Chris Gladding Email & Phone Number

Working as a self employed IT Consultant, supplying expertise supporting critical IT Systems, IT Services and System Developments.

South Coast

Working closely with the Market Reform development and business teams to manage the User Acceptance Testing process, including defect and release management. I was able to be a key part of this process through to successful project completion. This was both a management and technical coordination role, bringing together suppliers and internal customer teams to meet a common goal.

Sussex, United Kingdom

Heading the various global operations including the customer services and consulting teams located in the UK, Houston and Kuala Lumpur, supporting the PARS, PRM and IDS software implementations, as well as the data focused Projects and Warehouse Operations teams based in Dartford. Interica are known for their asset management and data management solutions. This structured approach extends to the internal quality procedures used within the company. As a company we were always striving for continued improvement.My objective in this position was to provide superior services to our customers, both internal and external, while realising the full potential of the excellent staff and the quality products and services produced by the company.As Operations Manager the role entailed many facets including the control and management of the internal IT systems, the interface with external suppliers, the setting-up and running of projects (both internal and external), HSQE and the adherence to quality procedures (ISO 9001).

Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Responsible for the IT strategy for the Oil and Gas Division of ALS.ALS had acquired the Reservoir Group of companies. The initial focus of my role was the integration of the Reservoir Group Oil & Gas systems with the existing ALS infrastructure and environment, while continuing to provide consistency and leading edge technical advantage to the business.ALS had there own network of global data centres, so the task was to seamlessly integrate the Reservoir Group services into the new environment. This required a lot of coordination across globally based teams running across different time zones.

Uk

Responsible for the Global IT strategy for the Reservoir Group of companies. The main objective of this role was to build an infrastructure that could bring the global family of acquired companies together and enable improved internal communication and control over their IT environments.We approached challenge by building two synchronised data centres located in Aberdeen and Houston, providing central common services to the various acquired companies. Any specialist systems were dealt with case by case. Not all systems would be suitable for running out of the data centre, but we could always provide centralised control over their backup and recovery strategy. The building and maintenance of this environment required the close coordination with a number of external agencies based in the main centres of activity. This enabled our central coordination and support teams to be fairly small and nimble as we aimed to support our global customer base.

Houston, Texas Area

An executive role for Enigma Data Systems Inc. based in Houston, Texas, representing Enigma and Reservoir Group.Following the purchase of Enigma Data Solutions by Reservoir Group I was posted to the Houston office to run the office containing sales and support personnel. The position had many facets, but the main focus was on consistency and stability at this time of change, to reassure our Houston based customers that the products developed, supplied and supported by Enigma were is safe hands and the future would be stronger than ever.The role was very customer focused, during this time I made strong relationships, business ties and friendships with many of our clients.The role also included the mentoring of local staff, building up to the time when I would return to the UK office, leaving the ongoing local service management to the local team. This was a great experience for myself, I made many great friends while living and working in Houston. It was a sad day when my major goals were marked as accomplished and it was time to move on.

Sussex, United Kingdom

In February 2005 I was one of five management team members who formed Enigma Data Solutions Ltd. and purchased the IPR for the software held by Enigma Data Systems Ltd. In this position I was responsible for various aspects of the company including the Global Support Services, the Global Customer Services, Internal Systems Services and HR management. We started with a small dedicated team of about 10 staff and built up over five years to be over 30 strong.We were an early adopter of cloud services, moving out our critical mail, CRM and shared data services (SharePoint) to external service companies. This enabled us to concentrate on our core business and add value where we could most effect it.Over the following 5 years the company provided healthy growth, in July 2010 it was purchased by Reservoir Group.

Sussex, United Kingdom, United Kingdom

My enthusiastic approach to management aligned with my general computing experience made me the ideal person to take the vacated position of Worldwide Support Manager within Enigma. In this position I retained overall responsibility for the test team while taking additional responsibility for the Global Support Team.The Support Team covered clients around the world, running from two main centres, one in Haywards Heath (UK) and the second in Houston (USA). I had direct responsibility for a team of six support personnel handling all post sales support. I retained involvement with the testing and quality procedures and had an active involvement in pre-sales work.During this time I performed a lot of pre-sales work including presenting technical product training to EMC in Boston, presenting the Enigma products to SEB in Sweden, performing a large number of Web based presentations to customers around the world and completed on-site installations of the Enigma SmartMove product set for a number of companies in Europe. I took Project Lead in the installation of the Enigma products for Norsk Hydro in Norway. During this period I was able to take the software and support services to the next level, building upon the enhanced quality procedures and the company’s strong heritage of customer focus.

Sussex, United Kingdom, United Kingdom

My initial role at Enigma Data Systems was to enhance the testing of the company’s highly complex data management software and to add to their existing quality procedures.Enigma needed to ensure that their software was tested to the highest standards, to meet the requirements of the company’s newest customers. To achieve this I laid down solid structured testing techniques and the implementation of good QA procedures.I was able to build up a small but enthusiastic testing team that soon became respected within the company for their work and the quality improvements made to the development process. This had a measurable effect on the quality of the software being released by the company.

Southend On Sea, United Kingdom

Leading a testing team to test the Collections Processing on a new credit card system. The project was running late and they needed someone who could quickly pick-up the Functional Integration Testing requirements of the Collections sub-system and lead a team to meet tight deadlines.During the testing Test Director was used to perform defect tracking. The testing required the use of the specialised FDE Equasion and TRIAD software. The Debt400 Recoveries file interface was also to be tested.The restricted testing time scale was the main problem for the size and complexity of this sub-system, but with effective organisation and a lot of effort the testing was completed to plan in early December 2002.