Manage a large team of 3rd line engineers and take accountability for the network infrastructure following the insourcing of IT services from the incumbent managed service provider.• Unite unsettled communities of engineers into one team and cultivate strong working relationships.• Implement tools and processes to improve the management and day to day operations of the team.• Run regular project delivery meetings with capability leads and other key stakeholders.• Develop training plans and organise training courses in-line with business and technology requirements.• Perform regular stand-ups and 1:1’s with staff.• Maintain the risk register and drive service improvements.• Provide onsite co-ordination of critical out of hours maintenance activities.• Adapt management styles to bring out the best in staff and enhance the performance of the team.• Provide leadership and coaching to management staff.• Produce handover documentation for management staff.

Provide the internal capability to ensure that 2nd Line support team functions provided by the incumbent managed service provider can be delivered internally following the insourcing of IT services.• Perform due diligence against the existing managed service and create process documentation to meet the operational requirements of the team.• Validate and update existing support documentation.• Analyse MI and estimate the resource effort required to deliver the service.• Liaise with key stakeholders and manage risk mitigation.• Provide onsite support to senior management and technical teams during the insourcing cut-over period.

Support and maintain key customer platforms, ensuring all incidents and problems are investigated fully and resolved effectively using ITIL methodology. Ensure projects are delivered successfully.• Manage a team of 3rd line multi-discipline engineers providing a 1st class managed service to key customers.• Develop the POD ethos and cultivate a strong working relationship between technical staff and customers.• Provide managed service technical consultancy to customers.• Take ownership of incidents and problems, ensuring issues and escalations are managed efficiently.• Co-ordinate customer maintenance activities, ensuring risks are identified and mitigated wherever possible.• Attend regular customer service reviews, ensuring risks and issues are managed effectively and actions are fed into each customer CSIP. This involves occasional travel to customer sites.• Provide consultancy to technical architects and solution designers, assisting with the planning, development and implementation of new platforms.• Attend regular technical governance meetings and review new platform designs.• Liaise with project/programme managers, ensuring that project plans are accurate and achievable.• Manage the team workload and ensure sufficient resources are available to provide BAU support during business hours, and projects are delivered to plan.• Deputise for the Head of Operations.• Analyse MI and create a forecasting strategy for continuous staff growth.• Liaise with recruitment agencies and co-ordinate the interview process for potential candidates.• Create a comprehensive skills matrix to identify strengths and weaknesses in technical skills and customer knowledge.• Perform regular 1:1’s and performance reviews, ensuring that objectives and development plans are on track.• Review the managed service product catalogue, ensuring that roadmap technologies are integrated into the skills matrix and that end of life technologies are reported into each customer CSIP.

Support and maintain multiple Citrix installations for IBM and Legal & General staff, ensuring all incidents and problems investigated fully and resolved effectively.• Provide out of hours on-call support for business critical systems.• Create and maintain technical Disaster Recovery plans and participate in scheduled recovery tests.• Identify requirements for technology currency and opportunities for further development thus ensuring the supporting infrastructure is robust and fit for purpose.• Proactively monitor services in order to identify both current and potential incidents.• Provide consultancy to technical architects, solution designers and project managers to assist with the planning, development and implementation of projects.

Working in an ITIL orientated environment, provide consultancy and manage a team of 10 3rd line technical engineers supporting all aspects of Legal & General’s server environments, ensuring IT services are delivered and maintained to the agreed Service Levels for 8,000 employees across sites in the UK and Ireland. Responsible for supporting over 1,200 mixed platform servers and 6 separate directory services.• Manage the Wintel Team, providing a 2nd and 3rd line support function that resolves incidents, investigates and solves problems, and proactively monitors the infrastructure to avoid future incidents.• Deliver and maintain a fully integrated, secure and cost effective server environment that meets standards for service provision and business requirements. • Liaise with other teams and third parties to ensure proper implementation of solutions.• Provide out of hours on-call support for business critical systems.• Design and implement solutions to support business requirements.• Create and maintain technical Disaster Recovery plans and participate in scheduled recovery tests.• Provide consultancy to the planning, development and implementation of projects, to ensure solutions are secure, operable and supportable, delivered to specification, within budget and to the agreed timescales, ensuring customer satisfaction and value for money and effective handover to support.• Identify requirements for technology currency and opportunities for further development thus ensuring the supporting infrastructure is robust and fit for purpose.• Proactively monitor services in order to identify both current and potential incidents.• Provide UNITE/employee representation for the outsource transition to IBM.

I spent 4 years at Bank of Wales as the team leader of 3 computer operators responsible for maintaining customer transaction data across LAN, AS/400 and mainframe banking systems. This also involved providing 2nd and 3rd line support for all IT systems, across all UK offices.• Support and administer all Netware 3.x servers, IBM AS/400’s and an ICL Series 39 mainframe.• Consolidate and upgrade 5 Netware 3.x servers to 1 Netware 4.11 server to reduce infrastructure complexity and to reduce IT overheads.• Build, deploy and manage the rollout of Netware 3.x servers to all remote office locations.• Design and implement the Netware and AS/400 technical disaster recovery process, including the recovery of all MS-DOS/Windows 3.x/Windows 95 clients and associated applications.• Design and implement an AS/400 Connect Direct installation to automate the transfer of digital data between Bank of Scotland.• Redesign and fully document the operations data processing procedure, incorporating automation where possible and greater levels of error checking.

Working in a team of customer service advisors responsible for processing direct debits and vehicle right-offs. Another part of the role entailed producing various MI reports to senior management, incorporating complex formulas and VBA code. This eventually led to my transfer to the IT department of our parent company, Bank of Wales.• Create processes to produce accurate and consistent customer correspondence, reducing manual overhead and improving customer perception.• Create various spreadsheets to monitor the workflow, allowing the department manager to direct the team’s attention more effectively.