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Manager Management

Location:
Madison, WI, 53716
Salary:
$90 P/h
Posted:
May 03, 2012

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Resume:

SUMMARY

Highly motivated Project Manager, Program Manager and Solutions, Design and Development Architect with over twenty years experience of well established, strong and productive leadership in the development of software systems, infrastructure and multi-tiered technology web site design. Especially skilled in the development of specific systems and extensive applications as well as managing and directing teams of multi-disciplined staff in high level multi-million dollar capital investment programs. Excellent client negotiations providing productive solutions and centralised user support functions both nationally and internationally.

Extensive project management skills, responsible for delivering multi-million dollar capital investment programs; including the provision of outsourcing services and management of a Data Center. Managed full relocation of a central head office and Data Center on several occasions, on time and on budget and with minimal disruption to services. As operations manager, provided a centralised user support function to clients in multiple countries worldwide.

PROFESSIONAL OVERVIEW

Effective business leader and manager.

Recognised as a business leader who enjoys inspiring others to greater performance and building confidence through mentoring, coaching and training. Able to influence key stakeholders to achieve a common goal and skilled in managing teams of multi-disciplined staff to achieve desired performance outcomes and objectives.

Project Management, Delivery and Client Services

Extensive project management skills, responsible for delivering multi-million dollar capital investment programs; including the provision of outsourcing services and management of a Data Centre. Managed full relocation of a central head office and Data Centre on several occasions, on time and on budget and with minimal disruption to services. As operations manager, provided a centralised user support function to clients in multiple countries worldwide.

Directing IT Business Infrastructure and Strategy

Commercially astute program manager with extensive experience in providing strategic leadership and hands-on leadership in the development of software systems and infrastructure. Exposure has been gained across a number of industries including Banking & Finance, Manufacturing and Transport & Distribution.

Architecture/Solutions Design and Development

Skilled in the development of systems and applications to enhance internal systems and for the rollout of client side solutions. Assignments have included an $8 million windows application design for Southpac Finance Systems, multi-tiered latest technology web site design using C#/.NET/AJAX/ASP.NET and the development of a new windows based GUI application for Numeric Computer Systems Australia.

BUSINESS EXPERTISE

• IT Planning and Strategy • Project Management and Delivery

• Solutions/Infrastructure Architecture • Consultative Business Needs Investigations

• Evaluating and Appraising Systems • Stakeholder relationship management

• Risk Management and Compliance • Quality Assurance Testing

• Process Reengineering and Implementations • P&L performance, budgeting and forecasting

• Feasibility / Capital investment reviews • Process Management/Asset Plans

• Facilitating and leading training • Staff leadership and development

• Client Services and Helpdesk • Virtualisation expertise

• Business Development • Pre/Post Sales

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

The PGC Group – January 2010 - Present

Role: Solutions Architect

The PGC Group is a US based consulting company. They contract my services out to various clients. Listed below are the contracts that I have been assigned to. As a solution Architect I have been provided services for Virtualization, Change Management, infrastructure Management, Project Management and many more, to both the Government and Private sector

Department of Child and Families – September 2011 – Present {Contract from The PGC Group}

Role: Infrastructure Project/Program/Implementation/Deployment Manager

The Department of Child and Families is part of the state of Wisconsin in the USA. It was formed around 2008. The goal was to build a completely new centralised infrastructure for the department by the end of 2010 using Cloud computing with the aim of having a 100% Virtualized environment. DCF has over 1200 staff across the state of Wisconsin.

EMC and the State of Missouri – July 2011 – September 2011 {Contract from The PGC Group}

Role: Solution Architect

EMC were contracted to the State of Missouri to Implement a VCE VBlock and run a pilot project to move 100 users to a VDI environment.

Department of Child and Families – June 2010 – July 2011 {Contract from The PGC Group}

Role: Infrastructure Project/Program/Implementation/Deployment Manager

The Department of Child and Families is part of the state of Wisconsin in the USA. It was formed around 2008. The goal was to build a completely new centralised infrastructure for the department by the end of 2010 using Cloud computing with the aim of having a 100% Virtualized environment. DCF has over 1200 staff across the state of Wisconsin.

