Gavin Thain Email & Phone Number

Ipswich, Queensland, Australia

Ipswich

Delivering Corporate Risk and Broking major change projects into the Great Britain Portfolio.

London, United Kingdom

Reporting to the Group CIO, my role is accountable for UK and European delivery of IT hosting, end user services and service operations on behalf of the Group CIO. This includes accountability of both business as usual European IT service operations and delivery of key investment projects such as Global Cloud network delivery, Global Office 365 delivery and UK Azure cloud transformation (private Cloud to Public Cloud transformation). Operational and Change responsibility for the UK’s largest privately owned insurance company. I was the architect and strategist for Infrastructure and technical projects and change. Overall responsibility for Infrastructure, run, change and future strategic vision. Budget management - £5m Operational budget, and £2.5m Technical Change portfolio. Contract and Supplier management. Stakeholder Management up to and including COO’s.Key Achievements: • Built and managed the setup, build, delivery, migration and run for the strategic Office 365 and Azure platforms. This project was highly complex and included the management of project managers, business analysts, testers, support staff, business stakeholders up to Cx, and the matrix management of up to 10 Microsoft professional services staff. (£1m project)• Managed Capex an Opex IT Budgets - saved an initial £465k on a £5m Opex Budget – further plans to rationalise £866k of further savings.• Embedded Smooth and Silent Operations• Delivered a secure mobile workforce capability via Mobile Device Management (MDM)• Built an effective technical change framework for technical delivery projects.• Introduced a robust preventative maintenance schedule• Managed a core network refresh using Meraki Infrastructure (£800k project)• Managed the full rollout of Fuze/Thinking Phones to 1600 staff, Cloud Telephony project replacing all UK onsite PBX’s.

London, United Kingdom

Programme Management of Salesforce CRM, Salesforce Communities Social Intranet, Cloud/Global Identity Management, Video conferencing and Corporate Risk Management Platform. Programme management of the IT and Infrastructure Integration of RKH Group and Hyperion Group creating the largest privately owned insurance company in the UK, delivered on time and under budget. Created, tracked and managed project budgets up to £5m. Currently acting as Interim Operations Director managing the groups key infrastructure, network and group wide applications. Initiated an Agile improvement programme across Infrastructure technology and people whilst in parallel starting a programme of change to move Hyperion’s infrastructure to a cloud based solution over the coming 12-18 months, managing a team of 12 IT professionals.End to End Project lifecycle management, including: Stakeholder Management, Risks and Issues Management, Communications Planning, Resource Planning, Project Status Reporting, Task Planning, Forecasting, Budget Management, Business Case Development, PID Development, through to Post Implementation Review. Key Achievements: • Successfully lead the IT M&A process, including integration between RKH Group (800 Staff) and Hyperion Group (800 Staff) on time and significantly under budget (£1.5m project to 1600 staff)• Delivery of Salesforce CRM Implementation into the UK, India, Spain, Israel, and the Nordics (£800k project to 500 staff)• Global delivery of Salesforce Intranet, Blue Jeans Video Conferencing and Skype Video Conferencing and OKTA Global Identity Management to 3000 Staff.• Delivery of Global Rick Management Platform – Salesforce Xactium (£100k project to 30 staff)• Directly managed multiple Software and Infrastructure Projects to very strict Time, Cost and Quality standards• Provided coaching and mentoring for IT Staff• Championed Planning, RAID Management, Financial Tracking and Communications

Colchester, United Kingdom

Heading up and providing leadership for all IT project and programme management, delivering change projects, including Infrastructure, Business Systems, Financial Services and Insurance Product Development. Management of Business Change, Mergers & Acquisition Integration, Insurance Platform Migrations, Office Relocations and many strategic IT projects. Created, tracked and managed the Cullum Capital Ventures IT Capital budget since 2009 with budgets £750k - £1.5m and Operational budget circa £2.5m. Line managed a team of Project Managers, Technical Engineers, Business Analysts, Application Support and Web Designers. Collaborate and facilitate productive negotiations with cross-functional groups, including Insurance MD’s, Account Executives and Central Business functional customers, enabling IT to deliver a service meeting SLA and customer requirements.End to End Project lifecycle management, including: Stakeholder Management, Risks and Issues Management, Communications, Escalations, Project Status Reporting, Planning, Forecasting, Budget Management, Business Case Development, PID Development, through to Post Implementation Review. • Built a customer focussed, very high performing project delivery capability• Successful implementation of PRINCE2, ITIL and Agile Project Management• Directly managed many Software and Infrastructure Projects to very strict Time, Cost and Quality standards• Championed Planning, RAID Management, Financial Tracking and Communications• Built and Implemented Business Engagement to Change Initiation processes• Designed and Implemented effective executive self-service Project and Programme reporting• Built and tested comprehensive technical Operational and DR processes• ITIL Best Practice to ensure robust and stable IT Infrastructure meets demanding business requirements.• Saved circa 50% of the Capital budget through rigorous planning and optimisation

London, United Kingdom

Successfully project managed the delivery of the software application ‘Clarity’, an In-house developed XML data hub and Group Data Warehouse projects into British Telecom, encompassing all Lines of Business to support business change encompassing more than 165,000 users. Provided leadership to onsite Project Managers and the main interface for TCS offshore subcontract. Facilitated the standardisation of PRINCE2, ITIL and Agile based methods into BT. Steered all project phases (from start-up to project closure). Contract negotiations with third parties enabling cost reduction. Influenced decision-making at senior levels of the organisation and gained buy-in to implement new processes into Group HR.Key Achievements: • Project managed the delivery of CA Clarity 6.0 into BT, bringing benefits such as enabling the modernisation across the company of new PRINCEII project methodologies, time recording, knowledge sharing, resource management and reporting.• Project managed the delivery of an internally developed MI Data Warehouse.• Project Managed the delivery of the BT XML Global Transaction Hub (Standardised communication interfaces between key BT systems)• Gained customer trust by demonstrating tangible results during the early stages of projects.• Initiated and drove the large-scale migration from Waterfall to ‘Agile’ methodologies, which included instituting tools and processes and delivering training.• Authorise service changes in P&PM, Finance, and HR Service Portfolios.

Ipswich, United Kingdom

Management of 20 Quality Assurance consultants for a project to implement a system called Niku 4.2 and many other internally developed systems including transactional websites to 65,000 resources at British Telecom. I was responsible for all quality assurance on the project, including quality of deliverables and quality of process. QA lead on the Project Board. Managed the implementation of quality controls and quality reporting to the Project Board. The role included:Systems and Functionality Testing • User Acceptance Testing • Automation TestingIntegration and Negative Testing • Operational Readiness Testing • Performance and Load Testing

Ipswich, United Kingdom

Streamlined the PC support on site at British Telecom - managed a project of systems rationalization and decommission, covering software / hardware maintenance and commissioning servers to provide all mail/IIS/File/Print services.

Ipswich, United Kingdom

PC, Server and Network administration technician within a Telecoms R&D environment including support and deployment of NetWare 4, Windows 2000, UNIX/Solaris and Microsoft Client/Server platforms.

Computer Studies

Education record