Representing the hop merchant Charles Faram in the South East and East of England. Selling hops and brewing products, managing exisiting customer relationships and forming new ones.

Responsible for:Directing production activitiesEnsuring packaged beer reaches high standards of flavour and clarity/stabilityTroubleshooting fermentation issuesPlanning brewing/packaging schedulesMaintaining raw material levelsLiaising with vendorsCurrently studying IBD Diploma in Brewing.

Brewing tasty real ales for the thirsty people of Kent and beyond.

In Spain studying Spanish and being a family man.

During this time I performed the role of Release Manager for the RBS APS (Asset Protection Scheme) project. Due to the profile of the project it proved to be the most challenging and intense roles I have undertaken, with long working hours and tough deadlines. My responsibilities were; Maintaining the integrity of both Oracle application database schemas and web front-end in the development, SIT / UAT testing and production environments. Patch managing all software releases from SIT testing to production delivery. Troubleshooting testing and production environment issues. Refreshing testing environments with production data. Performing environment housekeeping such as ensuring static data tables in other schemas are up to date. Raising and processing change control documentation up to the completion of the production deployment. Production deployment of all APS scheduled and emergency code releases. Maintenance of user security for all testing environments. Documenting all aspects of the role for portability of function.

The role involved building, configuration-managing and implementing into production in-house and 3rd party applications. It was our team’s responsibility to safeguard the production environment by ensuring that all apps were thoroughly tested – both technically and functionally. The team built and administered test systems to specification, assisted with troubleshooting and managed patches/updates. We composed the production implementation plan and coordinated the relevant IT support/infrastructure teams during the implementation. Finally, we documented UAT-specific configuration information to facilitate knowledge-sharing within our team. I was engaged with the following projects; Configuration-managing and implementing Equities trading floor applications such as OneWorld, PIMS, Launchpad, Mobius, AESS, Optima and Mirror.  Managing both Basel 2 UAT and production environments, working closely with the development and business testing teams with regard to troubleshooting and moulding their code into an acceptable delivery for ABN AMRO. Managing the runbook and overall coordination for a MIFID/Swift/Crest implementation. Implementing UAT and production changes for the GBM Finance group. This includes applications such as Finance Matrix, OASIS, Spring, FiRE Bank of England Reporting and the liquidity reporting reconciliation tool called L_Rex.

Working as part of team administering Active Directory, Unix, Remote Access and Exchange accounts covering 10,000 users across Europe. The group’s daily duties included AD object manipulation, maintaining disk quotas, Exchange group mailbox administration, distribution list creation and Fiberlink remote access administration.

Part of a team of engineers travelling around the UK upgrading, testing and supporting laptop software for Barclays’ financial advisers. The role involved upgrading, testing and supporting bespoke Barclays applications, Windows XP O/S security hardening packs, RAS connections and Safeboot. The team would also give an hour-long presentation to the financial advisers and technically support them once they receive their upgraded laptops.

Between February and September 2006 I was dedicated to the Netherland-based Basel 2 project maintaining their UAT environment and supporting their production environment.

Administration of the Active Directory as part of the support for a Windows XP rollout for Brakes Brothers. The role involved the maintenance and manipulation of AD objects along with creating and editing domain and OU group policies. It also involved providing AD support to rollout technicians by telephone and email on a shift basis.

As per the role with Barclays during the period September 2006 to January 2007.

Between November 2003 and April 2005 I was managing the testing facilities and production implementation of ABN AMRO’s Global Wholesale Clients intranet website, their global Legal & Compliance Autonomy application named Galileo and the new global BCP software. I also worked with the GFM applications eBookbuilder and Hedgefunds Workflow.

Part of the Windows XP rollout and support project team responsible for upgrading Windows NT4 and 2000 PCs to Windows XP. The role also encompassed preparatory software audits and post installation configuration/support work.

Between March 2001 and December 2002 I was configuration-managing and implementing GEDD Equities trading floor applications such as OneWorld and PIMS.

Provided second and third level shift-based support for software, hardware and market data applications.

Part of the 250 Bishopsgate NT4 rollout. Also participated in the NT4 deployment to the Manchester office. Previously I was a member of the Application Packaging team in the Liverpool Street office using MS SMS Installer 1.2 to meet new software install standards.

Responsible for desktop migration to Windows NT 3.51 and all associated applications in London, Milan, Madrid and Zurich. Also I performed the role of supervisor for a PC support satellite group responsible for desktop technical services on two floors.

Part of a two man team supporting the front office trade entry system.