Projects

- Responsible for the implementation and deployment of the iPad mobility Solution, ensuring data security and Mobile Device management

- Responsible for the implementation and deployment of New HP Blade centres with HP EVA/SAN technology on a Fibre back bone.

- Responsible for the implementation of the CISCO Hardware, namely the Nexus 7010

- Implementation of VMware Sphere 4

- Implementation of a VDI solution using VMware View 4.6

- Implementation of Riverbed Appliances for WAN optimization

- Implementation of Full Data Centre Facilities

- Implementation and Design of Microsoft’s System Centre 2010 Suite

- Re-evaluated support/service desk staff, polices and procedures

- Documented Service Desk procedures and provided analysis to management

- Designed, documented and Implemented new Software Release processes

- Reviewed Service Desk software and implemented service desk polices.

- Extensive use of MS Project, MS Visio, and MS Office Products

- Strong Project Methodologies

- Compressed timeline management

- Strong Vendor and contracts management

- Budgeting and Budget forecasting

- Implemented ITIL Methodologies

- Managed incidents, driving to quick and effective resolutions

- Designed processes to further enhance the underlying software to more accurately report escalation and tracking of issues.

- Reviewed policies and procedures using best practices

- Significantly reduced number of incidents through change management

- Managed incidents, driving to quick and effective resolutions

- Designed and Implemented SLA’s

- Redesigned and redeveloped key aspects of the internal helpdesk software.

- Mobile support

Leadership

- Key decision maker in the senior management, team.

- Executed responsibilities leading to Three promotions within the first 6 months

- Undertook budget forecasting and management.

- Led and managed a very experienced team of IT technicians and support personnel

- Led a team of 15 people

- Recognised as a business leader who enjoys inspiring others to greater performance and building confidence through mentoring, coaching and training.

- Ensured the operation and management of the companies’ hardware and software environment.

- Strong Stakeholder communication

SMARTS Group International Pty Ltd – 2009 to January 2010

Role: Global Head of Support and Infrastructure

Smarts is a software development house in the Stock Market industry providing Market Surveillance software. Based in Sydney Australia, 250+ staff worldwide and over 60+ clients in the US, UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia

Projects

- Designed, approved, purchased and implemented full Infrastructure for Smarts, using IBM Blade technology and IBM SAN technology on a Fibre back bone.

- Re-evaluated support/service desk staff, polices and procedures

- Documented Service Desk procedures and provided analysis to management

- Designed, documented and Implemented new Software Release processes

- Created new SLA’s for clients that were agreed on by both Smarts and it’s clients

- Reviewed Service Desk software and implemented service desk polices.

- Implemented call centre software for 24/7 Service Desk support

- Extensive use of MS Project, MS Visio, and MS Office Products

- Strong Project Methodologies

Help Desk / User Support / Client Services

- Managed the Support Helpdesk function and established efficient business processes to support more than 60 clients operating in countries worldwide

- Expanded the Service Desk from 2 to 11 staff located around the world to operate as a 24/7 Service Desk.

- Designed processes to further enhance the underlying software to more accurately report escalation and tracking of issues.

- Reviewed policies and procedures using best practices

- Implemented ITIL Support/Service Desk policies and procedures.

- Strong ITIL methodologies.

- Significantly reduced number of incidents through change management

- Managed incidents, driving to quick and effective resolutions

- Increased support organisation locally and internationally.

- Managed critical issues where SLA’s were involved.

- Designed and Implemented SLA’s

- Redesigned and redeveloped key aspects of the internal helpdesk software.

- Implemented a 24/7 internal support call service

- Developed Service Desk Key Escalation contact 24x7 for all helpdesk issues and delegated appropriate personnel.

- Provided a centralised 24x7 user support function to 60 clients, in multiple locations worldwide

- Mobile support

Change Management

- Built new release processes and procedures for software release to clients

- Managed development work undertaken based on the individual requirements of 60 clients on differing environments.

Program Management

- Responsible for the Integration of the Help Desk software, Bug tracking and Timesheet/Project Management application.

- Project managed the implementation of new ITSM service desk tool, plus integration into the current bug track application (JIRA), and integrated this tool into our many clients support tools.

Leadership

- Responsible for managing two departments, given the task to grow these departments into professional organisations.

- Key decision maker in the senior management, team.

- Responsible for staff recruitment and reviews.

