Arron Edwards Email & Phone Number

My team are building critical payment-linked rewards infrastructure on a planetary scale. Our systems run card-linked rewards for some of the biggest names in retail and the biggest brands in payments.What does my typical day look like?* Building out the engineering team with my Head of Engineering focused on delivery.* Ensuring our technology meets both our internal and external stakeholder needs.* Improving SLAs for all stakeholders.* Managing suppliers and partners by ensuring SLAs are met and firming up strategic partnerships.What's coming up?* Group Product and Tech Sync (4+ tech companies, 4+ sales-focused companies)* Team expansion including integration of group companies (think M&A)* Enabling technology decisions across the wider business through team development* Trust marks and certifications: PCI DSS v4, ISO27001:2022, SOC2 Type II* Speeding up to-market delivery* Improving Customer Service and Onboarding with technologyMissions accomplished so far:* Fidel API acquisition, making us the largest rewards provider in the world* Recruit and onboard 17 people including, product, delivery, IT, and security professionals* Product and Tech Roadmap* Business enablement projects, including the Braze marketing platformNone of the above is possible without the support of the wider team. Our team strives to make the best daily decisions through open and candid conversations.#watchthisspace #fintech #scaleup #scotland #england #uk #canada

Collums is a practice management platform for aesthetic clinics across the UK.The challenge: Cloud costs, technical direction, product roadmap, and team management.The solution: Rally the team around the key focuses, close out recurrent bugs and streamline technical operations.The outcome: A happy CEO, happier customers, reduced and predictable cloud costs, roadmap delivery that continues to progress.On a personal note: I am enjoying seeing the business grow as we improve the way we work. Giving a CEO confidence to grow, knowing there is support of an experience team taking care of issues when they come up.

London, England, Gb

I am working with the team to improve engineering processes. The team use AWS and JavaScript/TypeScript for their product development across web and mobile.Key successes to date:* Reviewed code and product architecture* Provided insight to Director of Product to address technical debt (close work continues together)* Reviewed ISO27001 ISMS with Administration Team for Leadership* Working with Engineering Team on CI/CD pipelines which were in place for a single project only (ongoing)* Worked with Data Science to automate ETL activities, and working on integrating reports into the product* Reviewing technical documentation to ensure sufficient knowledge transfer to new team membersTo come:* Refine Agile ways of working* Re-architect part of the data schema to resolve ongoing data challenges* Improve engineering delivery speed through trainingUnder NoBa Capital, I spend time in different portfolio businesses to get alongside their teams to help with engineering processes, and review technology for scalability. I work closely with the teams in place to help identify their gaps and help them fill them quickly.Betterspace forms part of employee wellness programmes within UK-based companies. We provide assessment, guidance, knowledge and a product and service marketplace to the users of our product. Employee wellness has been a focus of many companies since the pandemic, and supporting teams to take care of their mental health both inside and outside of work is a key focus.

London, England, Gb

Joined a small team to help improve product delivery and reliability.So far:* Microsoft Azure review and tidying; reducing cloud costs (~45% to date, and working on 60%+)* ISO27001 and 22301 audit, including simplification of ISMS (passed the surveillance audit, passed recertification with ISMS and BCMS, and embedded in the team)* Build rapport with the team, and ensure the engineering team is supported on roadmap goals* Take over responsibility for IT Infrastructure and simplify the tech stack and tooling.* Documenting the existing infrastructure and code base to support product roadmap and business growth.* Standardising processes so we can onboard new team members as we need them, including contractors.* Code review with the engineering team, including surfacing issues to the Product Director to prioritise alongside the roadmap.* Security review, including hardening of the existing application and infrastructure.* Worked closely with the Product Director to deliver product roadmap* Working on new architecture and architecture migration plan to support new features* Onboarded Commercial Director attending sales calls to support training on product* Onboarded Product Director and reviewed product strategy as Head of Product contractor finished engagement* Onboarded Head of Customer Success and handed over support tickets* Supported Backend Engineer to Learn Terraform for Azure and create new infrastructure as code (and deployed it)* Supported Backend Engineer to build Azure Pipelines to build and deploy new software to Terraformed Infrastructure in Azure

