I currently manage the IT team and infrastructure of Ellis Bates with around 125 staff consisting of both office and home workers. Having had no previous full time IT manager in the firm, my immediate tasks were to fact-find and document systems and processes, reduce reliance on legacy systems, and establish standardised working practices such as defining knowledge bases, system documentation, change control, and centralising software media and licence details.I introduced a centralised helpdesk so that the IT team could act as an intermediary between staff and supplier support desks. This greatly improved both efficiency and satisfaction within the firm and, as a result, our 1st liner was announced as employee of the quarter only 2 months after joining the company.Key Achievements● Achieved a Microsoft secure score of over 98% for our 365 tenant.● Identified savings through new supplier relationships which also delivered improved services: leased lines, printing solutions, companywide laptop refresh, network replacement, helpdesk system, and telephony system.● Redesigned email filtering solution to ensure it was more robust, protected against emerging threats and integrated better with Azure Entra.● Automated numerous tasks including website availability checking, stationery and travel request forms, AI Word document creation, AI integrations, and SharePoint content approval.Identified critical security concerns across systems, processes, and providers, then resolved them through a programme of projects.● Implemented cloud-based Antivirus, password management, VPN, and web filtering solutions.● Moved company head office and server infrastructure.● Migrated key systems to public/ private and SAAS platforms to benefit from cost savings, additional capabilities, and improve security.

Volunteer for various zero carbon projects in the Harrogate and surrounding region including tree and hedge planting.

For three months I ran my own company and worked as a contractor for Irwin Mitchell primarily to analyse the application estate with the goal if finding issues with installing a cumulative update to Microsoft Exchange. The main complexity encountered was the large number of systems compounded with legacy products no longer supported by vendors. I analysed and documented hundreds of applications, assessed interdependencies and identified key projects and tasks which would need to be completed to facilitate the patch installation. This resolved Exchange upgrade issues which had been debilitating for Irwin Mitchell for 3 months and was preventing major projects being carried out. There was no single register of software details which included function, support information, and user-base which could be called upon to provide the overall picture, so I worked with multiple teams, management groups to help illustrate the issues and show the blockers and risks involved. Key Achievements● Analysed hundreds of systems to identify software in use on various platforms.● Talked to end users about software where there was no IT team knowledge of its use or function.● Contacted vendors and support partners to establish contacts and identify support terms.● Liaised with project managers and stakeholders to identify other projects underway or planned to assess their impact on any changes to the Exchange platform.● Worked with suppliers to establish an upgrade path, blockers and risks.● Discussed with the IT Programme team the risks and benefits of the proposed work.

I managed the IT infrastructure, development, projects, and supplier relationships for the Annuity Management group of companies based in 8 offices across Europe, Australia, Canada, and America. This was a hybrid environment with some systems hosted in house, some in private clouds through MSPs, and the remainder in Azure including Microsoft 365 services. Much of my work was to identify key weaknesses in systems and processes and establish a long-term programme of projects to resolve and mitigate against those business threats and deliver them. Key Achievements● Consolidating multiple legacy Active Directory and 365 environments from historic acquisitions into a single groupwide tenant.Changed the whole user experience to enable home working for all staff globally at short notice during Covid.● Analysed all undocumented IT spend across the group and delivered an accurate budget.● Migrated multiple legacy email systems into a new group wide Microsoft 365 tenant.● Built and managed an Azure infrastructure hosting to migrate finance to Microsoft Business Central.● Established new security systems for Azure Entra (Conditional Access etc.) and Integrated numerous systems with Azure Entra for authentication and remote access.● Built and deployed a new group wide helpdesk solution, supporting multi-lingual users. ● Managed the IT infrastructure, development, projects, and supplier relationships for companies based across Europe, Australia, Canada, and America. ● Identified key weaknesses in systems and processes establishing solutions to resolve and mitigate those business threats. ● Created IT policies that maintain ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance including gap analysis.● Formed a new IT department structure and simplified a complex IT estate.

In this role I managed the IT department to ensure that the fast growth of the business could be sustained and react quickly for clients in new sectors with different requirements, and also fulfil the complex regulatory requirements of the financial and legal sectors. To do this effectively the IT department constantly review and adapt our processes to be more streamlined.My typical day could consist of escalating issues to 3rd party solution providers, meeting with IT department staff and stakeholders to define and review projects, troubleshooting complex incident and service requests, reviewing runbooks, looking at future security threats, dealing with HR tasks, and reviewing development progress.I had an excellent working relationship with department heads, and would say that I am very approachable to talk with anyone formally or informally about thoughts and concerns. This helped identify many areas for technical improvement across the business, and I think it also ensures that the IT department is more highly regarded across the company.Key Achievements● Bought in-house all server, telephony and networking support● Established hardware support contracts● Built up the IT department from a single team of 7 staff to a ITIL aligned department● Delivered a new contact centre dialler telephony system● Developed and rolled out a new telephone payment system● Established and managed relationships with various service suppliers for services and solutions● Helped the company grow from 100 staff to 260 through numerous large scale projects● Implemented a new helpdesk system● Managed all the infrastructure work to move the business to new office premises● Designed and delivered a new datacentre infrastructure● Established a constant review of security to establish better working practices● Completed a full licensing audit of systems to mitigate licensing issues● Managed the GDPR project to achieve compliance

I managed and supported all of the revenue generating solutions which related to customer support contracts. I designed and supported the networks where we connected to customers and managed the monitoring solution which connected to customer IT estates. My biggest achievement was to replace the helpdesk/ CRM system which was used by all staff and customers to log support tickets and retain all the service contract information. As part of the Security Management Team I was responsible to maintaining Esteem’s ISO27001 accreditation which, in part, required me to identify security risks to the company for IT systems, developing and auditing working practices so that the company could achieve and exceed compliance standards. I also contributed in steering the business towards possible growth areas or highlighting risks in the Operational Management Team.

I joined Esteem as a 3rd line support engineer and then quickly progressed resulting in leading the development team for 4 years to deliver bespoke solutions to customers and to the internal business. This often involved visiting customers, discussing scope, identifying business needs, investigating technical approaches, then working with developers to refine designs before working on coding and testing the solution.Other major work completed was for a large global legal firm to identify and develop solutions to ease a complex desktop and Citrix migration, I also did a lot of SQL work including consolidated and virtualised large SQL server estates to improve supportability and ensure licence compliance.

● Last line server and infrastructure support for international IT teams (including Sweden, Germany, Italy)● Design and implementation for global Exchange migration● Consolidation and decommission of numerous legacy systems

● Design, analysis and project management for People’s Network project which delivered over 300 PCs to county libraries for free public Internet access● Day to day support of 90+ Microsoft Server estate for 4500 users● Large scale file server migrations in line with organisational restructure● Support of web server estate for high availability● Application support including Citrix, Flare, Networking, Access Applications, Biztalk. ● 3rd line server support for end users and any international server support team escalations.