John Hopper Email & Phone Number

Delivery of Vermilion Application migrating from a previous delivery of an in house developed, monthly share class level, Factsheet and Commentary Reports generation system, servicing 8 languages, 30 jurisdictions, automatically creating 12,500+ Factsheets each month.Systems Merger with Janus to create Janus Henderson.Integrating the New Star business into the iMSE performance system used at HGI.Building on my experience of working with vendors whilst implementing (ongoing) the strategic performance measurement solution.Contributing to a strategic review of performance and client reporting capability at HGI, culminating in RFPs and a new performance system selection process.Completed business requirements analysis, technical design, implementation, and testing of a Business Objects (6.51) reporting solution as part of the retail marketing strategy. Included designing and building the BO server cluster and BO universes for ad-hoc webi queries as well as standard webi reports to help the retail marketing team to understand investor profiles and trends.Client Reporting system specification of performance pages for new Client Investment Reports.Gained product integration experience during the specification and implementation of the data feed from iMSE to the Client Reporting system, also improved technical skills by using XML Spy, XML and XSD schema files in the interface.Built on experience of database design by designing and constructing a SQLServer database to store historical performance data generated by iMSE. Created stored procedures and wrote SQL to provide management information on request, directly from the performance database.Developed my third party product implementation skills (technical & management) by successfully completing the installation of Russell Mellon Caps IMS Enterprise (iMSE) 3-tier performance measurement system.

Successfully delivered enhancements to Merrill Lynch Investment Manager’s Performance and Risk Measurement systems (thirteen in-house applications and three interfaces to third party applications Barra Aegis and Cosmos, IMS32). This involved day-to-day management of six developers in a combined development and support team. Knowledge of the system architecture, VB, C++ ADO/RDO, ODBC, Sybase, UNIX and more recently IIS, MTS, ASP, DHTML to a low level was beneficial whilst managing project enhancements.Rapidly gained business knowledge, to gauge the balance between technical complexity and business cost-benefit.Broad range of day to day tasks, including project managing the development lifecycle to ensure the systems continue to add value to the business processes. Used MS Project effectively, to ensure deliverables were on schedule and met deadlines. Contributed to recruitment of new team members conducting interviews and participating in the decision making process. Gained valuable experience on how to identify the strongest candidate for a role.Liased with third party vendors to ensure success of product upgrades.Actively took on issues to ensure IT delivers overall benefit to the business. For example, getting involved in business analysis and QA stages for other projects, impact analysis reviews and project documentation reviews.Technical expertise maintained by satisfying ad-hoc business requests for data, writing SQL queries and running them against the underlying Sybase database.

Proactively took on team leader responsibilities, gaining an awareness of the considerations involved in scheduling work for programmers and running a project team. This was recognised and I was subsequently officially promoted to team leader.Successfully lead a team of six developers, responsible for the fund management half of the company wide dealing system, developed to support the core business (200 users). This included use of iterative development (time boxing) techniques to ensure delivery was achieved on time and within budget. Saw this project development through from the prototype stage to company wide rollout. Technology employed was VB, C++, OCXs, Sybase DLLs, Sybase RDBMS and UNIX.Supervised the successful implementation and ongoing support of a system into two offshore offices. This gave me an introduction into the complexities of managing multi-location rollouts.Improved analysis skills, writing enhancement specifications for the business critical fund management dealing system. Developed solid VB Graphical User Interface design and programming skills, consulting with Fund Managers and Dealers, to maximise the value of the system development to the business.Developed multi-platform knowledge using a Sybase SQL Server RDBMS running on UNIX, communicating with PC clients using Sybase client library and TCP/IP over a token ring network.Gained all round experience within the dealing system development project, giving me an appreciation of using Object Oriented Design to provide a corporate platform for running applications development.Enhanced analytical qualities and communication skills by running the user acceptance-testing phase for an early dealing system development cycle.Co-wrote and then demonstrated a VB prototype to senior business management to gain approval for the full development of the company dealing system.

Built teamwork skills as part of a development team constructing and implementing a Visual Basic/Access dealer information system to streamline Vauxhall Motors marketing business.Consolidated project life cycle experience by conducting analysis and design of a Visual Basic/Lotus Notes customised messaging and faxing system between Vauxhall Motors marketing department and their dealers, implemented on time to a strict deadline.Increased communication and training skills by teaching a Visual Basic course.Passed ten weeks of intensive EDS technical training in Dallas, improving problem-solving skills, programming skills, testing techniques and performing well under pressure in an IBM Mainframe COBOL II, CICS, DB2 environment.Broadened knowledge of Excel Macros by designing an exclusive product allocation system, reducing lead-time to dealers by 50%.