James Johnston Email & Phone Number

• Partnered with business leaders to develop and successfully deliver an IT roadmap to modernise systems, unlock new business opportunities and increase business agility and ability to respond to the market• Designed and delivered complex technical solutions across a matrix of modern and legacy systems with globally distributed multidisciplined teams allowing implementation of market leading digital solutions• Optimised the CRM (Salesforce) development team through the implementation of Agile delivery frameworks, resulting in 1900% velocity increase: enabling delivery of projects, features and delivery of business value in a more timely manner• Implemented robust development frameworks and acquired supporting tools to improve delivery standards resulting in a 90% decrease in bugs and 80% reduction in rework increasing IT and business efficiency • Onboarded and managed a wide range of IT contactors and vendors to ensure the organisation achieved optimal cost benefit from platforms and partnerships, taking corrective action where necessary • Transitioned multiple business units from unsupported end user developed applications to managed CRM platform applications, increasing productivity, reducing costly errors and downtime as well as ensuring regulatory compliance• Transitioned legacy systems and software from on premise to multi cloud environment removing technical debt and bringing systems back into standard required for regulatory compliance• Created frameworks to proactively identify manage and resolve security, risk and compliance issues to ensure ongoing regulatory compliance and security standards • Balancing competing development demand against £2m investment budget to ensure sustainable development across IT systems. IT Application Owner for all AXA Global Healthcare applications; accountable for planned development, security, compliance and risk management

Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, United Kingdom

• Partnered with end users to understand their challenges and requirements to ensure testing was in line with business processes leading to greater test quality and 80% fewer UAT test failures saving end users significant amounts of time and effort• Implemented a robust test strategy and framework to eliminate risk incidents through the reducing major incidents from 22 to 0 per year.• Increased releases from 2 to 24 per year through the implementation of Agile resulting in colleagues and customers benefiting from receiving new features significantly quicker. • Implemented new test automation tool to reduce test cycle time for rate testing from 3 months to 3 days, allowing the business much greater pricing agility as well as reducing testing effort by 90%• Project managed office 365 upgrade for 650 users in complex (multi operating company) and distributed (multi country) environment.• Established a successful program of work collaborating with security experts to document and eliminate all high and medium security risks across all systems.Delivered significant hardware, infrastructure and software re-platforming and upgrades with no business disruption; including Citrix to VDI desktop infrastructure move for 650 users.

Bromley, Greater London, United Kingdom

• Worked closely with C-level executives to translate business objectives into tangible IT solutions• Managed the testing of migrating two legacy platforms containing hundreds of highly complex financial savings and investment products onto the core platform with a defect ratio of under 5%• Monthly system analysis reduced from 40 hours to 40 minutes through rewrite of complex SQL queries• Transitioned the team from waterfall to agile methodology, procuring supporting tooling and increasing testing velocity by 40%• Creation of automated regression testing strategy and tooling (Selenium / C#)• Implementation of ticket management system to ensure end to end defect tracking for issues raised in the live environment and ability to provide MI to identify key issues and visibility of defects for both IT and business users • Increased visibility of testing across the business through production of real time customised testing reporting (Power BI / Azure) allowing business users to make fully informed decisions• Gained deep technical knowledge of the system leading to training software vendors analysts and developers in system operations to ensure delivered solutions worked as expected• Investigated technical debt created from years of migrations uncovering and resolving many defects undetected by the business that could have resulted in potential multi-million-pound losses• Created a cultural mindset shift within the team to assess issues based on business impact

Bromley

Managed the business support team whilst Business Support Manager seconded on projects. Provided business support including the investigation and resolution of issues raised. Oversaw the testing and implementation of strategic and operational production releases. Implemented new management tools to help track fixes and give more accurate management of customer expectations. 2 direct reports.

Bromley, United Kingdom

Key Responsibilities • Design, implementation and review of test cases for large volumes of complex financial products being migrated from acquired companies onto in house system.• Design, implementation, execution and review of smoke test pack for new releases.• Maintenance of test data set to ensure required examples available to cover all test cases.• Investigation, analysis and resolution of issues raised by users.Key Achievements• Successful testing of a scheduled fifteen month migration project in under three months to allow the business to react rapidly to changes in the business environment.• Rapid acquisition of a detailed understanding of financial products including investment, protection and pensions plans allowing more incisive review of test plans and ability to signal errors and assess likely root causes.• Development of strong relationships across multiple business areas to achieve a greater understanding of products and priorities resulting in efficient testing coverage and accurate fix prioritisation.

Tunbridge Wells

Key Responsibilities • Analysis of internal processes and requirements to design and implement system and process enhancements for a range of internal business and operational departments• Design and implementation of robust and targeted testing to give assurance to users that changes have been executed as planned• Provide operational system support and problem resolution for system usersKey Achievements• Analysis of issues surrounding the operational processes of the new Telematics product and the development of improved systems to reduce business exposure to high risk policies• Resolution of MID2 issues between internal software and MIB Database and reputation gained as the “go to” person to assess and solve new issues• Acquisition of a detailed understanding of insurance systems and processes including; policy, claims, operations and integration with external systems such as the MIB database.• Built strong relationships across multiple operational, product and technical areas of the business to facilitate business analysis and problem resolution

Tunbridge Wells

Key Responsibilities • Supporting the leadership team through provision of financial and process analysis working across underwriting, commercial and pricing areas• Production and management of daily operational and claims MI reporting and analysisKey Achievements• Design and programming of reporting tools including transactional and KPI reports.• Production of guides and definitions to facilitate management and correct use of large number of data sources• Rapidly acquired an understanding of the motor insurance market and practices as it impacted the business strategy and processes

Kent

Key Responsibilities • Manage sales territory of retailer and catering accounts to maximise profitsKey Achievements• Pioneered new ways of working, developing tools to achieve company and individual goals• Use of interpersonal skills and market knowledge to become a trusted supplier

London

Key Responsibilities • Market analysis to understand prospects’ business requirements and to promote relevant product features and benefits • Generation of sales leads through cold calling into multinational organisations• Identification of key decision makers and using technical knowledge and needs analysis to secure their commitment to sales meetings..Key Achievements• Rapid assimilation of product features and benefits.• Development of successful market search and calling approach.• Leveraged technical knowledge to build client confidence and secure sales meetings.• Documentation and quantification of leads generated to allow follow up.

Polzeath, Cornwall, United Kingdom

Key Experience: Customer service, Stock control

Maidenhead, Berkshire, United Kingdom

Key Responsibilities • Build, maintain and manage portfolio of clients to generate profitable sales• Generate new business from website enquiries to meet sales targets• Co-ordinate logistics in order to meet customer delivery date• Resolve customer issues to ensure satisfaction and secure repeat businessKey Achievements• Highest sales performer over placement period• Regular Repeat Business from a range of clients as a result of successful relationship development• High lead conversion rates through sales planning and negotiation skills• Captured significant new clients including BAT Industries and Fitch• Excellent supplier relationships leading to competitive advantage in winning clients

Polzeath, Cornwall, United Kingdom

Key Experience: Customer service, Team working

Ba (Hons) Marketing 2:1, Marketing

Activities and Societies: Scuba Diving Snow (Ski/Snowboard) Football

Education record