Kris Read (Mbcs, Fcmi) Email & Phone Number

AMP Clean Energy is a distributed energy company which funds and develops low carbon heat and power solutions including biomass heat installations, solar PV and flexible energy plants. AMP Clean Energy’s mission is to help UK businesses and organisations unlock the potential of decentralised, sustainable energy which supports the UK’s transition to a net zero economy.

Loughborough

The Energy Technologies Institute (The ETI) is a £400m Industry & UK Government partnership funded by international industrial companies (Shell, Rolls Royce, Caterpillar, EON & BP) and the UK Government and tasked with accelerating affordable, secure and sustainable energy that helps the UK to meet its long-term emission targets.Planned and Implemented the IT Strategy ensuring alignment with the ETI’s vision and strategy.Managed a combined IT & Facilities publicly funded budget of £5m+ whilst working within strict processes to ensure value for money.Created and presented monthly status reports to the Executive Team and where necessary secured buy in for future project commitments.Led and mentored the team of technicians ensuring their skillsets remained current and met our obligations within the organisation whilst supporting their long-term development goals.Project managed and delivered the ETI’s wind up of operations in IT & Facilities, reported directly to the Executive Committee to present the proposed plans and indicative budgets and assisted other areas of the organisation during the wind-up process.Decommissioned the infrastructure with no adverse effects on productivity which included the secure disposal and data wiping of all assets.Served as an employee elected member of the Staff Committee supporting employees during redundancies and to function as a conduit and neutral party between staff and the Executive & Board.

Loughborough

Project lead for the ETI to host its largest £36m+ Smart Systems and Heat Programme (SSH). Responsible for sourcing the site, tendering the refurbishment work, design of AV\Conferencing equipment, furniture and space planning. Designed, tested and built a new VMware virtual infrastructure with secure site to site communications, deployment of new workstations and applications. The project was particularly challenging due to tight deadlines and budget limitations. Project managed the TUPE transfer of the SSH programme, which included the transfer of staff, building and IT Assets to the Energy Systems Catapult. Novated managed service agreements and migration of the primary networking infrastructure and VoIP system into the new environment. The sensitive nature of the project demanded excellent communication and collaborative working with all stakeholders.Decommissioned the SSH site including servers and network storage, transferred assets to the new environment with no disruption to staff at both organisations. The project was considered a huge success by the Board and Executive Team at both organisations. Implemented the Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery plan which ensured delivery of core services with only minor disruption when the building was inaccessible due to extreme weather.Efficient Backup Strategy using VEEAM and third party products to protect all critical systems whilst maximising storage capacity across the infrastructure. Architect for the design and implementation of both a physical and VMware virtual infrastructure along with the subsequent operational management of a multisite environment. Successfully managed multiple Windows, Office and application deployments, iPhone deployments into an MDM system, multiple workstation refresh programmes, secure corporate and guest wireless networks.

I was contracted to the Energy Technologies Institute to project manage, implement and support a whole new IT infrastructure during the early stages of this newly formed company. My primary objective was to ensure the ETI was completely self sufficient in terms of IT. The initial steps involved moving away from the ageing telephone system to a new VoIP platform, which laid the foundations for the second phase of the project; to migrate all workstations from the Loughborough University infrastructure to a newly created domain. During the project we upgraded from XP to Vista ensuring that all critical profile and network data was transferred. Due to the company’s status it was allowed to connect directly to the JANET network for its connectivity to the Internet and therefore its telecommunications. Hosted servers were introduced to act as a live disaster recovery site to add resilience to the network. Data is replicated in real time so that in the event of a disaster the system can be used immediately using secure VPN access.

Aaland supports a number of Blue Chip clients from various sectors. My main responsibility was to ensure that the technical team were logging all calls and resolving any technical issues promptly. Part of my role was to design, plan and install customer networks and server rooms. To enable me to do this I had to study for The Electricians 16th Edition: Wiring Regulations and take the relevant examinations.As Aaland is a privately owned business the operation was run extremely efficiently and customer satisfaction was our primary focus. Most of our new business was by personal recommendation from satisfied customers.

York

My primary role at Gamestation was managing a technical support team that ensured that the 150 head office users and 350 retail outlets were delivered effective and proactive support. As the company grew from 100 stores, from when I first joined to 350, a major part of the support function was configuring and supporting the EPoS systems as the stores opened at a rate of 4 a week. With a massive increase in weekly support calls I implemented call logging software for the support team to prioritise and escalate the calls efficiently.Working as part of a team my role was to support the 350 retail outlets that Gamestation ran across the UK. The work was of a challenging nature as the stores operated 7 days a week and we had to deal with any technical issues in a timely manner to avoid any loss of business to stores.

A-Level, Advanced Information Technology

Education record