William Brown

Head of Technology Operations at GSS
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Location
Leeds, England, United Kingdom, GB
Languages
  • English -

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Michael Mancarti, MPA

William and I worked together at the Weir Group in Glasgow only briefly, but in that short time he made a lasting impression. Though I was very impressed with William's expertise in the IT Service Management, Infrastructure and Delivery spaces to be sure, the most significant quality of his that stood out the most was his level of integrity and commitment to people and relationships. William and I are both very passionate about what we do and even when we had some heated debates, he'd always invite me to the pub for a drink to ensure it didn't harm our relationship and that it stayed positive - which it always did. It's that type of relationship management that has left a stand-out and lasting impact on me over the years and even though we are on different continents, we keep in touch and meet up when we are in the same country. These are qualities that you can't teach; one either has it or not and William has it in spades. Any company would be lucky to have a person of his depth and integrity level on their team, regardless of capacity - he is always going to be that consummate team player, builder and leader that we all so desperately want to have in our organization, but are routinely challenged to find. A rare jewel indeed.

Miguel Merayo Suarez CISM

Worked with William at the Weir group. He came into an environment going through significant change and brought great leadership and panache to help focus service delivery on the business of transition. William is a consummate operator, at ease dealing with all areas of hierarchy. He manages to balance laser focused IT transition and service strategy with a highly engaging management style. His enthusiasm is infectious on those around him, and whilst we didn’t work in the same direct structure I (like many others) were certainly positively affected by Williams engaging influence. Any organisation would be lucky to have him!

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Credentials

  • Organization Design
    LinkedIn
    May, 2019
    - Sep, 2024
  • ITIL Intermediate v3 “Continuous Service Improvement”
    APMG-International
  • ITIL v3 Foundation
    APMG-International
  • PRINCE 2 Managers
    APMG-International

Experience

    • Canada
    • Business Consulting and Services
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Head of Technology Operations
      • Jan 2023 - Present

      GSS is a newly created regulatory technology business which brings global financial institutions together to optimise standards in compliance, by providing a trusted platform to exchange and enhance information.Initially delivering sanctions transactions screening, GSS changes the way financial crime is tackled by partnering with leading financial institutions and trusted industry partners to deliver effective and efficient screening. As well as promoting excellence in compliance, GSS’ solution significantly removes friction in the customer experience. The solution will perform state of the art, real time watchlist screening using the most advanced technology solutions for list management, alert generation, and disposition.Backed by an industry consortium of financial service market leaders and equipped with decades of industry experience and advanced technologies, GSS will redefine how compliance can be delivered.My role, if people are interested, is to be part of an exciting journey to build a team that will enable great people to speak up with courage, as one team, respecting our colleagues and building on shared knowledge to achieve excellence. My role, is to ensure Service Management and Platform Operations in collaboration with the wider GSS-Rose teams using a DevOps and Product model approach, delivers outstanding excellence to our clients.

    • Consultant, Product Assurance
      • Jul 2022 - Nov 2022

      Review of tier 1 Products to review quality, supportability, and value to customers assessing areas of service, monitoring, testing and security. Review of tier 1 Products to review quality, supportability, and value to customers assessing areas of service, monitoring, testing and security.

    • United States
    • Insurance
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Head of Platforms
      • Jan 2022 - Jun 2022

      Support the CIO to transform and operate Platforms to a Product Operating model capability, to support agile delivery of value to the business. Priority accountabilities were keeping an Operations team of 45 stable whilst recruiting 15 new roles. At the same time lead on the Transformation planning and execution. This scope included Service Desk, End User Support, Infrastructure including Cloud, new ITSM team, Data Platforms and Networks.• Review current delivery of Operations and introduced culture of learning and using the data to identify quick wins to improve quality of the services• Working with CIO and my peers to deliver transformation across Platform teams encompassing people, process, tools and partners to increase the maturity of delivery including working with Product teams implementing Dev/Ops and CD/CI models to deliver business benefits• Develop the initial strategy and structure for the Platform strategy aligned to the Product model, with plan for 2022, bringing the team along on the journey

