Douglas Hirst Email & Phone Number

Wellingborough, England, United Kingdom

IT Manager for a diverse mixture of office based staff, production staff, and all associated services. Analysis of current fleet of computers, networking provision, backup setup, DRP and IRP planning. Phased replacement of older stock, upgrade network to remove bottlenecks and creating new workflows to solve problems.Reporting directly to Managing Director to complete projects on time and within budget and keeping all relevant stakeholders updated as needed.Working with vendors to troubleshoot and fix it issues on industrial printers, digital RIPs, file storage solutions and office requirements.

Sawston, Cambridge

Working on Special Projects with Macupgrades.Developing and implementing Social Media strategy and working with SEO to generate traffic for a popular and successful business.Ongoing Projects to evolve, streamline and improve engineering workflows; resulting in a TAT of less that 2 days for 97% of booked in repairs / upgrades.Upgraded network hardware and infrastructure.Original content creation for the MacUpgrades Blog.Onsite support for a variety of MacUpgrades customers with projects ranging from a single computer upgrade to multi-year, whole lifecycle solutions.Onsite assessment of needs and presentation of findings to board level stakeholders.Data Recovery from both Windows and Mac OS HDDS using Deepspar DDI 4 and Software recovery tools (recovered over 25TB to date).

Huntingdon, Cambs

Onsite consultations for your computing and IT needs. Your IT department in a can - working with SMEs and individuals to evaluate, plan and develop a hardware and software strategy that works.Involved in several medium sized projects including:• whole language school IT upgrade / replacement • Large School Music department Upgrade (image creating, rollout, scripting additions)• Troubleshooting workflow issues with NLE and digital recording studio• Large (multi site) network rollout and management (over 500 client workstations across 3 sites with SHDS and multi path networks).• Server Migration.• Preparing for Cyber Essentials certification as Technical liaison. (Gained successfully - 2018)• Preparing and rollout of IT related staff polocies (BYOD, Social Media policy, Onsite devices policy)• VPN, Screensharing and other remote working solutions at short notice.• Fileserver and NAS workflow deployments; including document archiving and long term permanent retention.• eMail server management including SPAM filtering and phishing prevention.• Large network (over 200 sites) firewall migrations including routing, IDS, Webfitering rulesets and management.• Customer Training on various elements of IT (Office Suite, eMail / Phishing awareness, MacOS basics, Networking basics)• Wireless networking (various vendors; Meraki, Ubiquiti) including network segregation and secured devices.• DNS (it's always DNS...)

Milton Keynes, United Kingdom

Continued working in the "Operations" area of responsibility in a higher volume store. Delivered improved team performance through personal development, goal setting and training.Process redesign and employee expectation management. Implement changes in an existing team to realign to company vision and improve delivery of KPIs.Moved into managing "Family Room" services; a large technical team responsible for customer facing technical support, in warranty and out of warranty repairs. Employee development including working with Lominger and MBTI.HR functions including controlling disciplinary proceedings, performance improvement and talent selection and development.Change processes through customer feedback tool “Medallia Net-Promoter” to deal with short to long term trends.Changes led through people first processes, including self card sorts, key metrics, feedback, one to one mentoring and group coaching situations.Regularly used business analysis techniques to empirically measure store successes.Deliver professional project management techniques to in store tasks, events and change processes.

Solihull

Recruitment, training and scheduling of staff for a new store in Solihull. Opened the store responsible for the "People" role, involved in identifying training needs, facilitating the delivery of relevant training. Achieved 100% of employees at "Apple Product Professional" in the iLearn internal training system.Also ran many successful recruitment events, interview processes, completed pre-hire screens and on boarding. Responsible for performance management, timekeeping, scheduling and payroll submission.In Sept 2008 moved into the "Operations" area of management responsibility. This included inventory management and managing the back of house team, store health and safety (including risk assessments, root cause analysis, document control and investigations), on site maintenance (permission to work and right to work systems) and upgrades (networking, back of house layout, front of house remodels). Successful opening of a new store; recruitment and training of new store team.Delivery of a functional, successful store consistently achieving all KPIs and targets.Delivery of best in UK performances for stock control processes.

Birmingham, United Kingdom

As Lead Genius, I was a fully qualified ACDT, ACHT and ADST with wider responsibilities for delivering company aims through the delivery of Genius Bar services from my team. This involved being team leader for the in store customer facing technical team. Dealing with customer complaints, technical issues, in store IT provision. Regularly delivering training to other departments about upcoming and new products.Working with highly technical, detail orientated and meticulous individuals to align to store and brand aims.Roll out of new initiatives and troubleshooting..Point of highest escalation for technical issues in store. Created new service provision though analysis of staff customer demand. Developed and introduced the idea from hypothesis to a technical team scheduling pattern. Involved communicating across different workgroups and troubleshooting to enable change. Idea successfully implemented across the technical team.

Managed for the ordering, preparing and delivery of vehicles for RAC as part of the contracts to supply.Responsible for delivery and measurement of all major KPIs and tasks related to over 8000 vehicles per year. Organise and oversee the return of vehicles at the end of contract to relevant dealerships.Day to day office tasks, including dealing with enquiries from over 300 remote locations where fleet vehicles were in use.Worked to deliver ISO:9001 certification (Contracts Support side)Speced out, and planned IT (database) upgrade (Filemaker based solution) which was never taken forward (presented to director level but decided to stick with the "more people" approach typical of the automotive trade at the time).

Managed and responsible for a team delivering face to face and telesales of computers and related products.Co-ordinated the running of a busy showroom environment.Maintained software demonstration and ensured that the demonstration content was presentable at all times.Worked with key vendors, product supply and returns processes daily.All recruitment, HR issues, schedules associated with running a remote store.Filemaker Development and troubleshooting - Working with Filemaker Server and Client to run a busy inventory and shipping system.

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Daily Sales responsibilities and account management for one of the largest UK Mail Order Mac companies.Content creation for 32 page product catalogue including product description and marketing infomation.

Itil Foundation, Itil, Pass

ITIL Foundation Course completed

Modules Completed, Law

Activities and Societies: OU Law Society Completed W300 (Oct 2012) - Law: Agreements, Rights and Responsibilities. Completed W221 (April.

Prince2 Practitioner, Prince2 Practitioner, Pass

PRINCE2 Practitioner

Prince2, Project Management

Foundation level; certified

Bachelor'S Degree, Genetics (Immunology), Upper Second Class

High School

5 x A-Levels; Maths, Further Maths, Biology, Chemistry and General Studies

10 X Gcses Inc Science, Maths And English

10 x GCSE's including Maths, Science and English