threat Risk Assessment, and Operational Gating.

• As the IT Program Manager, led the ~$12m expansion initiative to new territories for MAF family Entertainment Center Brand "Magic Planet" to 4 locations in UAE; Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt; in Amman Jordan; Beirut Lebanon and in Bahrain. Engaging local vendor, deployed Tier 2 data centers with HP hardware and CISCO, VMWare ESX based virtualized IT Infrastructures and implement POS, EMBED Debit/ Loyalty Card System & IoT devices, SCCM in the environment.

• Led the implementation of ~$200k MS-Dynamics AX 2012 R2 ERP and deployment of AX Retails system and Tier 2 Data center, HP hardware and CISCO based IT Infrastructures for the first ever “LEGO” band launch in the Middle East.

• Implemented ~$1.2m Galaxy Counterpoint Ticketing solution in “Wahooo! Water Park” in Bahrain. Scope of the program included selecting and engaging vendors through RFP, RFQ and implementing the solution and a proper IT infrastructure based on HP and CISCO to accommodate the solution that would meet the functional requirements to ensure smooth operation for the water park.

• Working as the M&A Program Manager for the Infrastructure Optimization initiative, led the ~$350k program to implementation of CISCO DMVPN infrastructure throughout 14 locations in UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon to consolidate the IT Infrastructure to build Edge cloud accommodating voice and data and eliminating MPLS links thus resulting in savings in OPEX. Scope also included migrating existing applications to Microsoft Azure Cloud and implement Microsoft 365, Outlook for 1458 users.

Senior Project Manager

Bell Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

March ‘04 to May’08

Using Six Sigma’s DMAIC/DMADV and PMI methodology, responsible for multiple projects delivery throughout their development lifecycle from Concept to Production. Developed and executed Project Plans as new projects were identified, including establishment of proper PID, BRD, WBS, Schedule, Risk Management plan, and Communication plan and managed delivery expectations from both the business and technical perspectives. Chaired regular meetings to ensure that projects were on schedule, initial and ongoing project risks were identified and mitigated As well as presented project status reported to stakeholders and management on a weekly basis.

Major Projects

• Managed the deployment and integration of $1.5m Enterprise Application “Smart Call” technology.

• Using DMAIC methodology and using data from OrderMAX, ODS,Tapestry, BCRIS, PSQT,IPAIRS and Remedy ARS, initiated “FCR” projects as a part of the process improvement projects for the Bell Canada Consumer Contact Centers that resulted in $32m in overall savings.

• Implemented $600K Verint’s Real-time Ultra Call recording/Monitoring Technology, Speech to Text Technology throughout Bell Canada’s Enterprise Voice & Data Infrastructure and Symposium ACD/PBX system in Bell Canada’s Consumer Contact Centers in Quebec. Working with multifunctional teams of 28, responsibilities included integrating Multiple SAM, VAM, SAN and EBRS.

• As a project Manager working with team of 4, Initiated $250k Virtual Fax project for Bell Mobility, the Cellular Division with Protus IP solutions to streamline and centralize the existing process for Wireless Consumers.

• As a project manager, managed a team of 9 to implement $300k virtual tutorial service through SOS live Coach Inc. for Bell Sympatico, the Consumer Internet Division; that increased CVI, VAS sales and reduced operating cost.

• Managed on the multi-million dollars (~$5m) Bell Canada initiative to outsource Internet Call Centers that is estimated to deliver a cost benefit savings of over $12m dollars. Working Vendor management guidelines, responsibilities included development of Project Plan, transition plan, implementation plan and DRP.

• Initiated various xDSL CPE product projects that included identifying CPE product defects and to develop and deploy the updated firmware. Also, streamlined CPE product recovery process.

• Initiated $100k project to optimize the iTV programming on Bell Express Vu, the Satellite division.

Sr. Technical Support Specialist/ Software Tester

Bell Canada Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

April’99 to March’04

Data Analyst, Ontario Rental Tribunal, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Feb’98 to Nov ‘98

Education

Systems Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA (2012)

Global Strategic Management, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA (2012)

Applied Information Technology Diploma, Toronto School of Business, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (2000)

University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (1995-1997)

Certification(s)

• ITIL Certified. (OGC)

• Certified Enterprise Architect: TOGAF 9 Certified (OpenGroup)

• COBIT Certified. (ISACA)

• Lean Six Sigma (Bell Canada).

• Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Training.

• “Essentials of ISO 27001:2005” Certification (BSi)

• PMP training.

• Currently awaiting CBCI certification from Business Continuity Institute. (BCI)

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