    • United Kingdom
    • Hospitals and Health Care
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Head of IT Service & Operations
      • Jun 2020 - Dec 2021

      Head of IT Service & Operations: interim role accountable for a team of 60 delivering across 4 teams. This included Service Desk, Customer Relationship Management, IT Operations and Service Management. The task was to ensure meeting current service levels whilst building a plan to improve • Increased automation utilising ServiceNow, Monitoring tools and removal of manual steps to build improvements in customer service resulting in estimated savings of 96 days per month• Increase maturity of service to excel in customer satisfaction and support DevOps and Product teams in new ways of working resulting in 18% reduced Service Desk tickets with manual intervention and 8% increased the first-time fixService Design Architect: Accountable for developing the Service Design capability through a review of current ways of working, design focus and implementation of Service Design Methodology across the technology organisation. Also included is the design and introduction of an ITOC / CSOC capability.• Review current delivery models, across technology to identify alignment on Service Design artefacts to remove 23% waste• Workshops with key teams to work through Service Design principles and alignment with other methods to improve quality of design aligned to Human Centred Service Design and IT Service Design • Programme plan based on people, process, products, and partners to deliver outcomes based on Agile approach• Implement ITOC and CSOC capability using the newly developed Service Design principles and use of SPLUNK / ServiceNow

    • United Kingdom
    • Business Consulting and Services
    • IT Director and Owner
      • Sep 2015 - Apr 2021

      WALK Forward was my own business to provides access to skills encompassing Program Management, Operations Management and Strategic use of technology based on over 25 years of experience across multiple domains. The clients included those since leaving BP providing both operational and thought leadership. WALK Forward was my own business to provides access to skills encompassing Program Management, Operations Management and Strategic use of technology based on over 25 years of experience across multiple domains. The clients included those since leaving BP providing both operational and thought leadership.

    • United Kingdom
    • Luxury Goods & Jewelry
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Consultant, SAP AWS Transition
      • Jan 2020 - Apr 2020

      Engaged to conduct an independent review of progress, delivery, and the Programme plan to migrate AFS, Manufacturing and S/4 Hana from SAP HEC to cloud environment. • Produced risk assessment of the programme deliverables with a focus on live service, mitigating 2 high impacting risks• Contribute to operational model and support service design principles reducing time to deliver by 25% Engaged to conduct an independent review of progress, delivery, and the Programme plan to migrate AFS, Manufacturing and S/4 Hana from SAP HEC to cloud environment. • Produced risk assessment of the programme deliverables with a focus on live service, mitigating 2 high impacting risks• Contribute to operational model and support service design principles reducing time to deliver by 25%

    • United Kingdom
    • Mining
    • 300 - 400 Employee
    • Global IT Service Transformation Director
      • Jul 2019 - Jan 2020

      Lead on enterprise solution for the transformation of four streams including SIAM, Hosting & Cloud, Network, and EUS to deliver core capability through remediation and transformation as an Enterprise Service model delivering to the Group based on SIAM model. • Deliver business case with cost / benefits for CIO to present to Board representing a £3.7 million cost saving opportunity over 2 years• High level Transformation Programme plan ensuring in-flight projects, such as Workday, are not impacted through transformation objectives, automating 8 Service Requests for people team, saving 35 days per month• Lead on vision for Phase 2 to include SAP and Application solutions with alignment to Product delivery

    • United Kingdom
    • Facilities Services
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Group IT Director, UK & Europe
      • Dec 2018 - May 2019

      Accountable for a team of circa. 140+ delivering IT Operations (End User, Network, Infrastructure, Service Desk and Service Management), Digital Engineering (Analysis, Development, Test, and support), Data Warehouse / AI and Security using Microsoft technologies. • Ensure operational delivery is not impacted through period of exponential growth, with onboarding new client including 750 staff• Lead on review of technology due to ack of investment in technology and the core technology team• Transform Software Engineering, and PM teams to deliver against a Product framework to implement Global Delivery and Operations focused on aligning technology with business strategy and growth

    • United Kingdom
    • Financial Services
    • 300 - 400 Employee
    • Head of Digital Service & Operations
      • Sep 2018 - Dec 2018