- Executed responsibilities leading to promotion within the first 3 months

- Undertook budget forecasting and management.

- Led and managed a very experienced team of IT technicians and support personnel worldwide.

- Led a team of 15 people

- Recognised as a business leader who enjoys inspiring others to greater performance and building confidence through mentoring, coaching and training.

Infrastructure & Design Architecture

- Ensured the operation and management of the companies’ hardware and software environment.

- Managed 5+ IT staff, with additional responsibility in managing the infrastructure of 60 clients. A number of which were hosted systems requiring specialized environments using SUN, Linux and Windows.

- Project managed new infrastructure projects to implement current technology hardware for both Smarts and their clients. This included design of infrastructure setups with Fibre SAN’s, Clustered SAN’s integrated into Blade technology using Virtual Environments.

- Completely replaced Infrastructure technology with Virtual servers.

- Designed and Managed Internal IT infrastructure

- Executed complete replacement of Internal and Client off site backup infrastructure

- Highly experienced designer and architect for software development and IT road maps

- Highly experienced in network security, implementing firewalls/switches/routers to effectively reduce DoS

NUMERIC COMPUTER SYSTEMS OF AUSTRALIA – 2007 to 2009

Role: Architecture and Development Contractor

NCS are a software development house in the transport distribution industry in Australia and internationally.

- Designed and developed a multi-tiered, latest technology web site using C#/.NET/AJAX/ASP.NET/Crystal Reports, to commercialise current business software. The project is currently in the UAT phase with Cerebos and Arnotts.

- Analysed, designed and migrated legacy COBOL application to a new windows based GUI application with a further focus on the potential Web Development. This application is currently being rolled out to NCSA’s customer base.

WHITECLARKE ASIA PACIFIC PTY LTD – March 2007 – December 2008

Role: IT Research & Development and Product Manager

White Clarke Group is a large finance software vendor based in the UK, 250+ staff worldwide and over 150 clients. In March 2007, WCG acquired SFS and BSA of which I was a director and shareholder.

After the acquisition of SFS and BSA, I continued on in my role during the integration phase, ensuring staff were comfortable with the integration and the high level of service to our bureau clients continued without disruption.

SOUTHPAC FINANCE SYSTEMS PTY LTD – 1992 to March 2007

Roles: Multiple roles over the 15 year period including Director, R&D Manager, Operations Manager, Project Manager, Program Manager, Client Services Manager, Technical Services Manager and Applications Developer

Southpac Finance Systems Pty Ltd was a market leading software solutions and consultancy company to the banking and finance industry in Australia and internationally. In 1998 Bureau Services Australia Pty Ltd was created as a separate business division of Southpac Finance Systems. It was an outsourcing company providing server hosting and IT administrations services through a data centre to clients of SFS.

Projects

- Designed and developed many prototypes internally and for clients.

- Developed improved infrastructure for SFS and clients

- Relocated BSA’s data centre, twice, while maintaining 24/7 operation

- Managed complete office move twice

- Designed, developed and managed new GUI application over a period of 3 years

- Designed, developed, implemented and managed new collections system

- Designed, developed, implemented and managed new finance system

- Constantly reviewed technology improvements, driving company into future technologies

- Developed over many years main stream Finance product

- Implemented Service Desk

- Designed new Web based quoting and application software

- Integrated many 3rd party software applications into SFS’s software

- Extensive use of MS Project, MS Visio, and MS Office Products

- Strong Project Methodologies

Research and Development

- Responsible for the development, design and future direction of finance lending software which catered for an extensive range of both retail, wholesale, banking and insurance products. These products were used by 70 clients, both nationally and internationally.

- Managed multi-million dollar application R&D function, also involving IR&D Board sponsored developments for overseas markets.

- GUI. Designed and developed a 3 year, $8 million Windows based application of Southpac’s Lease and Loan Administration System (LLAS), managing a team of 10 multi-disciplined staff over that time.

- Designed the application architecture in an OO/Modular fashion incorporating technologies such as XML, HTML, COM and .NET/C#/ASP.NET

- Reported directly to the board.

- The products were implemented at numerous clients’ sites including Investec Bank (Aust), VW Finance, DaimlerChrysler (Aust & NZ), and Paccar Finance (Canada).

