Head of Technology for all Paddy Power retail stores covering all disciplines includingRetail IT OperationsRetail AV and NetworksRetail Field OperationsRetail Product Delivery

Responsible for product management and development for 650 Paddy Power retail stores in Ireland and UK. My role includes - assessing new technologies and vendors to determine opportunities / fit with business strategy- assessing technology architecture to assess fit to current tech stack and fit with business requirements- helping business teams to understand technology capabilities and applicability to business requirements.- building of business cases for product introduction and enhancements to justify investment- presenting business case to Directors and CEO for discussion and sign-off- managing introduction of new solutions / vendors into the Retail tech stack- managing development roadmaps, releases and upgrades- negotiation with vendors on cost, resource allocation and delivery timelines.Responsible for the following systems Electronic Point of Sale, Self Service Betting Terminals, Satellite sports broadcast system, early price screens. digital newspapers and windows display system. Management of team of 14 including product owners, QA Testers, Solution Design and project managers.Management of 15+ vendors including roadmaps, development cycles and releases.

My current role is as Global Head of IT supporting 10 countries where ARI operates Duty Free Stores with responsibilities as follows:ARI IT Strategy, Governance and Direction across the ARI EstateManagement of Stakeholders in ARI HQ, DAA and in each countryBusiness Case Development, Presentation and Sign Off Matrix Leadership of local team (3) as well as IT Managers (9) in remote locationsGlobal Roadmap for Systems including MS Dynamics NAV, LS Retail, Office365, Global Connectivity including VPN and Remote Access to central and local systemsManagement, Development and Implementation of Global systems and functionalityManagement of Capital and Operational BudgetsPublic Procurement process including identifying need, requirements, vendor assessment, negotiation, contracting and onboarding.Roll out and Support of key business projects e.g. eCommerce Platform (Salesforce Commerce Cloud)End to end management of both internal suppliers (e.g. DAA Airport) and external suppliersWork with management and users through all stages of IT programmes / projects from needs analysis, through business case, design, implementation, test, go live and ongoing support. Management of Capex Budget and Opex Budget

Own the delivery of Business Case and proposition for Global eCommerce Platform.Created Proposition for eCommerce and the financial model to support business case.Lead approval process through all levels of organisation to Executive Management Committee.Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Astound UK approved as partner of choice for the project

ARI were implementing a 3-year business strategy programme including a suite of IT projects.My role was to ensure that a programme of work got delivered on time, on budget and to expected quality, working with project managers, functional teams, Heads of Department and Executive Team. My responsibilities in this role are as follows:Structure the program to ensure full scope of work was understood, scoped, assessed and plannedWork with the project managers to ensure milestones were understood and achieved, while mitigating risks and communicating to business ownersCollating and compiling summary communications packs for Steering Group Meetings including highlighting contentious issues ahead of meetings.Co-ordinating / managing relationships with internal andexternal suppliers and service providers.Projects delivered included Global VPN network, Business Support Portal, Upgrade of ERP System (MS Dynamics Navision) and Video Conferencing (Bluejeans)Management of Capex Budget and team of 4 project managers

A US subsidiary was established by daaplc to focus on helping airports to grow parking revenue and improve customer product offerings and experience. The unit leveraged the experience and expertise of its parking business at Dublin Airport as the basis for its service offering.Based in Reston, Virginia, USA, I led the business performing all aspects of general management including:Full P&L responsibility –Revenue Budget & Opex budgetEstablish Office and hire US team including Business Dev Director and Project StaffManagement of Irish Team (6) and U.S. Team (5)Business Development -making contacts and presentations, presenting at conferencesSales -Pitching solutions and services, making proposals, negotiation of contractsRelationship Management: Creating and keeping relationshipsProject Delivery -Managing team to deliver on projects, pitching in myself when required.IT –Procurement, Implementation, SupportBack Office -Legal, Finance, Insurance, RecruitmentThe business achieved substantial success across the world with 15 major airport customers including JFK Airport, Tampa Airport, Raleigh Durham Airport, Denver Airport, Dubai Airport and Adelaide Airportdaa plc sold the business in Jan 2017.

I was promoted to manage the Business Innovation Development Team in late 2012, focused on innovation opportunities. I initiated a review of the business. We revised the strategy whereby the team would focus on larger projects and less smaller projects. Of the ideas in progress, developing an International Parking Business was considered the priority. With the team, I spent a period finished out existing projects and slowly beginning to focus on international parking. I took on the additional responsibility to led a small team that had responsibilities as follows:Develop a service proposition that could be sold to International Airports, particularly U.S. Airports using Dublin Airports Parking experience & expertise.Flying to the U.S. to do business development, present at conferences and follow up on leads.Make proposals including pricing and resource plans.Respond to tender documents, attend selection meetings, negotiate terms and sign contractsOnce signed, create the project team to deliver on the project which included myself as a resource.Programme manage the delivery of the service.In Nov 2014, we decided that for the business to progress, a US based CEO would need to be appointed. I was offered and accepted the role.

