Mark Smitham Email and Phone Number

Involved working at a wholesale head office, supporting approximately 40 retail branches nationwide. It was important to communicate well but also be conscious that costs could easily spiral, and so I have become accustomed over many years to thinking commercially, and making sure that any change makes financial as well as operational sense. I was heavily involved in all IT and major company projects. From implementation and roll-out of new software (after being responsible for specifying, modifying and negotiating with suppliers) to data changes and finding new ways to work, I either project managed or contributed to all change processes, seeking user buy-in and stakeholder cooperation.I am passionate about efficiency and minimising waste. One of the things I was most proud of was that whilst helping the company to grow, the IT systems allowed a shrinkage in workload, so that fewer staff could do more work than a larger workforce previously could. This passion for ever greater efficiency means my natural thought process is always “how can that be done better?”It may not be obvious, but working for three separate-but-connected companies (the wholesale and retail and trading arms of the group) meant often conflicting schedules and work priorities. As such I am very well used to delegation and juggling tasks, as well as negotiating between stakeholders in the best interests of the company.The role involved a great deal of business intelligence development. I developed a reporting suite which has many times improved efficiency and profitability, without impacting on operational flexibility. One of my pet projects was to put LCD Tv’s into offices displaying auto-refreshing data dashboards which were customised for each department, allowing managers and workers to see at-a-glance the current situation. This gave managers the power to spot problems instantly and react to minimise disruption.