David Vernon Email & Phone Number

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Leading strategic Service Management Transformation to align with Met Office objectives and enhance operational excellence. Key focus areas:Developing and implementing enterprise-wide service management frameworksLeading complex transformation initiatives to drive service resilience and customer satisfactionEstablishing the Service Management Office to ensure best practices and continuous improvementAligning service management strategies with overall organizational goalsDriving cultural change and fostering a service-oriented mindset across the organizationLeveraging industry trends and emerging technologies to innovate service deliveryCollaborating with senior leadership to shape and execute service management visionExpertise in strategic planning, change management, and service optimization. Committed to elevating the Met Office's service capabilities to meet evolving business needs and customer expectations.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

I am responsible for the IT Service Management strategic vision and the delivery of ITIL Service Management practices including IT Service Desk and IT Operations, Incident Management, Service Request Management, Problem Management, Change Enablement, Service Catalogue Management Service Validation and Transition and Service Level Management across the organisation.My primary objective is to ensure the design, operation and maturation of processes, systems, knowledge and people required to deliver, support, and improve IT services end-to-end, reducing manual errors and improving operational efficiency using ServiceNow and process and service automation within a budget of £4m.I coach and manage direct reports across IT Service Management and operations, setting team culture and approach to overseeing performance management, development, conduct, sickness management, appraisals, employee administration, and recruitmentAs Chairman of the Services Forum, I enhance and maintain excellent employee relations, communication and information sharing between the Services Senior Leadership team and the trade Union and am a management side representative at the corporate level Joint Working Group that manages the relationship with the trade union on behalf of the executive. Achievements:• Implementation of a new Service Desk operating model, reducing out of hours support costs through improved internal processes, automation of external contact channels and more efficient routing of tasks.• Implementation of ServiceNow CSM for first line agents, making use of interaction management, automation of basic processes, improved use of internal portals and integration with ServiceNow ITSM and other modules as well other corporate tools such as MS Dynamics CRM, Scribe and PowerBI.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Defining the strategy for Met Office IT Services and Customer and User Experience and leadership of all service support functions including multi-channel contact centre and operational IT support.Chair of the Met Office Customer and User Experience Working group, providing direction to develop, manage and improve reporting processes and metrics to track customer and user satisfaction. Also recommending and implementing projects and initiatives to improve customer experience, reporting directly into the Services Director.Manage 13 direct reports with overall management responsibility for a team of 55 staff and responsibility for managing a budget of £3m, allocating resource to ensure appropriate headcount and technology is available to support all Met Office customers and users.Met Office Management representative on the Joint Working Group with the trade union Prospect, working to foster, enhance and maintain excellent employee relations, communication and information sharing with the Trade Union at the leadership level through meaningful consultation and negotiation.Achievements:• Successfully managed the seamless transition of IT Services, Customer and User Experience and IT Service Management to homeworking prior to lockdown at the start of last year, ensuring the continued provision of essential services that underpin the entire business. • Management of IT Services, Customer and User Experience through a corporate restructuring with a dispersed team of homeworking staff.• Winner of Excellence in Service Delivery Award at the Met Office Awards for Excellence for the implementation of a semi-automated telephone forecast service for communities without alternative methods for accessing Met Office forecasts. The service now helps 345k callers annually and has led to a 46% reduction in calls to our contact centre.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Leadership and management of operational IT and Customer Service functions including contact centre, IT Service Desk and IT Operations functions for the whole organisation, enabling resilient 24x7x365 delivery of world class services to customers, sustaining the Met Office position as the best weather and climate service in the world.Also, chair of the Met Office Incident Management Team (Bronze Commander) responsible for the 24/7 management and resolution of major incidents that are causing significant impact to customers and users or pose a reputational risk to the organisation and leading on taking actions on lessons learned.Achievements:• I led the Met Office customer service teams to achieve national recognition, twice winning the highest honour at the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service awards competing against over 250 well known large international companies. I was then asked to be keynote speaker at the Top 50 Customer Service Improvement conference to present on how to improve Customer Service and Experience.• Implementation of a Shift Left Customer Delivery model moving capability and delivery of resolution work as close to the customer as possible, reducing waiting time for customers, simplifying support activity and reducing the cost of managing customer and user requests.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Managing the Met Office contact centre and IT service desk to ensure we attract, recruit, develop and retain sufficient capacity and capability to enable resilient 24x7x365 delivery of world class services to customers.Ensure continuous improvement of customer service quality and operational efficiency. Co-ordinating the activities of operational services to all customers and partners during times of high impact weather and weather-related emergencies delivering outstanding customer service in line with business requirements. Achievements:• Leading on performance improvement in the contact centre and service desk to ensure business targets were achieved; taking ownership, prioritising staff training and setting a good example to the team by handling calls myself and demonstrating what great customer service sounds like.• Changing customer service approach to focus on the provision of a higher quality service and meeting the needs of customers in our busiest periods.• Introduction of an improved customer interaction quality monitoring assessment across call, email and social media channels that rewards customer focused behaviours and identifies training opportunities.• In the 2016-17 financial year, these changes have resulted in an increase in customer interactions of 7.4%, with a 12.4% increase on calls and a 11.6% increase on tweets.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Shift Leader for IT and Customer Service, leading the team responsible for the management and 24/7 technical support of the Met Office's systems, distribution infrastructure and applications and overseeing Weather Desk and customer service activities on a dedicated 24/7 shift roster.Responsible for monitoring various elements of the technical infrastructure, including weather radars, servers, network devices, storage, backup devices and databases as well as the online service applications and content delivery systems and leading on the delivery of excellent customer service within Forecasting and Service Delivery.Achievements:• Strong line management experience showing excellence in performance management, service champion for the BBC working with Service Management to ensure service documentation for this key customer is useful, up to date and fit for purpose.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Monitoring and supporting production and hardware on the Met Office supercomputers and mainframe. Also responsible for supporting systems and services such as MASS storage, Meteorological Database, Product and Commercial Suite Output, Product Generation systems and UKPP, amongst others.Achievements:• Creating scripts on the Supercomputer for all colleagues to use. Updating & simplifying ECMWF Foremost procedures including creating new documentation & scripts used by my team to access ECMWF systems. Improving the customer experience for users of commercial products.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Management of Incidents within the Met Office. Monitoring a number of important Met Office Services including weather observation systems and internal enterprise services. Raising Problem records where appropriate. Briefing customers on their Incidents and chairing Incident Management meetings.Achievements:• Applying my technical knowledge and skill as a key part of a team alongside Account Managers and Service Managers to devise and implement processes to ensure that an excellent level of customer service is in place.• Excellent communication skills, becoming confident in delivering information to my target audience in a wide range of situations, including Incident Management Briefings, training of colleagues & meetings.

Exeter, Devon, Gb

Handling IT and Weather related correspondence from Internal and External customers. Logging feedback and passing to the correct team to action. Selling Met Office products directly to customers and also raising sales leads for commercial weather products.Achievements:• Providing an excellent level of service to external and internal customers, especially in high pressure situations, for example in periods of heavy snowfall that resulted in the busiest ever days that the Weather Desk has on record. • Gaining a solid understanding of Met Office products and selling appropriate services to customers, ensuring that their needs are met, thus generating revenue for the Met Office business and helping the Weather Desk meet its team targets.

Primary Education With Science Specialism

Education record

High School, Gcse