Moved to Germany and took a break to establish my new life, absorbing my new surroundings and learning the German language and culture.

When Extron, a US based global hardware company (2.5K workforce), acquired Entwine Media AG, a mid-stage Swiss software startup of 5, I was hired to lead and implement cultural, strategic, mindset and process improvement shifts through a series of post-acquisition, software development, IT and business projects. I effortlessly embraced the Program Manager role to pair the software projects to Extron hardware devices.

Achievements:

Software Projects

• Increased revenue and market presence with the successful completion of the Cloud project that served as an additional sales stream. Here, I led an international project team of 100 to implement Extron’s Cloud presence on AWS and produce standard operating procedures, guidelines that formed a strategy for all future Cloud products. My deep knowledge of IT and IT security reinforced by years of hands-on experiences (eg. in UNIX, Linux, AD, databases & apps), meant that I effortlessly adapted to Cloud technology. The architects opted for Terraform, Openshift and Kubernetes as orchestration tools. Our core offering used AWS Elastic Compute (S2 & S3) for dynamic and scalable instances and storage, Identity and Access Management (IAM) to organise users and groups for authentication, with dedicated roles and policies allowing authentication to tasks and resources under set conditions. Usage and client licenses (customer billing), modifications, monitoring and alerting was done via the AWS console and/or portal. The application layer was under planning when I left but was to make use of Amazon’s RDS (database), MQ (Active MQ bus), ElasticSearch and AV/Media offerings.
• Increased the efficiency and quality of our software development process and reduced risks and costs by successfully aligning Agile methodology and tools (traditional and SAFe) to our sdlc. This involved leading and cementing Agile best practices within an international project team of 200 to ensure timely development, release and deployments of quality increments of our complex lecture capture and distribution software modules for both on-premise and cloud (AWS) implementations. This involved building cross- functional design based, customer focused teams across all sdlc phases and maintaining technical and product roadmaps to include new product features, technology stack changes, eg. for new build, release and upgrades mechanisms, test automation and the move to the cloud and CI/CD.
• Decreased security risks with the successful completion of the single sign-on project integrating 50+ standalone software development tools, including AWS, Jira, Confluence, BitBucket, Jenkins, Slack, Zoom, etc directly to AD.
• Increased customer satisfaction and reduced time wasting and errors by formalising the Customer Management process to ensure customer needs were always recorded, scheduled and delivered on time.
• Increased individual/team productivity by compiling, documenting & communicating RACI & Best Practices models for all teams in all business and engineering processes within both the product and software development lifecycles.
• Maintained team efficiency and focus and reduced the risk of transitioning to Scaled Agile (SAFe) when we grew, by adopting the Agile Coach role to guide the newly formed self-organising product teams to success.
• Cut license costs by consolidating and migrating our various on-premises Jira, Conference & BitBucket instances to Atlassian Cloud.
• Implemented all Jira workflows to reflect the business and software processes.
• Site administration for Jira, Conference, BitBucket and Crowd on both the on-prem and Atlassian Cloud instances.

Achievements:

Business Projects

• Increased firmwide efficiency and reduced cost/waste by transforming Extron’s business/IT processes and strengthening communication towards a Lean/Agile organisation.
• Minimised team disruption and maintained motivation by employing strong leadership and effective communication to smoothly and sensitively deploy the post-acquisition cultural and process changes as the Entwine team joined Extron.
• Minimised loss of service and legal risks whilst managing the collaboration with Extron Facilities to setup the office in Zurich and HR & IT (NLD/USA) to integrate the Zurich team into Extron’s HR & IT processes.
• Increased productivity to a 24/7 project workforce team by managing the project to build global Extron teams for Engineering, QA and UX with a uniformed toolset, working practices and a stable Agile culture.
• Talent acquisition Direct involvement in the selection, interviewing and hiring decision for projects, including of all Zurich staff.

Provided English business and IT services. Running my own business, dramatically strengthened my business acumen and client focus. Something that will never leave.

• Projects focusing on corporate culture, executive business coaching and inter-cultural awareness and integration.
• Contracted for English Immersion to the Swiss Secondary Schools bilingual Matura program, with “Train the Teacher” sessions and workshop.
• IT Project Manager for Zurich International School, Baden, completing the Desktop Upgrade Project (hardware & software), plus the Google Project (move to Google apps).

Project managed all database related projects. Seconded to the BA team (10%) to gain greater business knowledge. Part of ITIL Task force, setup to implement Incident, Change & Release and Deployment Management.

Achievements:

• Technical Project Manager coordinating local and international business and IT teams to successfully consolidate all data to a new offshore Business Intelligence environment.
• Consolidated and streamlining the MS SQL Server environment to a new clustered environment for a 60% reduction in hardware, support and licensing costs.
• Launched and developed the ITIL Problem Management process, taking it to ITIL Maturity Level 4, resulting in a 40% man hour gain for Helpdesk/IT Support.
• Business Analyst Data Dictionary Project. Investigated and formally mapped/documented the data flow within the banks different interconnected systems and applications.
• EMS Project. Technical Project Management, implementing EMS & decommissioning ARISTION (Risk systems).
• Responsible for internal & external Security Audits & Compliance for all SQL Server & Oracle instances.
• Contact and negotiator for all third-party software vendor management

During this time, I took pleasure in travelling and pursuing personal goals. This rewarding experience strengthened all aspects of my soft skills and deepened my appreciation of other cultures. Eventually I settled in Zurich.

Project Manager & Lead DBA for all MS SQL Server, Oracle & Sybase systems and their associated in-house & third-party applications.

Achievements

• Consolidated our core systems (HP-UX, Windows, Oracle, Sybase/SQL Server, WebLogic and Informatica) a single data centre, with a cost save of 40%.
• Migrated/Consolidated all 150+ MS SQL 7, 2K, 2005 & 2008 instances to a single Windows 2K cluster, with a cost save of 65%.
• Implemented an electronic Records Management System, Asset Management System, Contact Management System, Cognos Controller, Consolidator & Analyst.
• Technical Lead for all applications associated with SQL Server, Oracle & Sybase databases

A 6-month contract as Technical Project Manager (MS SQL Server DBA) on the SWAN project implementing a new nationwide supply chain solution for Sainsbury, a leading UK supermarket.

Project Manager (EMEIA): implementation/upgrade of Lotus Notes Financial systems (across 45 locations). Technology expert & System Administrator: MS SQL Server, Global PeopleSoft, Citrix, IIS, NT, Novell & Notes.

UK-wide System Administration (NT, Novell, Notes) & Windows 95 rollout. Maintenance, backup & virus protection management for user servers (6 Domino & 8 Novell) Technical support for PC’s, applications & bespoke Andersen software internal clients (800 users)