Director of IT

• Jun 2022 - Present

Operations Manager

• Jul 2021 - Jun 2022

Service Desk Team Leader

• Apr 2021 - Jul 2021

Technical Operations Manager

• Sep 2020 - Feb 2021

Support Team Leader

• Jul 2020 - Sep 2020

Head of Support & Customer Experience

• Jun 2019 - Apr 2020

• Responsible for the whole post-sales mechanism for Smoothwall Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina, including architecture & design, implementation and support • Built the US based support team from scratch using ITIL best practice and building on the model developed in the UK business including team structure, SLA and KPIs • Coordinated support across the western hemisphere as well as Australasia • Developed relationships with key Smoothwall Inc. customers and assisted the Sales team and Pre-Sales team with evaluations, installations and relationship management through the pre-sales mechanism • Managed budgets and strategy as part of the senior management team Show less

Head of Service Support

• Jan 2017 - Jun 2019

Smoothwall are the market leader in filtering and firewall in education and I was asked to join their Senior Management Team having worked with them during my time at YHGfL. As Head of Service Support I was responsible for the whole support team within the Smoothwall Group. I have introduced additional support teams in the Leeds and Charlotte (NC, USA) offices to take support to a higher level and take advantage of having teams in the same strategic places as the company. This also allows changes to working practices and shift patterns for the UK staff giving more headcount during the UK day without increasing headcount overall. I was also brought in to introduce formal change and problem management to the business using my ITIL experience. Show less

Head of Technology & Service Delivery

• Apr 2006 - Dec 2016

YHGfL were a local government funded, not for profit organisation that provided ISP services to schools including web filtering, e-mail provision and filtering as well as spam, virus and adware protection. They also provided e-learning resources and facilitate video conferencing. YHGfL used Open Source technology to provide these services. • Ran the whole technology team providing an education ISP to around 750 schools and other services to 2500 schools in the Yorkshire region such as internet and e-mail filtering, DNS services, network monitoring and proxy, telephony and video conferencing provided over a private regional grid network • Responsible for whole business Technical & Support Services as well as the whole Customer Experience and lead the team to make improvements in network connectivity and other services which saw a marked improvement in KPIs, consistently exceeding them for over 25 months • Principally responsible for ensuring that as an ISP, YHGfL maintained their services in accordance with the IWF Lists, the Data Protection Act and the management of all RIPA requests having received training with the Police and Home Office; responsible for the governance surrounding all aspects of information security within the organisation Show less

Funding Council Board Member

• May 2011 - Jan 2015

I was elected as an Industry Board Member of the IWF Board in May 2011. I was an active member of the board and was part of the IWF Remuneration Committee. I also chaired the Self-Certification committee which meets to ensure that the IWF Members are regularly certifying that they are using the IWF list to block Child Sexual Abuse Images and Content for their end users. As an Industry Board Member and working for an Education ISP, I was able to see both sides of the coin and am passionate about child safety online. Show less

Owner

• Dec 2003 - Aug 2006

During this time I worked as a contractor for the NHS and Local Government. During this time I worked as a contractor for the NHS and Local Government.

IT Consultant

• Nov 2005 - Mar 2006

During this time I worked as a consultant/project manager in the IM & T department of the STW NHS Trust tasked with the clean-up of their MS Windows Active Directory structure and the streamlining of their servers and deployment software. A complete inventory of all systems was also undertaken. During this time I worked as a consultant/project manager in the IM & T department of the STW NHS Trust tasked with the clean-up of their MS Windows Active Directory structure and the streamlining of their servers and deployment software. A complete inventory of all systems was also undertaken.

IT Manager

• Dec 2004 - Oct 2005

My role here was as the Interim IT Manager for Hitachi Capital (a subsidiary of Hitachi Global) in Leeds until a permanent replacement was found. Based at their Consumer Finance division, I was responsible for managing a team of ten who looked after all aspects of IT for all three Hitachi Capital divisions in Leeds, the other two being Hitachi Capital Credit Management and Hitachi Capital Insurance Europe and being a member of the senior management team, reporting monthly to the board. I was also heavily involved in the direction Hitachi Capital were taking at a group level as IT became a more integrated function at HCUK level. I was instrumental in formulating the group wide IT strategy including more close ties at an Active Directory level across the HCUK group which included Business Finance in Hounslow and Vehicle Solutions in Newbury. I managed the team so that they worked together well to achieve that goal including the running of the local helpdesk to support the 250 users on the network, most of whom were call centre staff. I held monthly one to one meetings and weekly team meetings where the team were able to express their concerns and also provide ideas for improvement. They also had bi-yearly appraisals where they have objectives set which were reviewed in the one to one meetings. I was also the primary contact for the businesses who are the customer of the IT team to discuss any changes to the systems and the way that business is processed. Show less

Technical Project Manager

• Dec 2003 - Dec 2004

At this time I was under contract to the NHS in Sunderland in the role of Technical Project Manager for the three NHS Trusts in Sunderland to run several projects that they needed delivering. Leading on the projects using Prince 2 methodology, the projects were expected to deliver better use of systems they already had, as well as implement new solutions. I was also responsible for Service Desk as I sat on the North East Cluster Service desk Workshop which was formulating the Service desk Strategy for 1st line support for the whole of the North East cluster from Sheffield to North Humberland. Show less

IT Consultant

• Jul 2001 - Dec 2003

I was working as a permanent employee for IBIS, and they then contracted me out to organisations and corporate clients who needed my expertise that they were not able to provide from existing staff. I was working as a permanent employee for IBIS, and they then contracted me out to organisations and corporate clients who needed my expertise that they were not able to provide from existing staff.

Techinical Support

• 1998 - 2001

Support Analyst

• 1998 - 2001

Technical Sales Executive

• 1997 - 1998

Operations Manager

• 1996 - 1997

Operations Manager

• 1996 - 1997

Operations Manager

• 1996 - 1997