Christopher Gale Email and Phone Number

Continuous Improvement and Automation using AI to enhance and upskill internal teams

Recently recognised as one of 5 Associate Directors of the business to assist the Executive Directors and CEO in driving the business forward to meet our visions and strategies. Due to my recent successes with delivery of web technologies and platforms, my new capacity has been broadened to Lead and set all Holiday Extras' business priorities and ensure delivery throughout the entire business. I work with a great Team of Program Managers, Senior Project Managers and Project Managers to realise the business benefits through Agile methodologies - all of which are Agile Practitioners.

In my current role as Senior Head of Web Development and Delivery, I have direct responsibility of php Web Development Teams, Front End Development Teams, Development Project Management, Quality Assurance and Testing Teams and in-house training of new development releases. I also advise and am consulted with tasks directly involving Usability, System architecture, SEO, and procedures. I am one of 3 Heads of Web Team responsible for the Web development Team for new customer facing functionalities, in-house user functionalities, and 3rd party and retail integration in to our systems. I play the part as Senior Supplier in the majority of Projects where I am responsible for setting the Project Approach, time and cost analysis and identifying best technical resource for carrying out project stages. I am also responsible for ensuring the adherence to optimisation and standardisation practices, and implementing the forefront technologies and maintaining the competitive edge in our industry on the web. Sound understanding of Business Needs Analysis and data-centric functions are required in my role to make appropriate and justified decision-making.

Head of Web Search and Marketing Team comprising 30 team members including Marketing Manager, Search Manager, Product Marketing Managers, PR Manager, Lead Template Builder, Lead Copywriter, Web Template Builders, Web Copywriters, Researchers, and Online Analysts. I am responsible for ensuring the growth of the business through new customer acquisition, customer conversion and customer retention. Responsible for a £4 million budget with £3 million spent on online advertising, and £1 million spent on traditional advertising, email marketing, and promotional activity.Tasks include: people management, business planning, “Project Board Member” having overall responsibility for project delivery within the organisation, project approach, offering authoritative solutions, recruitment and interviewing, career reviews and setting objectives, setting budgets and forecasts, email marketing communication, customer database management and “Customer Relationship Management”, “Search Engine Strategic” implementation, online advertising keyword and bidding strategy, data analysis, company wide presentations and board meeting presentations, company marketing and web representation for external customers and suppliers, decision making and prioritisation.Achievements have included maintaining our competitive advantage in the marketplace, delivering top quality systems and products to our customers, growing B2C business to over a third of the business segment through SEO, online advertising and customer communication developments, developing quicker and smarter booking systems and delivering the direct business model to alternative marketplaces such as theatre and theme park short breaks.

Leading a team of programmers, online marketing co-ordinator and Search Engine Optimisers ­ main responsibilitiesincluded delivering new web systems to increase the online distribution channel for Holiday Extras by way of new internalsystems, advancements of the online booking systems using XML integration and website implementations for increasedSEO strategies. I was also responsible for day-to-day team management, team planning and strategic development.

Responsibilities included: · Redesign of the website and coordinating the implementation of web content. · Liaising with the hosting suppliers for updates to the servers. · Liaising with the internal Marketing Department for constant updates to the site for ongoing marketing campaigns and providing and carrying out ideas for interactive developments for the website, including design in accordance with the current marketing campaign. · Driving Internet traffic towards the online booking module. · Setting up web tracking tools throughout the site to monitor and provide reports on marketing campaigns in terms of page popularity and revenue generated from specific marketing campaigns and creating advertising banners located on leading external web networks. · Setting up and designing monthly marketing email campaigns to send to the customer database using CRM to produce specific targeted messages to individuals. I was responsible for setting up the tracking in order to produce results for page hits and revenue generated as a result of customers clicking from the email as well as producing reports for the marketing team. · I was responsible for the development of internal applications (ASP development) for the intranet providing tools for other departments including: o the development of the Project Management Tool for inter-departmental requests and ongoing monitoring o of project workload in accordance with ISO standards; o the development of the Content Management System for the intranet for specified users to update and monitor the intranet sites for their specific area using web browsers; o development of the Online Training Module so users could undertake Eurotunnel specific training (updated into the system by the Training Department) and receive automatic assessment; o development of VBA code for internet applications to collect customer data from the internet and store as files to be loaded to back office databases.

With the introduction of Windows NT and the upgrade to Microsoft Office suite, and Microsoft Outlook as the default mailclient for Eurotunnel, I was recommended as an ideal candidate to undertake the project management role for the rolloutof new IT systems to over 3000 staff. My main responsibility was to write the course layout and course material for theMicrosoft Outlook rollout and to provide training to classes for the period of the rollout. After the success of the rollout, Iwas the IT trainer in the UK for Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, FrontPage and Access, writing coursematerials, course layouts and providing training.