Continuous Improvement Portfolio Management
Resume:
Jonathan Niekerk
********.*******@*****.***
Seasoned IT management professional with over 15 years of experience in managing complex portfolios, programs, and projects across diverse industries. Proven expertise in Agile delivery, Lean Portfolio Management, and governance frameworks. Adept at aligning portfolios with strategic business objectives, managing stakeholder relationships, and driving continuous improvement. Strong leadership skills with a track record of leading cross- functional teams, managing risks, and delivering high-quality outcomes within budget and timelines. Core Competencies
Portfolio Management & Governance
Agile Delivery (Scrum, Kanban, Lean)
Stakeholder Engagement & Communication
Risk Management & Mitigation
Benefit Case Definition & Tracking
IT Service Management (ITIL Certified)
Contract & Vendor Management
Team Leadership & Capacity Planning
Project Management Tools (Jira, Confluence, MS Project)
Strategic Planning & Execution
Professional Experience
Livescore Group
Software Delivery Manager
2023 (Aug) – 2024 (Dec)
Managed a portfolio of IT projects, ensuring alignment with strategic business objectives and delivering high-quality outcomes.
Led Agile ceremonies (sprint planning, daily stand-ups, retrospectives) to drive continuous improvement and ensure project success.
Acted as the central point of contact for stakeholders, managing expectations and resolving impediments to ensure smooth project delivery.
Implemented governance frameworks to monitor project execution quality and ensure adherence to stage gates.
Facilitated benefit tracking and reporting, ensuring alignment with corporate and IT strategic roadmaps. Ecentric Payment Solutions
Senior IT Delivery Manager
2020 (Jun) – 2023 (Jul)
Oversaw a portfolio of IT service delivery initiatives, ensuring alignment with business goals and successful delivery of product features.
Defined and maintained governance frameworks, including incident, problem, change, and release management processes.
Managed stakeholder life cycles, ensuring clear communication and alignment between business needs and technology delivery.
Identified and mitigated portfolio risks, ensuring minimal disruption to operations and maintaining service stability.
Led cross-functional teams, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement. Sanlam
IT Technical Transition Consultant (contract)
2019 (Sep) – 2020 (May)
Assigned to a business change program, working with the in-house IT team facilitating the group technology deliverables and support functions to deliver against the program mandate and milestones. Oxford University Press Southern Africa
IT Business Partner – (responsible for Africa business) (contract) 2018 – 2019 (Jul)
Aligned regional technology projects with global ICT strategies, ensuring achievement of milestones and strategic objectives.
Managed outsourced IT operations, ensuring adherence to SLAs and budgets while driving regional technology initiatives.
Established and maintained strong stakeholder relationships, ensuring alignment between business and technology goals.
Developed and managed regional IT budgets, ensuring expenses were within limits and driving cost-effective solutions.
Led the annual IT audit process, implementing mitigation actions to address identified risks. Old Mutual South Africa 2011 - 2017
IT Manager
● Responsible for a divisional Information Technology service and support capability, ensuring alignment of the technology capacity to business demand.
● Information Technology team management, including working with key internal teams and external service providers to deliver robust solutions.
● Create and maintain solutions delivery roadmap in line with the department’s needs.
● Ensure technology services are aligned to and adheres to the relevant best practice procedures and policies.
● Manage the sizing, scoping and implementation of change initiatives.
● Manage project and system dependencies throughout the planning, implementation and support stages;
● Signing off of all project management milestones for key IT projects.
● Manage the day to day operations of the department, ensuring that planning, end-user impact, change and release management, training, quality management is properly addressed and monitored to ensure that deadlines, budgets and service levels are met.
● Manage the relationships with (and between) external suppliers, ensuring contracts and service levels are negotiated in line with business aims and financial constraints and ongoing service is in-line with agreed contracts and business expectations.
● Manage the department budget, review and prioritise all information technology spend, including the replacement cycle of information technology hardware, licenses and software.
● Manage the continuous skills development of the team of business analysts, developers, support functions and testers.
● Recruit appropriately ensuring that capacity proactively meets demand.
● Maintain the major incident & business continuity plan for the service and to implement measures designed to safeguard the information technology needs of the portfolio. JP Morgan South Africa 2010 - 2011
IT Service Manager (contract)
Defined and implemented IT service management governance processes, including incident, problem, change, and release management.
Managed the change journey, ensuring stakeholder adoption of quality and service management frameworks.
Produced management information reports and presented SLA performance metrics to senior leadership.
Chaired weekly change advisory board meetings, ensuring all releases followed the ITIL release lifecycle. T Systems South Africa 2006 - 2010
Senior IT Change and Release Manager
● Managed the Change, Release and Configuration Management processes, following the ITIL framework for all managed accounts.
● Assess the impact and risk of all change requests to ensure there is no negative effect on any production services.
● Determine the severity of all changes and assign the change requests accordingly.
● Ensure that all releases follow the full ITIL release lifecycle.
● Ownership of the release schedule, ensuring that all releases are completed within the agreed SLA period.
● Facilitate weekly meetings with both Service Delivery, Service Support Managers and Project managers to discuss the implementation of current and future projects.
● Produce required management information reports and present to senior management, including SLA reports with recommended actions.
● Owned the Forward Schedule of Change Calendar (Release Schedule).
● Chairing weekly change advisory board meetings.
● Define and maintain the Change, Release and Configuration management process and documentation.
● Ensured a review of implemented processes ensuring continual service improvements is undertaken.
● Contribute to the annual IT audit and taking ownership of any identified remedial actions Woolworths 1991 - 2006
IT Operations Team Leader
Supervised a 24/7 data processing and network center, ensuring the availability of online systems and network infrastructure.
Led a team of 32 full-time staff and 3 contractors, focusing on coaching, development, and process improvement.
Collaborated with vendors and application development teams to deliver robust solutions. Education
● Associate in Management – University of Cape Town 2005
● Contracts and SLA’ – Astro Tech 2015
● Leadership Development Program – Harvard Management Mentor 2014
● Governance Ethics and Risks – Rand Afrikaans University (eDegree) 2012
● ITIL Version III – Foster Melliar 2009
● ITIL Version II – Foster Melliar 2005
● Exceptional Leadership: Leading at a Higher Level - Udemy 2023
● Advanced Agile Project Management - Udemy 2023
Technical Skills
Project Management Tools: Jira, Confluence, MS Project
Agile Methodologies: Scrum, Kanban, Lean
IT Service Management: ITIL Framework
Portfolio Management & Governance
Risk Management & Mitigation
Stakeholder Management & Communication
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