Alex Thomson Email & Phone Number

Cyber Security and Operational Resilience

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

Part of the leadership team for Group Finance Support covering systems, data, reporting and controls. Led delivery of key initiatives, spearheading a series of process improvements impacting c.500 staff and developing a culture of continuous improvement.• Represented the Data workstream for ongoing Finance Transformation, helping the bank to move to an Oracle finance data platform which will be integrated with Oracle Fusion – focussed on data quality, treatment of unstructured data, data architecture of strategic solution from source systems through data model, ledger and reporting, etc.• Led the portfolio oversight of 100+ banking projects that impacted the Finance teams - ensured one route in, effective impact assessment at start, and effective monitoring and escalation during delivery• Led the c. £10m Control & Reporting programme which addressed top-level risks across Finance – standardised the journal process, re-set cost transfer pricing across entities, upskilled colleagues in finance processes• Delivered 30+ key process improvements annually to increase control and reduce FTE• Developed the culture of process improvement across Finance

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

Product leadership, taking ownership for the successful delivery of customer value from the prioritised Finance Analytics backlog, leveraging multi-disciplinary feature teams, DevOps approach and full agile-based methodology with use of Jira and Confluence tools.• Led and mentored the team to achieve accreditation in agile methodology, one of the first within Lloyds Banking Group. Used OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) for linking work to strategic goals for teams.• Successfully delivered the upgrade of the Lloyds Banking Group’s IBM (£4m) Data & Analytics solution, an enhanced planning, forecasting and reporting tool, engaging as early adopters in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution, enabling improved performance, better functionality, and scalability outcomes and adopting DevOps approach.• Completed the re-organisation of c. 140 colleagues for Group Costs Centre of Excellence – including organisation design, colleague mapping and scoring, announcements and outcomes.

Bristol, United Kingdom

Programme leadership and delivery on a major £50m+ multi-year strategic initiative implementing a new cloud-based general ledger system as part of Finance Transformation.• Assembled and led the delivery team, comprising 50+ people in change and engineering teams, with up to 200+ resources, comprising finance SMEs, operational teams and offshore staff. Mentoring & coaching.• Developed strong relationship with KPMG and Oracle as the implementation partner and consultancy support, ensuring value from targeted work.• Agreed the vision and strategic approach to migrate from disparate legacy systems to one single platform, securing approval for the budget, resources and timeline. • Successfully provided an end-to-end solution, from source systems, through the data hub, to Oracle Fusion including reference data management and reconciliations, eliminating an end-of-life general ledger and creating a robust platform for the subsequent migration away from SAP systems.• Maintained strong stakeholder management across the lifecycle, with collaborative approach leading to successful implementation.• Communicated with passion & enthusiasm across Finance colleagues, leading to positive feedback and support.

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

Programme leadership and delivery, taking ownership for implementation of an end-to-end solution, encompassing technology, process and people. Insurance scope covered life, pensions and investments.• Completed the £650m sale of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership to Aberdeen Asset Management (£17m) for Insurance Division, including contract finalisation and technical solutions for temporary services that needed to operate post sale.• Led the £2m product development for Bulk Annuities for Scottish Widows brand, spearheading the delivery of collateral functionality to successful secure a £630m pension buy-in deal with the ICI Pension Fund.• Delivered the regulatory changes to comply with Pension Freedoms (£30m) allowing c. 500,000 customers greater flexibility over their retirement outcomes. Engaged on an end-to-end programme basis, with a focus around innovative demand management, customer communications, and design & risk management.• Led the outsourcing of fund accounting to State Street Corporation (£10m). Created new asset data warehouse and implemented agreed solution with State Street.• Programme Manager for the implementation of Solvency II regulations (£10m). Shaped work against requirements and developed costed options, working alongside actuarial resource to develop approach and ambition.• Programme Manager for post-merger integration of HBOS and Lloyds, with focus on Insurance activities.

London, England, United Kingdom

IT Consultancy and Project Management Specialists.Delivered various engagements for clients embarking on significant IT or business change projects - such as managing the PMO function for a major regulatory change at HBOS, delivering data migration approach for Lloyds Pharmacy, implementing Hummingbird document management system, SAP consultancy for Dyson, managing the SAP roll-out at FirstGroup, planning lead for TubeLines Oracle/Maximo asset management implementation.

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

Manager for Business Advisory Services - providing consulting services for clients with major change programmes - such as FirstGroup, Allied Domecq.Also qualified as Chartered Accountant with KPMG within the Financial Services department - with work at Friends Provident, Clerical Medical, Alliance & Leicester, Dryfield Bank, etc.