Principle Enterprise Technology Architect

• Dec 2020 - Present

Lead Colleague & Connect Architect

• Dec 2018 - Dec 2020

Reporting into the Exec and the Principle Architect, the Lead Colleague & Connect Architect role is responsible for developing the End User Compute, Collaboration and workspace technology strategies, including Laptop / Mobile / Tablets devices, Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop, Windows 10, Microsoft Managed Desktop, Azure AD & Intune, Office 365 suite, Teams Room Systems, printing and more recently PowerApps. During this role I have introduced a Technical Design Authority which delivers governance and guidance for the large programmes of work within Co-op Corporate, Retail, Funeralcare, Health and Group Legal. I have developed high level architectural designs and strategies, and governed the technical elements of contractural renegotiations as well as new technology contracts.

Security Architect

• Mar 2018 - Dec 2018

I joined the Co-op group as a security architect where I led architectural governance, drove improvements in security architecture across the businesses, provided guidance and approvals for projects & complex change programmes and ensured solutions complied with security policies, standards, regulations and corporate objectives.

IBM Chief Architect - Shop Direct

• Mar 2014 - Mar 2018

I took the role on the Shop Direct Account to further develop my leadership skills and gain experience of task managing an architect team. The role provides technical leadership to the IBM Project Executive (PE), Delivery Project Executive (DPE), senior executives and the customers Chief Architect, Enterprise Architects and Security Architects. The role supports the customer developing new services, technical roadmaps and provides design authority and architectural review board governance. As a trusted technical advisor I have compiled and pitched slides to the articulate the business or technical direction as required. I have compiled and governed technical infrastructure standards, team roles & responsibilities, account technical plan / roadmaps and new starter orientation guides. During the role I have grown my architecture team from 3 to 25 which included a mixture of on and offshore resources. I provide task management, mentoring, guidance to resolving complex problems and support for resolving agreement deadlocks.

New Logo Engagement Architect

• Nov 2011 - Mar 2014

Reporting to the new logo solutions executive and Chief GTS service architect, the role provided support and guidance to the lead technical solution manager, CSE and engagement team. I identified and documented requirements from customer provided information to develop the architectural strategy. I produced service and technology maps, end to end infrastructure diagrams, infrastructure tooling diagrams, transition state diagrams, architectural decisions, risks, issues, assumptions, dependency logs and contributed to customer response material. I owned and resolved architectural issues and supported the overall technical solution as required, presenting the architectural design at formal reviews.

Infrastructure & Security Architect

• Apr 2009 - Nov 2011

Working as a global infrastructure architect on the AstraZeneca account I was responsible for the technical relationship with the global sales and marketing division. The role involved working closely with the key AstraZeneca stakeholders to develop their technical strategies and requirements in advance of solutioning and detailed design. I used IBM frameworks and methodologies to develop the requirements through operational modeling into an architectural design that incorporating customer standards and reference architectures. The role developed to include global security architect, working directly with the global AstraZeneca security architects, developing their technical security strategy to meet their future business vision. The role involved providing technical direction and developing requirements through use cases, market research, stakeholder analysis and ensuring the agreed security elements were correctly delivered through IBM architecture. During the role I worked on security policies, two factor authentication service, anti-virus protection, network segmentation, system assurance monitoring, threat management and system performance through geo-clustering technologies.

Technical Solution Architect

• Mar 2006 - Apr 2009

Working as a technical solution architect in IBM’s E-Business Hosting I was responsible for working directly with existing clients such as Pfizer, Unilever, Equifax and NTL to develop and deliver their technical solutions. During the role I also led a number of pieces of early engagement work which involved working with a new client to develop a new opportunity. One of the larger solutions was for BSkyB, a large media company in the UK, consisting of more than 60 servers. The overall infrastructure included Cisco switches, Nokia firewalls, Big-IP load balancers, Sun servers and IBM X-Series servers running a mixture of operating systems including Solaris 8 & 9, Windows 2003, Red Hat Linux and VMware ESX 3.0. I owned the design work from conception through to production. I was awarded an IBM Bravo award due to my dedication and success on the project.

Multi-Vendor UNIX Specialist

• Jul 2003 - Mar 2006

As IBM’s contract with the communications company was coming to an end I was approached to take on the role of the UNIX subject matter expert for IBM eBusiness services. The role involved developing, building and supporting internet facing servers for clients across a range of market sectors, including the travel, pharmaceutical and credit checking businesses. During the role I took an opportunity to complete AIX and Linux training, broadening my UNIX skills enabling me to become support a more varied range of projects. One such project was to deploy SUSE Linux running on an IBM Z-Series Mainframe within a virtual machine. As part of the project I was responsible for supporting the UNIX instances and assisting the client with cross compiler problems during their migration of the Intel developed ‘C’ application code. Whilst in eBusiness hosting I volunteered for a European off-shoring project to transfer skills to a team in IBM India. I took the responsibility for a piece of work to identify UNIX support tasks that could be easily and safely transferred and to compile the educational material for the transfer. Over a two week period I worked from India delivering training and guided the team as they took on their responsibilities. Once back in the UK I continued to mentor and coach the Indian team until they were confident enough work on their own.

Solaris Unix Specialist

• Mar 2001 - Jul 2003

My first role in IBM was as a Sun Solaris Unix specialist to support a major communications company Cable & Wireless. The initial role consisted of building servers, performing second and third line problem diagnostics, covering out of hours support and maintaining and developing the ‘Perl’ and ‘Shell’ scripts for the BMC monitoring, Tivoli backup schedules and the reporting systems. I quickly developed skills for building and supporting highly available mid-range UNIX systems running on Sun E10000 frames running databases such as Oracle. During my time at C&W I led the UNIX work for separating applications and infrastructure onto a different physical network, so a proportion of the client’s organisation could be isolated and sold off.

Programmer / Unix Administrator

• 1994 - 2001

I joined Cognition Solutions as a ‘C’ Language programmer responsible for modifying and enhancing their Intellect accounts software. Over a 5 month project I enhanced a large proportion of the application to introduce an application ‘Rollback’ capability to protect data integrity in the event of a program error or system failure. The company strategy changed to support the application under multiple UNIX environments and I became interested in the Solaris operating system and it’s support. This interest lead to an opportunity to develop my UNIX skills by attending a number of Solaris training courses ,which over time developed into a UNIX system support role covering hardware, system configuration, networking, customisation and software installation. During the role I installed servers on site, configured networks and resolved software and infrastructure problems.During my time at Cognition Solutions I was promoted to the technical support team leader where I developed the team’s skills to resolve technical problems remotely. The approach led to increased customer satisfaction by reducing the time taken to resolve problems.