Alan Guilford Email & Phone Number

Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom

•Full responsibility for operations, sales, office administration, purchasing, transport, delivery and management of events and marquee projects reporting directly to the Managing Director.•Sales experience. Developed corporate relationships and winning repeat business.•Design events from listening to client requirements. Providing floor plans, lighting, catering, entertainment, access, power, heating and layout designs. Create 3d designs for client sales and 3d site plans for build team. •Stock control and database management. Managing equipment for multiple events with overlapping dates.•Purchasing. Responsible for ordering consumables, stock items, sub hire equipment.•Prioritise events based on size, dates, requirements, customer and availabiity.Corporate work including: Councils, Universities/Colleges/Schools/Scouts , Ice Factor, Leeds Music Festival, Forestry Commission, Event Planners, Caterers, Hotels, Wedding Planners and Private Customers.•Managing 40+ private weddings per season.•Establish maintenance routines and repair of equipment.•Establish relationships with suppliers to hire in or out when required.•Analyse sales quotes. Monitoring preference of products and trends. Highly seasonal business highlighted demand during summer and Christmas periods. Create a pricing structure based on demand. •Simplify sales quotations•Manage build team providing load and delivery notes, 3d site layouts and timetables for multiple events per week. Decision making skills to plan priority of event builds and collections.•Risk management and contingency planning. Many events affected by weather conditions or venue access. Plan for delays, interruptions or extreme weather (snow, wind, flooding)•Health and Safety awareness. Minimum standard for private events and more extensive levels when working with clients for public venues and events.•Power management including calculations and planning for generator hire.•Transport and logistics management.

•Technical Management Consultant. Consulting with clients to define nature and extent of projects. Collect and review data.•Sales experience. Develop and manage client relationships. •Project management. Full lifecycle including sales, quotations, costing, estimatations, development, testing, delivery, training and ongoing support.•Systems architecture. Defining system requirements for both hardware and software. Specifying and purchasing suitable hardware, software, licencing and 3rd party products.•Support of IT systems. Server installations and management of servers including HP, Dell and IBM. Raid configurations and management, firmware, bespoke hardware, WAN and LAN networks including firewalls, routers, VPNs, remote access, desktop, laptops, dumb terminals, citrix, terminal services, all flavours of Windows server, active directory, exchange, microsoft sql, file management, antivirus products, wireless networks, security and peripherals.•Training courses. Bespoke courses tailored to customer and business needs. Training included desktop Microsoft products, applications and databases.•Projects included: new startups, management buyouts, office expansions, office moves, remote solutions, new databases, database redesign, reporting and templates, upgrades and training.•Support work. Problem solving and fault fixing. Both hardware and software support.•Extensive knowledge of Microsoft desktop products (all versions) including: Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, Project.•Database knowledge. Microdec Profile Sybase Recruitment Software, Bond Adapt SQL Recruitment Software, MS Access.•Backup scheduling and disaster recovery. Proactive approach to maintenance and monitoring to help improve system availability for clients.•Telecoms solutions. Including negotiating suitable network and line contracts. IP telephony configuration, and management.•Blackberry Enterprise Server knowledge. Installation and configuration of server software on Windows platforms.

Complete responsibility for the IT and Telecommunications for a leading fast paced financial recruitment business with multi million pound turnover and 5 offices. Reporting directly to the chief executive the role incorporates the development, management and support of the Group IT infrastructure.• Successfully managed IT projects including: opening new offices, automating existing offices, installation of specialised recruitment databases and the integration of web and back office systems.• Help solve a variety of organisational problems by observing business operations and identifying the business needs.• Extensive experience in the support of IT solutions to minimise maintenance costs, design and implement system enhancements, proactive and reactive fault finding and repairs to continually improve reliability and customer satisfaction.• Budgetery control including successful reduction in costs each year.• Liaise with vendors, ensuring service level agreements are met and following up any problems with 3rd party suppliers of hardware or software.• Produce accurate estimates and plans for the requirements phase of new IT projects.• Communication at all levels within the business.• Design and implementation of company policies and procedures.• Management of 4 staff.• Maintain awareness of current hardware and software solutions on the market and analyse and evaluate products making recommendations to board meetings for future projects. Included successful implementation of email marketing branding campaign.• Management of Intel servers, Microsoft Windows NT4 server operating systems, Exchange, Sybase SQL databases (Microdec Profile recruitment software), database replication, file management, backup solutions, desktop microsoft PCs, antivirus solutions, fibre optic networks, WAN, LAN, firewall, cisco routers, digital telephony

• Provide technical support, security, development and management of mid-range resources effectively and efficiently to agreed service level requirements.• Evaluate and install latest analysis tools. Implement procedures for generating performance reports for senior management.• Provide specialist advice to new projects which includes assisting development teams with the configuration, fault finding, performance testing and ultimately the successful handover of the project to the support team.• Planned, directed and coordinated suucessfully the replication, upgrade, testing and documentation of all managed systems to ensure year 2000 compliance.• Management of servers dedicated to Human Resources and Finance directorates and 3 internet web servers including the official Library web site and a host server for Oxford University projects.• A working knowledge of Ingres, BRS and Oracle databases.• Hands-on experience of operating systems Digital Unix, IBM RS6000, Sun Solaris, VAX VMS. Installation of hardware and software and commissioning of systems.• Responsibility as the Problem Manager for the servers and owning major or difficult issues through to resolution.• Arranging servicing and third party support of equipment.• Quality checking work carried out by third parties.• Initiate and manage change control procedures.• Maintain accurate asset inventory, configuration and availability records of managed systems.• Maintain up to date awareness of current hardware and software products on the market and analyse and evaluate recommended hardware and software products to meet future requirements. • Security issues including auditing events, configuring secure web servers and monitioring unauthorized access.• Develop, implement and revew backup strategies.PRINCE Project Management Training and Experience.

• Management of 6 engineers including contract staff.• Customer site work performing upgrades, investigations and commissioning, often at short notice. Sites included onshore and offshore oil and gas installations. Customer sites included Shell, BP, Mobil, British Gas and overseas customer sites.• Involved in the establishment and implementation of Quality Assurance practices to meet BS5750 and ISO 9001 standards within the Customer Service Department.• Responsible for the Internal Office Systems Administration. Duties included: Maintaining workstations running Unix operating systems, support and set up test equipment on local area networks, making recommendations for future equipment requirements. Skills developed include advanced use of desktop tools including Word, Excel and Email.• Knowledge and experience of multiple programming languages including C, Basic, RTL2, assembler and shell scripting. Programming included scientific calculations and process control management.• Management of multiple concurrent projects.• Projects for Oil and Gas Flow Metering, Control System Solutions, SCADA, Terminal Automation, and Tanker loading solutions.• Strong health and safety awareness gained at multiple sites including hazardous sites.• Excellent customer service skills developed dealing with clients in multi million pound project environments.• Supporting worldwide customer systems remotely and fault finding.• Feedback of improvements in supportability, customer enhancements and faults to the main software development group.• Onsite training for customers.• Responsible for producing customer quotations for modifications from customer specifications.• Experience of network and telemetry protocols for both internal and external computer systems.• Hardware and electrical experience in test environments and live customer sites.• Expertise of Apple Macintosh and Microsoft PC’s• Customer acceptance testing and independent witness testing to industry standards.