As IT Director I have responsibility to develop & manage the IT strategy in alignment with the firm’s goals & objectives, executing IT strategies that align with the firm’s business objectives, including managing IT budgets, overseeing IT projects, & ensuring the security & compliance of IT systems, including maintaining their st&ards & certifications such as ISO27001.Leading an IT team of circa 20 including IT Infrastructure Specialists, Developers, Project Managers, Business Analysts & IT Trainers I aim to develop a high-performing IT team, encouraging innovation, continuous learning, ensuring Clarke Willmott behaviours & service excellence are propagated through everything we do.Clarke Willmott also outsource some elements of the IT Service so it’s my responsibility to ensure the smooth running of this managed service contract, ensuring the supplier delivers to the contracted service levels & continual service improvement is undertaken to improve the way we work.I have full responsibility in managing the IT budget, making strategic decisions to optimize resources & investments. This includes implementing & maintaining IT policies, procedures, & st&ards to ensure compliance & efficient operations.Collaborating with senior management & other firm leaders to identify opportunities for technology solutions that drive innovation & improve firm performance & processes is key to my role. Being part of a decision group as to whether we buy or build the technology required & then seeing either through to implementation is a key function of my role. I have strong communication & interpersonal skills to collaborate with legal professionals, partners, & other stakeholders to underst& their technology needs & provide effective IT solutions & support.Working with the Project Management office & Business Transformation group I oversee IT elements of projects from planning to execution, ensuring they are delivered on time & within budget.

Reporting to the IT Director I'm currently responsible for 3 main areas:1. IT Infrastructure (Insourced equipment, outsourced maintenance and support services) 2. IT Services (Outsourced off site service desk and on site outsourced 2nd line)3. IT Training (In house, employed staff)I work with the supplied services provider to manage the day-to-day delivery of outsourced IT services & service improvement from the outsourced on-site and remote Service Desk teams & manage the in-house IT training team. There is a requirement to manage delivery objectives from outsourced project based personnel working on-site and remotely.I am responsible for ensuring that the contracted services are delivered to the Service Level Agreements and that any shortfalls in service delivery are addressed quickly for the benefit of the business users. I take a lead role in the management of customer relationships (in respect of IT service) providing a conduit between the outsource service provider and the business to ensure that a joined up approach is delivered and in driving synergy between IT service and IT training to ensure the two elements work closely together to reduce support calls and improve IT literacy in the firm.I have a responsibility to ensure that the IT infrastructure is maintained to a high standard of availability, resilience and performance and identify opportunities to improve the infrastructure along these lines in a cost effective way.

• Provide man management and leadership to a team of 10 internal infrastructure engineers across 7 Capita office locations throughout the UK• Defining common infrastructure standards across the business units• Liaise with 3rd party IT suppliers who provide services such as networking, hosting and other equipment to design and deploy infrastructure environments for SaaS and IaaS services developed by Capita. • Align business practices to ITIL standards and deploy applications within IL2 and IL3 environments.• Designing, implementing and supporting core infrastructure services such as application servers, storage schemas, backup solutions, network connectivity, web servers, database servers, etc• Design the physical architecture of the infrastructure to support the businesses needs and prepare strategic roadmaps for the infrastructure (along with TCO and ROI)• Developing new solutions and services and reviewing proposed application and system designs to verify that they can be effectively deployed within existing infrastructures or which can be sold to existing and new customers.

• Designing, implementing and supporting core infrastructure services such as application servers, storage schemas, backup solutions, network connectivity, web servers, database servers, etc• Design the physical architecture of the infrastructure to support the businesses needs and prepare strategic roadmaps for the infrastructure (along with TCO and ROI)• Developing new solutions and services and reviewing proposed application and system designs to verify that they can be effectively deployed within existing infrastructures or which can be sold to existing and new customers.

As a TDA within the Outsourcing Services Infrastructure Management Team my role is to manage and optimise the capability of the IT infrastructure and supporting organisations to deliver a cost effective and sustained level of availability to support and maintain the contracted service level agreements. To achieve this I investigate the business demand, define costs to meet the level of required service, analyse human factors and other external events which would have an effect on the configuration and complexity of the IT infrastructure. This includes the level of availability required, redundancy, the reliability of the infrastructure and its components, and the levels of infrastructure maintenance.

Meeting and working with customers to demonstrate, design and specify systems integration with the Capita suite of products into their current infrastructure. This can include refreshing entire infrastructure estates and supplying server options from HP, Dell and Oracle (formerly Sun) alongside storage solutions from EMC, NetApp, 3PAR, HP and Oracle in conjunction with network equipment from Cisco, HP, Juniper and BlueCoat. Another aspect of my role was to evaluate, recommend and implement software that will compliment the refresh or existing hardware for both internal and external customers. That could be both commercial software like Veeam, ArcServe, RSA, but also open source applications like Bugzilla, Request Tracker, Nagios and MySQL. This aspect of my role could include all elements of the integration project, including project management, design, implementation and transition into full support. I was also responsible for primarily proofing the Technical responses for the tenders that were received to Capita Software Services, including server specifications and technical architecture solutions.I worked alongside the Business Development Manager to design and implement products and solutions for customers depending on their identified needs and requirements. This includes designing and collaborating with 3rd party companies to provide a Private Cloud Solution.Continuation of my senior role within the internal systems administration team for the Trowbridge office. Concentrating primary systems support for server hardware, storage, network support and the vSphere 5.0 upgrade from 4.0 and 4.1.

Managed and completed server deployments for many customers including Operating system installations, SAN integration and data migration as well as various application installation and integration.Provided 3rd line support for the Technical Helpdesk including live customer Solaris, AIX, Windows, Linux environments along with the Capita Revenues and Benefits and Capita Housing applications including the associated suite of products along with development of the core platforms.Acted as a part of a senior systems administration team for the Capita Trowbridge office including the maintenance and upkeep of the Solaris, VMware, AIX, Windows and RedHat Linux environments for internal development and production servers. This included SAN, database and Cisco network administration along with the management of Remote Connections to customers and suppliers.Actively travelled between customer sites to install, maintain Ingres, MySQL and MS SQL database installations and troubleshoot issues with the infrastructure hosting the Capita suite of applications.Provided out of hours cover for customers on a rota basis with other Technical ConsultantsDeveloped and maintained a customised server hardening procedure and patch management system for the Solaris operating systems.

Provided 1st and 2nd line support for the Capita suite of products for over 150 Local Authority customers. This included Academy and Academy Housing applications as well as the associated products.As part of a team managed the Operating Systems, Ingres Database and Academy suite of products for 70 plus Remote Support customersAnalysed, prioritised and resolved technical support calls relating to Academy Technical Services including application and database upgrades, patches and pro-active checks on customers systemsLiaised with developers, consultants and third parties to provide effective call resolutionsCompleted duties requested by subscribers to Academy Remote Support as requiredContributed to the production and distribution of reports relating to operation and maintenance of the Academy system

Duties included implementing a data management system for the Silicon Graphics systems, development and construction of a divisional intranet site, administration of Citrix network, management of Divisional IT loan equipment and assisted in BE Group Technical Computing Maintenance Contract as well as general desktop support.