My role is to provide security consultancy and delivery services, including cyber security, for a wide range of IT and OT customers. With experience across both IT and OT I shape security solutions that address the common challenges in these areas. I work closely with a wide range of customers including the banking and education sectors, as well as government and enterprise, and ensure that the Unisys solutions meet customer expectations.

In this role I assist the account team in realising pipeline opportunities, using a consultative approach, through the creation of solutions that utilise the products and services, both standard and non-standard, that exist within the Vodafone portfolio. I am also accountable for the technical relationship with the customer and the associated contractual aspects. In order to be successful I need to establish and maintain an excellent understanding of the customer’s business and technology needs, and align the Vodafone products and services to those business needs.

In this role I provide a range of solutions mainly WAN and high bandwidth Ethernet solutions based on Cisco and Ciena hardware, with values in the region of £90m total contract value (TCV), while working on projects in the region of £120m TCV. In order to provide these solutions I work with UK Public Sector and Enterprise customers to translate business requirements in technical solutions that could be supported by Vodafone. All solutions need to be viable commercially and therefore I work closely with Commercial Finance and Project Management to provide solutions with cost information suitable for pricing. As the solutions tend not to be completely standard I work closely with internal stakeholders to ensure the business can support solutions both via technical governance, and through design and capacity teams. Solutions tend to be driven by customer Invitation to Tender (ITT) which requires a proposal to be written, followed by a High Level Design. Depending on the customer requirements and the complexity of the solution, I deliver presentations to the customer regarding the solutions and how they would benefit the customer.The main responsibilities in this role are: *Responding to competitive customer bids providing details on how Vodafone solutions are the best fit to customer requirements.* Design of solutions based on analysis of customer requirements, providing detailed cost information in support of Commercial Finance pricing, and following internal governance processes. Solutions should also be deliverable within timescales agreed with the customer.* Production of High Level Designs, identification of risks and tracking of requirements in accordance design standards.

In this customer facing role I supported a number of account teams to provide technical management activities for complex Hosted customer solutions. In order to successfully manage these solutions I required both a detailed understanding of the solution, as well as understanding the service that these solutions provided to end users. It was common to work across all areas of the customer business at not only an operational level discussing how the solutions performed, but also at a management level to understand the impact to the business. One of the key challenges of this role was gaining support of the business when dealing with customer priorities that either conflicted with the priorities of other customers, or with internal stakeholder priorities.Key activities included:* Monitoring and reporting on capacity and performance of complex customer solutions using HP servers, Cisco firewalls and F5 load balancers, including identifying long term trends that may impact the customer solutions.* Development and implementation of IT service continuity and disaster recovery plans for customer solutions.* Regular review of customer solutions to identify enhancements based on the product portfolio and customer requirements, and output from capacity and performance reporting.* Regular customer contact was required to ensure requirements are captured and appropriate solutions delivered.

I managed a technical design team to plan, design and implement internal voice and data solutions based on business requirements. My main responsibilities were:* Development and roll out of internal strategy for telephony, data networking and mobility for around a dozen UK offices, and the successful alignment of this strategy to the overall business strategy.* Management of projects and vendor relationships to ensure successful delivery of internal voice and data solutions to meet business requirements through liaising with internal teams and external vendors such as NextiraOne.* Development of project management method based on PRINCE2 for small scale IT/IS projects working closely with internal customers and ComputaCenter.* Capital and operational budgets in the order of £100k and £450k respectively, through which I was able to reduce the operational budget significantly (£250k) through detailed analysis of spend with third parties.

In this role based in Hong Kong, I was responsible for the design of telecoms solutions for Verizon across Asia Pacific. The main solutions involved the definition and negotiation of PSTN Interconnect with various Operators around the region, as well as the design of voice solutions that could be implemented once PSTN Interconnect had been achieved. This included the successfully PSTN Interconnect with SingTel and StarHub in Singapore, and the roll out of Indirect Access services in Hong Kong and Japan. Part of the process also involved delivery of training to local Sales teams on the new Products being rolled, which presented its’ own challenges of cross-culture communication and differing learning styles.In the design and development of solutions I was an integral part of the Product Development team that defined solutions based on the voice switch capabilities. It was a key part of the definition of the Product to ensure billing of the services was accurate, and that mediation facilities were in place to capture unbilled calls. In the region, Nortel was the predominant vendor I worked closely with.

I started as a Graduate Engineer with MFS WorldCom in London and rose to the position Switch Design Manager for Europe. While the role was similar in nature to my role in Hong Kong, I also managed a team of team designers responsible for delivering voice solutions across Europe. Solutions ranged from Carrier Pre Select and Indirect Access in France, Sweden and the UK, to PSTN Interconnect in Ireland and France. My first major project was the management of the new Nortel voice switch installation in Brussels and the PSTN Interconnect with Belgacom. The complex solutions involved large capital budgets in excess or £10m and required a close working relationship with vendors such as Ericsson and Nortel.

In this role I covered a wide range of installation, service and commissioning issues for leading edge microscope imaging products based on laser scanning. The role, based in Hemel Hempstead, required me to visit customer sites around the world on a regular basis, performing both installations of new systems and supporting existing solutions in Europe, USA and China. Through this role I developed a broad base of engineering skills.