Joined Aquila to create a Business Systems Group for a start-up delivering a £1.4 Bn defence contract over 22 years. On joining, I developed the vision and strategy for Aquila’s corporate IT. This involved aligning strategic and tactical requirements to fledging business processes that I went onto formalise. I introduced budget controls, a formal budget planning process and led the outsourcing of key supply contracts for technical, hardware, software, and helpdesk service support. This allowed me to keep the team small and develop them to become multidisciplinary, mutually supportive and able to provide all corporate IT/IS services to a globally dispersed company of around 350 staff. Subsequently, I went on to introduce internal project governance and led the higher profile deliveries myself; highlights included 200 desk office move, implementation of a DR & BC capability, outsourced IT support provision, achieved first (and subsequent) successful Cyber Essentials Plus and MoD Accreditations to Official Sensitive. I consistently achieved financial objectives by operating within my responsible annual IT budget of £1.3m (£972k OPEX, £299k CAPEX).

I joined a global team of 5 Account Growth Consultants charged with improving the effectiveness and relevance of the HP strategic account business planning process. The Enterprise Services Board approved our engagement model and executed a global rollout. Personally, set up and ran 30 workshops per year in EMEA, each typically lasting two days and involving C-suite executives from enterprise accounts. My work resulted in an increase of the early-stage pipeline by $180m in FY14, $190m in FY15 & $200m in FY16.

Delivery of client-facing and large-scale programmes for the MOD Defence, as follows:Took over a failing project (IT for a secure joint operations headquarters) with an immovable political deadline. Identified and addressed shortfalls in requirements, designed and managed on-site installations of computer and network rooms, cabling, desktop services, etc. Conducted liaison to bring delivery and hosting of partner organisation IT systems into my scope, incl. developing the joint operating model for partners. This project was delivered on time and to budget (IT/IS £2.5m). Took on similar project to deliver the IT infrastructure in a gov secure regional operations centre (£9m civil build, £1.3m IT/IS). I designed and managed on-site installations of computer and network rooms, structured cabling and provisioning of all desktop services taking account of security regulations. I managed delivery of communication services, third party suppliers and acceptance / handover to the business. As part of a three-person team, conducted site selection negotiations for a Top-Secret Tier 3 datacenter (£34m) and led on the briefings to suppliers. Deputised for the programme manager and led the on-site delivery team for the civil build resulting in completion, on schedule, in 12 months. I went onto coordinate the agreement on the IT infrastructure for the datacenter and negotiated the new joint operating procedures across two government departments. I had sole lead on the IT delivery, issuing the ITT, managing subcontractors, maintaining quality, scope and timings and site commissioning. Another short-notice, discreet task was to enable a novel business process outsourcing trial (~£2m) by delivering a suitable remote environment for operational staff, as a guest organisation on another site. I delivered a new temporary office environment, which included estates, facilities and IT functionality. This included development and hosting of a reduced version of the corporate desktop.

Started with responsibility for client-facing business and project management, working on a major government account, the Working Age Modernisation Programme for the newly formed DWP, that was still going through major a business change. I was asked to transfer to EDS Defence and take on project management for major MoD contracts, including delivery of two (Top Secret) MoD & OGD IT projects valued at up to £3.5m each. I also delivered a multinational IT system to Permanent Joint HQ (£1.5m). Most enjoyably though, I delivered the early stages of the electronic situational awareness capability for UK MoD, which facilitated significant improvements in command and control, operational tempo and reduced fratricide.

British Army Officer (Major): Royal SignalsCommanded UK’s Armoured Forward Electronic Warfare Squadron in 14th (EW) Signal Regiment. Operational tours on Desert Storm / Granby commanding a large signal troop and Kosovo as Staff Officer in the G3 Operations Branch, ARRC HQ. I served twice as technical staff officer at DERA in appointments for Special Communications & Electronic Warfare.