Dr. Lester Thomas Email & Phone Number

Newbury, Gb

London, Gb

Leading Vodafone's Technology Scouting and Innovation, taking a long-term perspective of impactful technologies that can significantly contribute to Vodafone's mission and commercial success. Leading innovation proof-of-concepts and practical implementations to bring the benefits of these technologies to life. I have led Vodafone's adoption of open standards and I co-chair the TM Forum board that directs industry collaboration on the Open Digital Architecture.

London, Gb

Group Chief IT Architect and Head of IT Design Authority for Vodafone Group. Responsible for the Vodafone Target IT Architecture and for Governance across the IT Investments worldwide to transform to this Target. I led the adoption of the Agile, Cloud-Native and AI-First approach that has transformed Vodafone into a Digital Telco.

London, Gb

Responsible for the Enterprise IT Architecture and Strategy for Vodafone UK, working with business leaders and subject matter experts to build a holistic view of Vodafone's IT strategy, processes, information, and information technology assets. Key achievements include:Defining the IT Architecture Guiding Principles for Vodafone UK - a core deliverable as part of a Global Application Development and Maintenance (AD&M) outsourcing.Establishing the Architecture Governance Process for UK IT, ensuring architectural standards are met and solutions fit with business strategy. Creating a successful IT Architecture team structure and shaping the UK’s architectural interface with Vodafone Group.I enhanced the reputation of Enterprise Architecture within Vodafone, ensuring that the IT Architecture is truly business driven. This has been supported by a number of successful projects that have transformed many areas of the UK's IT Architecture.

London, Gb

Lead architect for the UK Web Re-platform project (WRP) which introduced 5 new systems to the UK Architecture: Tibco Middleware; New Web Platform (BEA WebLogic Portal); New Content Management System (Stellant); New Search Engine (Verity); New Strategic Vendor Automation Platform (BEA WebLogic). The Production Hardware is located in 6 Data Centers across Germany and the UK. The project included 75 new or modified system interfaces, was the first IT project to use offshore development in India and also introduced the first Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) into Vodafone UK.Lead architect for Single User Interface (SUI) pilot project. This project introduced the concept of providing a single interface for contact centre agents with backend integration into Vodafone order management and billing systems. The SUI project formed a key tactical stream of a Strategic Customer Management transformation programme and has delivered a single interface to 700 contact centre agents.

Phoenix, Arizona, Us

Enterprise Architect at Singlepoint 4U limited (part of Caudwell Group) from May 2003 until the company was acquired by Vodafone.

Co-founder of B2B electronic trading company (part-owned by WPP). Adazzle provides systems that enable electronic trading of approximately 30% of the UK print and online advertising markets.Over £3 billion has been traded over Adazzle systems to date.

Dublin 2, Ie

I worked at Accenture's EMEAI technology centre in Sophia-Antiplois, France and at client sites across Europe, USA and Japan creating, designing and delivering innovative technology solutions. My role was to lead technology best-practice, deliver complex projects and develop talent within my teams. Work included: - Delivering IT Strategy & eBusiness to BP, one of the first major eBusiness initiatives in Accenture - Delivering eCommerce solutions as part of a world-wide network of projects in the energy and utilities industries.- Delivering cutting-edge mobile network integration technology at Nokia.

Ph.D., Digital Signal Processing And Information Theory

B.Eng. (1St Class Hons), Electronic Engineering And Computer Science