- Developed two companies, from a technology perspective. Key advisor to the board, which resulted in the growth of these two companies into profitable and successful entities which provided significant returns to shareholders.

- Continued infrastructure improvement inline with emerging technologies.

- Managed and drove the Business intelligence minimizing costs and maximizing efficiencies.

- Proficient in using SDLC, Waterfall and AGILE Methodologies

Change Management

- Designed and implemented Version Control and Software Release Management.

- Managed development work based on the individual requirements of 70 clients on differing environments using extensive SDLC methodology experience,

Program Management

- Highly experienced in integration and management of various different software applications.

- Highly experienced in the design and implementation of software interfaces to over 40 clients. This included the SFS packaged software, client’s external software packages for reporting, accounting, and credit assessment, and others.

- 15 years experience in identifying redundant code/software for merging software applications resulting in overall cost reductions by more than 20%

Leadership

- Extensive experience leading teams of developers and teams of IT technicians both internally on major projects as well as leading teams and projects at client sites.

- Recognised as a business leader who enjoys inspiring others to greater performance and building confidence through mentoring, coaching and training.

- Key advisor to SFS Client Help Desk.

- It was common for the Developers, Project Managers, technicians and Help Desk staff to refer to me whenever problems reached an impasse. I would find appropriate and comprehensive solutions to the software, hardware or other 100% of the time

Infrastructure & Design Architecture

- Ensuring the operation and management of the companies’ hardware and software environment, management of 50+ IT staff, with additional responsibility in managing the infrastructure of 70 clients. A number of these clients were hosted systems requiring specialized environments using HP/UX, Linux and Windows.

- Design and Management of Internal IT infrastructure of SFS and BSA

- Highly experienced designer and architect for software development and IT road maps.

- With more than 20 years experience in developing design plans for 70 clients world wide as well as keeping the architecture of the software moving forward to ensure the continuing commercial viability of the lending software.

- Highly experienced in network security, implementing firewalls/switches/routers to effectively reduce DoS

Client Management

- Highly experienced in dealing with clients at all levels

- Pre-sales experience in accurately defining technical, application and business solutions.

- Able to effectively communicate with clients during implementations overcoming all issues with outstanding and fast results.

- Highly effective communicator during post-sales, able to quickly and expertly troubleshoot 1000’s of issues with clients, in particular where their own IT staff have been unable to resolve, all being expertly and quickly dealt with.

- It was common for the Clients’ Upper Management, Project Managers and IT technicians to refer to me and request assistance whenever problems reached an impasse. I would find appropriate and comprehensive solutions to their issues 100% of the time

Solutions Architect

- Managed Solutions internally/externally across multiple software applications and technologies for over 40 clients, providing clear roadmaps with deliverables and budgets in excess of $80M.

- Highly sought after experience in assisting clients troubleshoot internal and external infrastructure issues, and able to provide appropriate and comprehensive solutions. In one particular example, the client’s IT department could not comprehend how to successfully utilise their network setup in order to complement the architecture of the application and hardware. I was called in and had to fix the network routing myself.

- Highly experienced in quickly and expertly analysing and solving what appear to be complex development issues in applications, which internal experts were completely at a loss to solve.

Operations Manager

- Liaised directly with key stakeholders including major financiers

- Provided outsource services and systems to a number of financiers and government departments including Capital Finance (300 users with $9B in assets run through outsourced systems), Perpetual Trustees, Volkswagen Financial Services, MotorOne, Dept Asset Management.

- Managed $750,000 capital investment strategy to outsource Capital Finance’s server based Data Centre using such technologies including RISC/UNIX, VMWare and Linux/Intel/wintel. This was a 4 month project which was completed in 3 months. As a result of maintaining high system availability service levels, Capital continued utilising the bureau services for another 6 years.

- Achieved a 99.9% uptime, with security, Backups, BCP/DR, co-location, Staff (shiftwork), installation, policies, procedures, computer data centre, cooling and VESDA fire suppression.

- Incorporated SLA’s for clients, with specific response times and deadlines.

- Managed all technical requirements and designed appropriate road maps.

- Managed two Projects in a full office relocation following the acquisition by White Clarke of Southpac for 50+ staff. This required data centre deconstruction and reconstruction, staff management, business continuity and ensuring lease compliance with no disruption to services. Relocations had to be undertaken twice in two years. These two relocations were completed within 6-week allocated time frames and under budget.