In this role, I was challenged with identifying new revenue streams for Dublin Airport Authority (daa) and developing these into sustainable businesses, with a focus on the eCommerce and Online area. I managed a small team (3) that had responsibilities as follows:Developing a framework for idea generation and assessment that creates a pipeline of opportunities.Bringing a disciplined, analytical and structured approach to prioritising opportunities and evaluating individual projectsDevelop concepts, undertake market analysis and customer researchDeveloping business cases and financial models to justifyinvestmentCreate the product / service proposition and get approval from Executive team to make investmentOnce approved, create the project team to deliver on the project covering areas such as I.T., Operations, Branding, Marketing and Sales.Developingstrategic partner relationships and negotiating terms, where appropriateWrite tender documents, run selection processes, negotiate terms and contract suppliersIdentify roles, create profiles, recruit individuals / teams if requiredProject manage the delivery of the product / serviceCreate go to market plans and Launch the product / service to marketManaged Capex BudgetExamples of major projects are as follows:AirportGenie.com (launched 24th Oct 2011), TheLoop.ie (Launched April 2012)

I took some time out of regular employment to complete some projects as an independent consultant. These projects included:Assessment and identification of opportunities to grow conversion rates between a major car hire website and its online distribution partnersReview and Analysis of usability and content of a independent hotel booking website to make recommendations to grow traffic and conversion rates.Product strategy and roadmap for a online technology company.

Originally joined as General Manager for UK & IE (12 people) and after 6 months asked to manage U.S. Operations (35 people) as well.Key challenge was to “start from scratch” and professionalise the company including brand, marketing, structures, processes and people while driving the company forward and increasing revenue / reducing costs.Through revenue focused, data driven decisions, delivered product enhancement and innovations including product roadmap, product definition and measures of success.Program managed delivery of initiatives involving outsourced development team, outsourced marketing partners and internal sales and service teams including leading bids for new partnerships e.g. RyanairKey achievements:• Instigated KPI reporting on a daily basis to manage the business• Increased marketing channels to increase traffic to site e.g. tripadvisor.ie • Lead on bids for new partnership deals e.g. Ryanair.com• Introduced new IE brand identification and logo• Moved from outsourced marketing partner to internal marketing department including hiring Head of Online Marketing, PPC team, Partnership manager and Social Media manager• Established professional IT team with plans to move all online development in-house.• Hired Financial Controller and put in place financial controls, checks and balances.• Implemented key back end processes and systems including Omniture (Web Analytics) and Accertify (Credit Card Fraud)• Established Product Department to manage depth, quality, and quantity of accommodation.

Worked with Director to establish New Business dept, contributing to innovation strategy, principals and goals.Developing & communicating the strategy to internal stakeholders and external partners / organisations.Articulating domain owner roles, identifying & recruiting experienced industry experts to fill these roles.Attending innovation conferences to learn about best practice and meet expert practitioners.Cross-functional forum participation and wider business strategy input.Meet, identify and select candidate companies with interesting ideas, products and services.Building relationships with these external companies to jointly fund and execute customer trials.Coordinated project activities across O2 Group & Telefonica territories, managing internal & external parties.Selected a web portal, facilitating an innovation framework for development of new business ideas through to programme management & status reporting of customer/operator trials.Managed the Content & Mobile Internet Team• Managed a team of 9 to deliver consumer content and data revenue of €12m and opex budget of €1m.• Team was responsible for O2 Active and Imode mobile internet portals• Through the team managed 100+ content providers to provide content & services on these portals• Signed major content partnerships with Bebo, MSN and Napster.

Established and restructured team of 30 product managers in 4 areas to deliver roadmaps, plans and propositions across all consumer segments.This role included all aspects of people management, budget control (opex and capex), planning, leading, organising, cross-functional forum participation, wider business strategy input, product strategy determination, technology roadmap prioritisation, direct interactions with O2 Ireland CEO, directors and O2 PLC executive team.Executive sponsor for €15m 9 month i-mode launch project in Ireland, reporting directly to CEO and to O2 PLC board sponsor in UKo Responsible for programme establishment, team selection and cross-functional participationo Lead team of 6 on visit to Japan of imode induction and familiarisationo Returned to Ireland to lead all elements of service launch including technology installation, handset selection, marketing planning and content partner acquisition.o Worked with cross-functional team of 150 including O2 Group and O2 UK teamso Project had a €10m capex and €3m opex budget and was delivered on budget and on time  Directed cross functional project teams to deliver on-time and on-budget product development programmes from concept through to successful delivery

Creation, co-ordination and execution of online strategy including mobile content (e.g. ring-tones, text alerts) strategy, managing product and proposition programmes liaising with cross-functional teams. Contribution to, and alignment with, O2 group online strategy, briefing market research and customer experience agencies, steering the development of O2 Active portal and execution of group and local marketing propositions Managed front-end (User Interface) and back-end (business logic) development teams for dol.ie / o2.ie portal including marketing campaigns, support content and product launches. Managed a team with responsibility for design and architecture of portal infrastructure including capacity planning and redundancy Responsible through the team to convert marketing & product requirements into technical designs and requirements.Following sign off of design by marketing, responsible through the team to source solutions to meet requirements and fully implement these solutions on time and to budget.Technical lead on the Digifone On-Line (DOL) project to build Digifone’s first portal with responsibility for all aspects of the DOL technology design, build and implementation.Wrote the technical requirements for the DOL infrastructure, conducted a RFP process, selected the lead vendor and completed all commercial and contract negotiations.Designed and recruited operations and support team for DOL including system administration, network engineers and 3rd level customer support roles.