      Produce Board presentation for PayPoint on their technology approach to Application Management, Service Management, and IT Operations. • Board presentation with recommendations and high-level plan to maximise the use monitoring tools and implementing automation to replace manual activities• Develop plan for organisational change to support recommendations through effective use of ServiceNow, SolarWinds, Jira, Splunk and App Dynamics across Product Developments Produce Board presentation for PayPoint on their technology approach to Application Management, Service Management, and IT Operations. • Board presentation with recommendations and high-level plan to maximise the use monitoring tools and implementing automation to replace manual activities• Develop plan for organisational change to support recommendations through effective use of ServiceNow, SolarWinds, Jira, Splunk and App Dynamics across Product Developments

    • Global IT Operations Director
      • Nov 2017 - Sep 2018

      Accountable for a team of circa 250+ and budget of £56 million for SAP Hana Enterprise in the Cloud, IaaS and PaaS delivering services to Retail and Manufacturing, approximately 60% of the business. • Accountable for improvement in Vendor engagement through Governance Framework, Joint Service Reviews and use of tools to ensure delivery of core service reducing business impacting incidents across SAP by 27%• Lead on ITSM operating model to meet future requirements and up skill capability to automate processes and use of Data Analytics with improved focus reducing cost and improving quality through AI and RPA across IT, HR and Finance• Support transformation to Agile and Dev/Ops models across teams and integration with other teams underpinned by Services and their designs

    • United Kingdom
    • Insurance
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • ITSM Consultant, Vendor and TOM Integration
      • Jun 2016 - Jan 2017

      Operations Management consultant tasked to lead on transformation review on organisational design and implementation of Vendor Management process• Work across technology functional and IT Procurement teams to review current ways of working and tools used• Map capability across Infrastructure technology organisation to leverage Service Design principles for IT Services• Provide input and guidance to the TOM Service Design and ServiceNow with a focus on RPA and AI opportunities Operations Management consultant tasked to lead on transformation review on organisational design and implementation of Vendor Management process• Work across technology functional and IT Procurement teams to review current ways of working and tools used• Map capability across Infrastructure technology organisation to leverage Service Design principles for IT Services• Provide input and guidance to the TOM Service Design and ServiceNow with a focus on RPA and AI opportunities

    • Switzerland
    • Construction
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Service Assurance Manager - Outsourcing
      • Jan 2016 - Jun 2016

      Service Assurance Manager with accountability for the design of a Service Assurance Framework in support of a multi-million Outsource programme across the group.• Develop a framework, based on COBIT, to assess the Readiness of the Transition Outsourcing Programme to deliver without introducing risk and downtime to the business whilst ensuring compliance to regulatory requirements as FSA Handbook SYSC requirements • Ensured sustained excellence long term through improvements and included a review of organisational processes

    • France
    • Business Consulting and Services
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Head of IT&S Service Operations
      • Apr 2013 - Sep 2015

      Team Size: 5 Direct reports with team size of 82 and Vendor staff accountable for the set-up and delivery of end-to-end ITIL based Service Management operations across. A pivotal role in delivery of global services to ensure no disruption to the business• In sourced 3rd party Service Management organisation building a new internal team in Kuala Lumpur with no disruption to Service Levels and increased scope of service to deliver improved Service Management capability based on ITIL framework, • Through use of Configuration Management reduced cost by $33.4 million over 2 years through analytics to support Server and Application portfolio rationalisation• Accountable for operational Vendor / Supplier Management with reviews based on a SIAM structure • Continuation of Service Design approach and further development from the previous role in Downstream, focus on IT Services• Chair for reviews of Major Incidents presented to Group CIO and Global Change Advisory Board driving actions to reduce business impact by 57% over two years, estimated savings of $42.25 million

