Experience

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  Practical Business Solutions (PBS)

  • Cape Town Area, South Africa

  • Business Systems Analyst

    • Jul 2006 - Jun 2023
    • Cape Town Area, South Africa

    As a consultant through Practical Business Solutions (PBS) my roles have varied based on the needs of the individual projects and the companies to whom I have consulted. The primary role has, however, been as the bridge between Business and IT where my system design knowledge and financial services experience work together to design practical solutions for businesses.Business System Analysis and Solution Design requires understanding of the intricacies of the business processes, product legal requirements and system integrations. The role of the solution designer is often underestimated with the final solution not taking cognisance of the entire environment.Through PBS I have worked for many clients in the financial services industry including Old Mutual, Maitland Group and Glenrand MIB. This has also involved close working relationships with Coronation and PPS Investments.The aspects of Financial Services that I have had significant exposure to include:• Transfer Agency South African Unit Trust (UT)• Linked Investment Service Provider (LISP) (Living Annuity, Preservation Funds – Provident, Pension, Discretionary and Tax Free Investments)• Employee Benefits (EB) – corporate benefits offered to employees (Pension and Provident Funds – both stand alone and umbrella funds, Preserver (in-fund preservation funds, Insurance Cover (funeral, life instance, dread disease) offered through corporate • Open-Ended Investment Companies (OEICs) – UK Mutual FundsThe exposure I have received in this role includes:• Data Analysis• Database design• Reporting design• Migration design and development• Web site design and API Integrations• Product design • ETL Design and development• AutomationI have also been exposed to some of the more widely used systems in the South African financial services industry which includes:• Flexcube• Silica• OmniPlus• Compass• TCubeEach system has its unique requirements but also have many similarities.

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  Glenrand MIB

  • Cape Town Area, South Africa

  • IT Manager

    • Apr 2005 - Jul 2006
    • Cape Town Area, South Africa

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  Old Mutual

  • Cape Town Area, South Africa

  • Senior Business Analyst

    • Apr 2003 - Mar 2005
    • Cape Town Area, South Africa

    The merge of the administration services of BoE Financial Services with the administration services of Old Mutual required migration of IT solutions and configuration to ensure compliance with Old Mutual standards. The role continued to include process and business improvements. A fundamental delivery during this period was the design, development, implementation and launch of the Old Mutual Evergreen umbrella fund - a member centric retirement solution that was feature rich and at the cutting end of retirement at the time. This included a full new payroll web solution, a streamlined simplified intranet site for internal administration, a member web offering and full accounting integration. This solution continued to set the benchmark for administration for years to come.

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  BoE Financial Services Group

  • Cape Town Area, South Africa

  • Business Analyst

    • Apr 1997 - Mar 2003
    • Cape Town Area, South Africa

    This role included designing solution to support a full range of discretionary and retirement solutions for the South African market including Living Annuities, Preservation Funds and Employee Benefit Funds. The primary system was OmniPlus but multiple other systems were developed for letter generation, web access and workflow.During this period I was exposed to process design, product design and implementation, system design and upgrades. The upgrade included traveling to the US to ensure the successful upgrade to the Y2K version of the software. This also required the full Y2K testing and compliance certification.The business also branched out into 3rd Party Administration which included white labeling and back-office functions for other financial services companies including Allan Gray and ACSIS.