Manchester, England, Gb

Took ownership of several critical projects from the outgoing CTO, and moved from Head of Software Development responsibilities to more strategic tasks. As I was unable to back-fill the Head of Engineering role, I continued to support and mentor the engineers whilst my direct line-management and strategic priorities increased.* Managed key partner and supplier relationships to ensure our partners were accountable and met SLAs* Negotiated, reviewed and drafted agreements and contracts with suppliers to ensure they were fair contracts* Explored potential partners, investors and suppliers* Sourced new technologies that helped progress the products we were building and maintaining* Managed customer relationships from a technical perspective when needed, including the recovery of a critical relationship due to technical issues with one product* Grew and developed software engineers across the team, including mentoring a senior engineer towards Head of Engineering.* Identified and implemented solutions to software delivery challenges (mostly late project deliverables)* Oversight of SRE, Live Support, IT and Engineering Functions, including kicking off strategic projects to upgrade aging infrastructure and automation of deployments.* Provided ongoing mentoring to my team, identifying training gaps and encouraging personal and professional development* Managing a GBP3m budget for Cloud, IT and Staffing Costs across UK and India* Identified and improved product delivery through better and standardised ways of working* Reduced cloud costs by 5%, on track to deliver 10% cost savings through engineeringAlong with the above, I was part of the Executive team which included attending the Executive Strategy Planning sessions, and then running Strategy Planning Workshops with my engineering and technical team.

Manchester, England, Gb

We build analytics products to help facility managers understand how people move in and around those spaces. We have two products: Network (Wifi) and Wayfinding (assisting people in navigating indoors just like Google Maps).Engineering and Product* Reviewed blockages preventing software delivery, which resulted in a strategy I implemented within the first few months of starting.* Improved the QA cycle by integrating QA as part of the product and development cycle, speeding up delivery.* Migrated Confluence and Jira to the cloud and re-worked the templates in Confluence and workflows in Jira to speed up product specifications to engineering and reduce WIP on boards where engineers or QA did not have enough detail to start tasks.Development Processes* Worked with Engineering and DevOps to implement CI/CD resulting in the first CI/CD pipelines used at Purple.* Introduced engineers to microservice architecture and kicked off several key projects using this design approach.* Identified projects locked into a monolithic application as candidates for microservices and kicked off the projects quickly (one after the other) to unblock several projects delayed due to the existing architecture.Recruitment and Onboarding* Worked with a lead engineer to develop a simple tech test and assessment criteria to help us find the right engineers to join our team and establish where knowledge gaps were so we could upskill new joiners faster.* Developed an onboarding process to help onboard engineers faster due to recruiting and hiring eight engineers in as many weeks and needing to get them up to speed with our vision, product, and project goals.Solutions Delivery* Improved the Solutions Delivery process by managing the flow of work, providing realistic timeframes for delivery, and reducing WIP to deliver agreed projects on time or early.* Introduced Jira Forms to help ingest new tasks to the engineering team and make communication more transparent.

Having sold by business, we decided to move halfway around the world with my family. I contracted to the new owner of Bravesight to ensure a successful and smooth transition which included:* Supporting an existing team member into the General Manager position.* Migrating Atlassian Jira and Confluence to the cloud.* Transitioning Sprint Management to the development team due to a key member leaving the company (they picked up an awesome role in a larger company around the time of the sale).* Training a new developer and helping transition support back onshore for the new owner.* Finding our offshore team new roles as the new ownership wanted to return all work onshore.I spent a good amount of this time playing games with my young family, packing boxes and down sizing our life to move to Scotland. Feel free to ask me more about all of this time, as it was really fun spending more time with my family and helping them explore the the world around them.

