Vice President of Delivery Management

• Jan 2023 - Present

Head Of Technology Operations & Information Security

• Apr 2019 - Dec 2022

In this role, I play a key role in driving the strategic direction of Technology Operations from SL in alignment with Pearson’s global vision. I own control over end-to-end delivery of Technology Operations (TechOps) from Sri Lanka including planning, budgeting, monitoring and control of all financial aspects of the department. I ensure continuous improvement in quality, process, and operations by conceptualizing and driving results-oriented initiatives.My notable accomplishments in this role are:• Created “T” shaped engineers by applying a "mindset change" approach to introduce new ways of working, whilst managing upskill/re-skill and cross-training activities via the SRE Transformation.• Achieved ZERO escalations during the 2021 Back-To-School (BTS) by steering a 12-week exercise in close collaboration with multidisciplinary teams to improve MTTRs/MTTDs.• Increased overall productivity by more than 90% through the creation and implementation of new metrics/KPIs.• Drove 100% on-time delivery through excellent management of a team of 280+ on-seat personnel across 17 different lines of services/functions.• Demonstrated leadership abilities to direct cross-functional team of 2 directors, 7 Senior Managers, and 10 Managers.• Ensured timely availability of private / public cloud infrastructure services to Pearson customers / learners on global level by leading 280+ operations and security teams.• Major contribution to secure Pearson's HED LOB's $1.5B in annual revenue by providing seamless services from technology teams and maximising product availability during critical business periods. Show less

Associate Director

• Jan 2017 - Apr 2019

During this time, I was mainly involved in building a highly-talented team in SL to meet workforce optimisations globally. I played a key role in strengthening organisational workforce by introducing an operations model unique to the Sri Lankan market aimed at attracting skillful talent by offering the best work-life balance even in a 24x7 environment. I grew the team from 40 to 100 through identification, recruitment, and selection of talent.My major contributions to this role are:• Streamlined overall workflow by overseeing 130+ platform / infrastructure teams; providing global support for 20+ Pearson owned DCs around the clock from Sri Lanka.• Supported 20+ datacentres globally, 3K AWS instances, 15K VMs, 700 ESXi hosts, 3.7K DB instances, 35K+ Service now tickets on monthly basis through successful roll out 24x7 operations in Sri Lanka in 2016. Show less

Senior Manager - Platform Operations

• May 2015 - Dec 2016

Throughout this role, I received promotions from "Associate Manager" to "Manager" and to "Senior Manager" positions for producing exceptional results.I gained the trust of global leadership by growing as a team and proving team capabilities. I contributed to driving smooth workflow by establishing infrastructure teams in SL. I employed my analytical abilities to identify, recommend, develop, implement, and support cost-effective technology / operational solutions in close collaboration with senior leadership. I promoted continuous improvement of services and processes to increase platform stability and improve operational efficiency.My key accomplishments in this role are:• Reduced risk and disruption by enabling ITIL practices across platform & infrastructure teams.• Improved productivity and efficiency by collaborating with teams on infrastructure Automation initiatives.• Achieved desired objectives by overseeing platform/infrastructure strategic planning, including business requirements, project planning, and resource allocation negotiations. Show less

Manager - Systems Administration

• Apr 2013 - Apr 2015

Associate Manager - Systems Administration

• Sep 2011 - Mar 2013

Senior Consultant - Specialist

• Jul 2009 - Aug 2011

As a Senior Consultant, I led Transition from TechM to Virtusa for technical support remits for British telecom with a keen focus on driving seamless workflow.Following are my key contributions to this role:• Streamlined workflow by overseeing end-to-end transition, while building and guiding team in SL to 100 resources.• Increased operational efficiency by developing and implementing effective operating procedures. • Identifying, evaluating and managing risks through the transition lifecycle to avoid impact to timelines. • Manage Transition tollgates as per schedule including effective handover to operations team. Show less

Consultant - Technology

• Jan 2008 - Jun 2009

• In this role, I delivered exceptional services through excellent administration of Siebel development and staging server environments across different platforms.• Acted as point of contact for technology POCs and solution implementations to new technologies and eliminated communication gaps and resolved critical issues on time.Technical Competency Required for the Role. Most of the skills were acquired by self learning over a period of time as i was engaged with this client for 6yrs.Operating Systems- Solaris 7, 8 , 9, 10- AIX 4.3, 5.1, 5.2- Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition 4.0- HP-UX 11.11 , 11.23- Microsoft Windows XP, 2000 Server, 2003 standard/EnterpriseApplication Servers- Web logic 7.x, 8.x & 9.2 - Web sphere 5.x & 6.x - Oracle 10g Application ServerDatabase Servers- Oracle 9i, 10g- DB2 7.x, 8.x- SQL 2000 & 2005Source Controls- IBM Rational Clear Case & Clear case multisite (Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and AIX platforms) Show less

Senior Systems Engineer

• Jan 2006 - Jan 2008

Release Engineer

• Aug 2003 - Dec 2005

Senior Lecturer

• Sep 2001 - Aug 2003

Throughout this time, I recognised as SME for cooperate-and enterprise-level training for organisations.Notable contributions:• Enhanced overall process effectiveness by leading technical operations of two delivery centres in Colombo.• Leveraged in-depth field knowledge to Delivery technical education to HND and BSC Final Year of Open university of UK.

Trainee Lecturer

• Feb 2001 - Sep 2001

Conduct Training's on Diploma CoursesConduct Training's on MS Office programsConduct Training's on Selected modules of the DNIIT program.Work with Sysadmin team to Manage the center network.