Chris Shields Email & Phone Number

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Responsible for managing the delivery of a third party life and pensions administration system to a tier one insurance company for a number of concurrent and business critical projects.Built and maintained valuable relationships with senior stakeholders within the software supplier and the insurance company and technology partners.Worked closely with an off-site delivery team to make sure that the client’s expectations were managed and met whilst at the same time the business was profitable for the software company.Responsible for managing plans, risks and issues across a number of concurrent projects.Managed Statements of Work and invoices between the software supplier and the insurance company.

Managed a project aimed at delivering significant business benefit across three international businesses.Responsible for liaising with internal development teams and third party suppliers.Quickly built productive relationships with senior stakeholders across the insurance company's international business.Influential in high profile programme decisionsTook ownership of several key issues and brought them to a successful conclusionSuccessfully worked closely with colleagues and suppliers in different time zones and from different cultures.Recognised for working well under pressure, and always remaining professional in a fast paced working environment.Recommended and championed a change in the approach to analysis and design that maximised the business benefit Organised and facilitated requirements workshops with stakeholders from across the business.Lead business analyst on a project that introduced propositional and operational improvements.

Key member of the analysis team on, and instrumental in the success of, a corporate priority programme.Took the lead on resolving a number of issues to a satisfactory conclusion. Demonstrated out of the box thinking which avoided the need for a large piece of development work, whilst still meeting the business requirements. Ran daily scrums on behalf of the programme manager at a critical time in the programme.Provided guidance to a new and inexperienced test lead. Worked closely with senior staff of the pensions company and members of a client’s project team.Guided other analysts with less systems experience.Initiated and facilitated workshops to drive out core system requirements.Successfully worked with business representatives and members of other change teams to understand and document some of the most complex pension servicing requirements for the programme.

Functional Architect for a sofware supplier tasked with introducing a new administration platform to the insurance arm of a large Belgian bank.Led a team of 5 analysts tasked with documenting the client’s requirements and the software firm's solution for a new investment and insurance product. This included all aspects of the policy lifecycle from quotes and new business to claims. Led business requirement gathering workshops with the client, and functional design meetings internal to the software firm.Responsible for signing off that all business requirements were clearly documented, and that any proposed solution met those requirements and were compatible with the supplier's design philosophy.Worked well with senior members of staff from the client and software companyFunctional Architect for a company supplying a life and pensions adminstration platform to a tier one insurance client. Managed a team of four analysts.Oversaw the delivery of several complex and business critical projects, including the introduction of an Income Drawdown facility to a SIPP product.Facilitated requirements and design workshops with a variety of stakeholders. This often included senior representatives from the client's Servicing and Marketing business areas.Responsible for sign off on all A&D deliverables.Experience of interfacing a core administration system to a Web based front end accessible to IFAs.Worked closely and successfully with different client IT teams to understand the technical capabilities and limitations of their systems. This allowed me to suggest workable solutions to a number of issues, speeding up development to the benefit of all.Worked closely with the project manager providing cover when required.

Information Systems Analyst on a number of projects for a market leading pensions company.Established mainframe business and systems requirements, for the introduction of SIPP and Drawdown pension products. Important member of a large project team which involved representatives from across the company.Influential in many of the programme’s system designs, and involved in investigating solutions to a variety of issues. Gathered detailed business requirements, and specified design requirements for a complex web based application to allow group pension customers to submit contributions online.Successfully liaised with several business areas and other IT analysts to draw out and refine the requirements. Involved in the implementation planning and execution of the project. The implementation was done successfully and within tight timescales. Worked as the sole IT analyst in a project team tasked with changing the pricing structure of a number of pension products. Worked very closely with marketing and pensions technical departments, and recommended an efficient solution that fitted both the standard pension products, and a number of exceptions. Recognised for being able to understand new systems and requirements very quickly, and to work well and deliver under pressure. Responsible for managing the testing of a number of medium-term new technology projects.

Bsc, Mathematical Physics

Education record