Tauranga, Bay Of Plenty, Nz

I am working with our team in Cebu and Tauranga to develop a WordPress Maintenance and Development business and leveraging our IP and expertise in building websites with Totali and Bravesight. We will transform the way people engage with their web developer so that the experience is a positive one that grows leads and sales and not a "call you when it's broken" kind of relationship.---As the Chief Marketing Officer, my role involved the following:* Create an automated lead generation process that found high-probability match target clients (running WordPress).* Create outreach programmes to contact potential clients from the leads generated. I did this two ways: Telesales and Email Marketing. Telesales leads into the Email Marketing approach to nurturing leads that didn't have an immediate need.* As the market was small in New Zealand, we built a small database of around 2,500 subscribers interested in our services and WordPress tips; I believe this would have been much larger in other markets.* Implemented a regular client contact programme that involved a monthly meeting with the client to generate a steady stream of valuable work and identify detractors so problems could be resolved with the delivery team.* Created a Direct Mail campaign that generated a 3% ROI, including a follow-up approach that increased ROI up to 10% depending on the campaign.* Wrote two marketing "guides" as lead generation tools (attributed to others to build their profiles on LinkedIn).In addition to the CMO role, I was also involved with:* Reviewing the implemented training process, including onboarding of new staff.* Helping the support team with technical issues as we documented the businesses (including management of servers using Direct Admin - a WHS type panel for automated server deployments)* I provided the heavy lifting to WordPress issues to Junior PHP Developers to make the system easier to run.

Tauranga, Bay Of Plenty, Nz

Bravesight is a multi-disciplined e-commerce marketing team with in-depth knowledge of e-commerce marketing strategy. My team are passionate about business growth and have been working to deliver tangible value to our existing and new clients. I am excited about this evolution of Totali and look forward to seeing where the next decade takes us all.Update November 2021: I was approached to sell the company, so I decided it was time to pass the baton over to Mercury IT. I've worked with some fantastic clients and built some great software over this time.---I was involved in all aspects of running the company. As we moved from Totali to Bravesight, my role changed from managing clients, writing code and running the company to only running the company. This migration was tough as we lacked systems and were changing our position in the market, both of which took up more time than I had available.What did I do?* Systemised server operations and onboarded a contract technician to manage these for the company.* Changed the management structure to run projects and support separately.* Helped my operations/support manager systemise and automate our everyday tasks in Jira.* Handed over Confluence and Jira administration to my Operations Manager.* Improved project delivery approach alongside my Project Manager.* Reduced project lead times from three months to one month over 2020 and 2021.* Reduced service desk lead times from three to four weeks to one week or less (by the end of 2021, the average resolution time for a support task was <3 working days where a developer escalation was required, and <2 hours for most other tasks).* Reduced my time in the company significantly between 2020 and 2021 as a result of putting the right management structures in place.

Totali recently acquired the business of Primary Computer Management Limited (also known as Pricom or PCM). This acquisition is an exciting one for both companies as Pricom is over 30 years old, and has software that has great benefits for Totali, while the customers can greatly benefit from the experience and innovation Totali brings to Pricom. The team at Totali are looking forward to working with the Pricom customers over the coming years bringing some great improvements and changes to their already excellent software solutions.Merged operations into Bravesight from April 2018.---At Pricom, I focused on migrating the historical codebase from C with a Python wrapper (basic XML RPC Server) with no security to a PHP-based RESTful API.I worked with my developers to migrate the data from a legacy DISAM database to MySQL using a utility we designed to migrate the complete database into a set of tables for further migration. The C application dealt with the ETL part of the equation; then we wrote some PHP code to deal with the migration from the dumped tables to a new data structure, which dealt with the updates and creation of new records.On top of this new API, we built both .NET C# and browser-based (offline) applications. These applications processed a lot of data that was used for financial transactions. One example was responsible for processing millions of dollars of payments a year for a client. The in-house accountant performed this before the solution we created, which made this job a simple administrator's task.