- Managed bureau technical staff including operators, database administrators, systems administrators and application support.

- Managed the security architecture of 40+ client systems. Ensured that all client data was secure both internally and externally. Setup appropriate access required, using suitable firewalls (for external security) plus internal security measures. In the case of UNIX, I used a procedure called ‘hardening’ to completely secure the OS from all reasonable attacks and in the case of windows I used domain security and AD with very tight and customized security policies. Every access, whether valid or not, was continuously logged and reviewed regularly to ensure that security policies were not being breached.

- Responsible for all the procedures and policies, these procedures and policies were always under review and staff was always encouraged to put forward any comments as well.

- In the 10 year history there was never any failure at an application level, with all EOD and EOM procedures running successfully 100% of the time.

- Experience in implementing ITIL Methodologies.

- Backups is another area of expertise. I have setup backup strategies to enable fast efficient backups within very tight windows of opportunity. This required a combination of full/incremental tape backups, full/incremental disk backups and backups to SANS and virtual machines for later dumping to tape when time permitted. All resulting in effective backups 100% of the time. As a required step in all backups, procedures were implemented to constantly test these backups on a rotating schedule, ensuring viability of media used. With the advent of virtualisation, making use of this technology to more effectively speed up backups of entire machines without the need to find a window to do it in. All backups were stored offsite at a secure facility.

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Help Desk / User Support / Client Services

- Managed the BSA helpdesk function and established efficient business processes to support more than 40 clients operating in 15 countries worldwide

- Designed processes to further enhance the underlying software to more accurately report escalation of and tracking of issues.

- Constantly reviewed policies and procedures using best practices

- Key advisor on critical issues where SLA’s were involved.

- Incorporated SLA’s

- Redesigned and redeveloped key aspects of the internal helpdesk software.

- Key technical/application contact 24x7 for all helpdesk issues and delegation to appropriate personnel.

- Provided a centralised 24x7 user support function to 70 clients over a number of years, in multiple locations worldwide

- Mobile support

- Demonstrated a 99.9% uptime

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Languages: .Net, C#,C/C++, VB,VB.Net, ASP, HTML,CSS, ASP.NET, Crystal Reports, XML,AJAX, HTML, Java, JavaScript, shell scripting, 4GLs, Cobol, PowerBuilder, Cognos.

OS: HP/UX, Solaris, DG/UX, SNA, AOS/VS, XENIX, Unix, Aix, MVS, TSO, CICS, ISPF, X8, Windows 95/98/2000/2003/2008/XP/NT/Vista/7, VMware Sphere 4, VMware View, Citrix/Metaframe, MS Terminal Server, Novell, Linux, BOS, DOS.

INTERNET: IIS, Apache, Firewalls, Web Servers, TCP/IP,DoS,IPS,IDS

HARDWARE: Apple iPad, Android Devices, IBM, DG, DEC, HP, Sun, Dell, Cisco, Riverbed. Various SAN’s, Storage Solutions, Various Routers/Firewalls, PCs/Wintel, notebooks, LAN/WANs.

EMAIL: Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Web-based mail, Sendmail, Exchange

RDBMS: SQL server, Sybase, Oracle, SQL Anywhere, Microsoft Access.

SOFTWARE: Microsoft Office Suite 2003/2005/2007/2010/XP, MS System Centre 2010 Suite, MS Visio, MS Visual Studio 2005/2008/2010, MS SharePoint/Designer, MS Query, MS Project, Acubench IDE, JIRA

APPLICATIONS: Specialist in-house and external systems knowledge: hire purchase, leasing and mortgages, passbook savings, funding and debentures, billing, invoicing and order entry systems and many other software projects.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Bachelor of Information Technology (Equivalency), University of Maryland

Bachelor of Technology (Information Systems) (ongoing), RMIT, Swinburne, Open Universities Australia

Training: Seminars, conferences and workshops attended including yearly attendances at the AcuCobol, Microsoft seminars/conferences, Sybase, Oracle, Cognos, Dell, IBM and courses in First Line Management and Account Management, MS System Centre.

REFERENCES

Full referee details can be supplied upon request



Contact this candidate