    • Global Operations Integrity Lead
      • Apr 2011 - Apr 2013

      Member of Global CIO team, accountable for improvement of services, working with business and technical teams supporting applications, infrastructure and networks for Downstream business units;• Business relationship management operating across Downstream to align demand and assess future opportunities working to align the technology Roadmap with the business Strategy• Downstream lead accountable for implementing Service Design framework to transform approach to managing against key business outcomes and risk, using in-house design framework modelled on User Experience and Obashi• Implemented roadmap for consolidating application services through internal and vendor support teams resulting in a reduction of resources and savings of $14.1 million and improved resolution of incidents including governance and TUPE• Decreased impact to the business, from Major Incidents by 54% in year 1 through the collaboration of internal and vendor teams improving the alignment of service management practices, saving $12.1 million• Leveraged people, process and data delivering sustainable continuous service improvements delivering $8.4 million savings

    • India
    • Information Services
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Head of Service Delivery, TS AM UK
      • Oct 2007 - Apr 2011

      Senior leader accountable for multiple clients with a team of 8 Direct reports, 140 offshore staff and budget accountability of £18 million+;• Implemented greenfield Application Management service with offshore teams in India as part of a new business unit supporting a portfolio of clients across multiple technologies including Microsoft and SAP • Achieved 35% above account target growth, achieving £4.2 million revenue• Apply agile techniques and working practices to deliver client solutions and set up new Operational Models for clients• Improved productivity of teams with a reduction in cost by 23% through Shared Delivery Model • Senior leadership quarterly board meetings reviewing services delivered to clients and future demand• Member of UK Technology Services Transformation Stakeholder Group and Innovation Committee to evaluate IoT

    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Senior Service Delivery Manager
      • Mar 2006 - Oct 2007

      Led team of 55+ and budget £14+ million across portfolio of Clients from multiple Sectors supporting business change to align using SAP. Represented many voices and questions from technical groups to business and IT partners, resolutely asked questions to ensure clarity from all parties involved.• Achieved revenue contribution of 30% through strong client relationships • On-sell of SAP and custom solutions across portfolio of clients of £5.35 million through• Managed multiple SAP Upgrades, client enhancements and SAP / CRM integration

    • India
    • Data Infrastructure and Analytics
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Senior Service Delivery Manager
      • Aug 2004 - Mar 2006

      Senior Project Manager with experience in Application development/integration with CMS, branding, sourcing hardware, Kiosk deployment and support services.Role can encompass a number of verticals within Finanace, Telco and Retail. Senior Project Manager with experience in Application development/integration with CMS, branding, sourcing hardware, Kiosk deployment and support services.Role can encompass a number of verticals within Finanace, Telco and Retail.

    • United States
    • Software Development
    • 700 & Above Employee
    • Senior Service Delivery Manager / Senior Project Manager
      • Feb 1999 - Aug 2004

      Manager for a number of roles with a vriety of clients. Projects varied from;- Transformation Programmes- Project delivery- Operational management- Transition of solutions from Build to Service Delivery- Risk Management Manager for a number of roles with a vriety of clients. Projects varied from;- Transformation Programmes- Project delivery- Operational management- Transition of solutions from Build to Service Delivery- Risk Management

    • Team Lead / Project Manager
      • Jul 1997 - Feb 1999

      Worked in Global supply chain application, that was used by purchasing to source production materials for the manufacturing plants.

    • Graduate Analyst / Developer / PM
      • Nov 1995 - Jul 1997

      Part of UK based team to support Ford Credit Europe, reporting to Board of Directors as lead for continuous improvements delivering small step changes to the business through the adoption of technology to deliver Business Outcomes. Reduced on average 70% in time or cost to meet business objectives whilst improving the quality of results through automating manual activity.

    • Banking
    • 1 - 100 Employee
    • Bank Officer
      • Mar 1984 - Oct 1988

      Bank officer dealing with the public, based at Falkirk Newmarket Street and then Edinburgh, Grange Road. Bank officer dealing with the public, based at Falkirk Newmarket Street and then Edinburgh, Grange Road.

Education

  • Glasgow Caledonian University
    PgD, Information Management Systems
    1994 - 1996
  • Heriot-Watt University
    BA (Hons), Business Organisation
    1991 - 1994
  • Falkirk College of Technology
    Business Studies, Busienss Studies
    1988 - 1990

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