Tauranga, Nz

I work with a talented team of website designers and developers. Our team has a range of backgrounds and experiences with all kinds of people and businesses. We work with our customers to create websites to help drive online enquiry (leads) or sales (e-commerce). Our customers enjoy leveraging our expertise and tools to achieve their business goals. Our customers are part of our team, so we enjoy long relationships with all our customers, and it's rare for a customer to part company with us. Our customers challenge us, and we like to challenge their thinking and ways of doing business. We are great at solving business problems using software by taking a business focus first, and technology focus second - just ask our customers!We rebranded Totali Limited to Bravesight Limited in March 2017.---Starting the company, my role involved:* Meeting with clients to scope and document their project requirements.* Creating database structures, implementing, tuning, and optimising queries and tables.* Writing HTML/CSS/PHP/JS for projects using various frameworks as needed to complete the project.* Integration with RESTful and non-RESTful APIs (Xero, Salesforce.com, Rental Car Manager, PipeDrive)* Integration of payment gateway services.As my role changed, I moved towards project management:* Managing a stream of development work for our developers.* Hiring, onboarding, training and managing software developers.* Managing multiple priorities across multiple projects and clients.* Managing client expectations.* Providing developer support on projects where needed (including QA, code reviews and mentorship).Other tasks I did as a business owner:* Creating marketing materials to help articulate our approach to clients.* Networked to generate leads and connect with other business owners.* Managed the P&L to ensure we remained profitable and addressed issues before they became problems that needed significant attention.

I purchased this existing business with the view of taking the existing systems and building it into a franchise model. Unfortunately, we were unable to get this business to turn a profit despite a concerted effort by the manager and employees it was obvious the business model was not commercially viable the way we ran it.You can read all about it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/every-lightbulb-moment-brings-clarity-arron-edwards

We are currently in the phase of building membership. In 2012 my role has changed to start planning and co-ordinating events throughout the year for our members. This should help drive more membership and give our members some new styles of events to attend.

KAMAR is a school database solution. While working there I setup a helpdesk, and some support systems around running the helpdesk efficiently. I supported growth from 20 schools nationwide to 80-120 by the time I left. The last project I setup while working at KAMAR was their VoIP phone system running Asterisk Open Source PBX, which still has many of the original components and setup in place. Totali still works closely with KAMAR, being one of the few developers that have direct access to the data in the system, and an intimate knowledge of how the data is stored and utilised. I have provided many contract engagements for KAMAR over the past few years.

Disclaimer: I've added this role to explain where I started my career as it's not always apparent due to the way LinkedIn structures data.I wrote my first commercial e-commerce solution for a small business whilst at high school. It was in PHP and MySQL and helped the company take orders online. This was well before e-commerce took off in New Zealand. I kept this customer through all my time in New Zealand, when I sold my company in 2021. I still keep in touch with this customer periodically.I then went on to write an internet filtering and proxying solution using Squidcache. This was an interface that was easier to use than webmin (a Perl server admin tool, a pre-cursor to things like CPanel). My interface wrote the configuration files and restarted the services as needed. Users would update blocked website lists and IP ranges across the network to control the internet like a light switch for each classroom. I wrote a log file parser to import the data efficiently and cooked a hard drive from the sheer amount of data (bearing in mind that this was well before SSD and plentiful RAM). I commercialised this solution against solutions from ISPs locally using hardware-based solutions at the data centre end. I had a number of local and regional schools before the Ministry of Education funded the ISP-based solutions, and I lost the opportunity available in the market.I continued working on both solutions until I formed my company, and both were my initial start in Managed Services and software development. This work then evolved into our e-commerce platform, acquisitions and business development that I've detailed in other roles.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

After completing my initial management training, I was taught how to manage stock in the Huntly Restaurant, then moved (same franchisee) to the Pukekohe Restaurant where I completed the MDP2. I was managing up to 25 crew on a nine hour shift, meeting sales projections, and continuing to manage stock levels, orders and monthly stocktake and yields.

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Promoted to a trainee manager, working through McDonald's Manager Development Program (MDP).

Chicago, Illinois, Us

Worked front of house, looking after our McDonald's customers at the Huntly Restaurant.