Strategic level IT Leader with over 25+ years’ experience in managing tight-knit, goal focused and engaged teams within a matrix organisation across Europe and the Americas.Demonstrable track record in delivering innovative solutions that drive change, business performance and sustainable profitable growth in global enterprises in logistics, healthcare, and professional services sectors.ITIL V3 Foundation, Prince2® Practitioner and Certified Scrum Master qualified.Key areas of Expertise• IT Leadership & Management - Director & Senior Manager level• Business Relationship Management – Trusted advisor & partner• Ongoing team development through coaching & mentoring • Business analysis, solution design and implementation• IT Strategy and Business Transformation • Managing resources in a matrix organisation, with onshore/offshore structures• Full cycle Project Management through Waterfall, PRINCE2® methodology• Programme Management• ITIL Service Transition and Operations• Business Process Outsourcing [BPO]• Process definition & continuous improvement• Budgetary management in the areas of Operational and Capital expenditure• Contract negotiations and on-going management of multiple 3rd party outsourced organisations• Functional experience in Cognos BI, Oracle Databases, Tableau, QlikView, QlikSense, RoamBI and Salesforce.com• Functional implementation experience of SAP & JDE enterprise solutions within a Validated & SOX environment
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Senior It Project ManagerRoyal Mail Jun 2021 - PresentLondon, GbLeading UK wide projects within the IT Operation & Automation function. Specialising in image recognition for the efficient sortation of letters & parcels. -
Contract Senior It Project ManagerRoyal Mail Nov 2020 - Jun 2021London, GbLeading an Import Customs Automation project for Royal Mail International within the Customs Transformation Programme. -
Contract Senior It Programme/Project ManagerRoyal Mail May 2019 - Oct 2020London, GbProject Management & Programme assurance role in migrating existing applications from legacy technologies to new Digital Private Cloud that enables flexible virtual compute, storage & network services across a simplified Data Centre configuration - £21.2 million programme over a 20-month time period. Accountable for:•Delivery through Build, Migrate & Decommissioning workstreams: -Build: Multiple Technology Stacks [Networks, AIX, Bullion, Private Cloud, Storage, Backup] -Migrate: Application & Network strategy. Development of Migration Tools & Methods -Decommissioning: Application & Network strategy•Operating within a Service Integration and Management [SIAM] model•Delivery of the programme governance lifecycle through PRINCE2 methodology.•Collaboration with multiple infrastructure & application suppliers to ensure key milestones are met.•Relationship management between IT Service Management & multiple suppliers •Collaboration with multiple infrastructure & application suppliers to ensure key milestones are met by understanding dependencies, timelines & implementation plans•Development and delivery of communications to key stakeholders and application users. -
Chair Of GovernorsFurze Down School Sep 2023 - PresentChair of Governors of a Local Authority maintained special education school - Ofsted grade 'Outstanding'. Through school for pupils from age 4 to 19. -
Chair Of GovernorsThe Buckingham School Oct 2012 - Jul 2022Buckingham, GbChair of Governors of a Local Authority maintained secondary school - Ofsted grade 'Good': Governing Board of 15, consisting of Parent, Staff, Co-opt & Local Authority Governors.Responsible for:• Setting the Vision, Mission and direction• Holding the Headteacher & Senior Leadership Team to account• Ensuring financial probity and accountable for £7,000,000 budget -
Contract It Programme/Project ManagerAtos Dec 2016 - Oct 201895877 Bezons, FrWorking for one of their largest private sector UK/I clients; the Royal Mail Group – Operating within SIAM structure - accountable for server and network infrastructure across 3 Data Centre, 3,500 physical & virtual server estate. Project & Programme Management role in the delivery of service improvements.• Project managed a team of infrastructure architects, offshore technical resource and collaborated with key senior stakeholders to design and implement without any user downtime an upgrade of Load balancer & network Firewall devices over 3 data centres. Huge amounts of complexity but deployed over a 7-month aggressive timeline that was completed before the organisations busiest trading period. This resulted in a significant increase in data traffic capacity, future proofing, improved resilience, and reduced overloading. • Managed a team of onshore & offshore resources to perform an audit on the server estate to identify and remediate where needed, OS, server-compute & application monitoring thresholds. This resulted in a reduction of incorrect alerting tickets by over 60% and turned server monitoring metrics from red to green. • Led a team of 6 technical engineers and service managers to validate and remediate the Data Centre networks & estate servers so it could accommodate a 30% increase in data & traffic demand during the company's annual peak period. Which resulted in a 0% increase in unplanned outage during this time and increased credibility on the infrastructure design & support model.• Defined and deployed a Patching process for the entire server estate running Windows, Unix, Solaris, AIX & Linux Operating Systems. This resulted in 100% of servers having up-to-date patches installed, a 28-day patch cycle that exceeded SLAs, and removed vulnerabilities to virus & cybersecurity threats. -
Senior Regional It Manager - Business IntelligenceJohnson & Johnson Aug 2012 - Aug 2016New Brunswick, Nj, UsBusiness Relationship Management and Operational support of the Medical Devices, European Business Intelligence platform. Accountable for the successful delivery of application & data availability in the areas of Big Data & Integration and Reporting & Analytics within agreed stakeholder goals & service levels. Managed a team of five direct reports based in multiple locations and outsourced off-shore resources, along with Managed Services providers in supporting a user base of 2,500 dispersed in Commercial, Finance & Marketing functions. Member of the regional BI Leadership Team that created the next generation BI strategy. Achievements• Project managed a team of developers & collaborated with business partners over a 3-month period to significantly increase the European Cognos BI 8.4 platform performance by implementing a number of identified recommendations that resulted in an improved of on-time cube builds from 25% to 95%, and decreased user interactive wait time to less than 2 seconds. • Led a team of offshore resources to upgrade a European BI platform from Cognos 8.4 to Cognos 10.0, and migrate from traditional server infrastructure to virtual private cloud technology. This resulted in an increase in application stability, an increase in user functionality, improved platform operational management and overall application performance. • Led, shaped and deployed an education & training strategy for 2,500 geographically dispersed users to increase their knowledge of the BI suite of tools. This resulted in users becoming more knowledgeable, empowered, and adoption increased by 60%. -
Head Of It - Uk/IrelandJohnson & Johnson Jun 2011 - Jul 2012New Brunswick, Nj, UsRepresented IT on the UK & Ireland Leadership Board. Managing a team of five Analysts & Leads responsible for the development and delivery of the IT strategy that had alignment with the business strategy. Accountable for both Business Relationship Management and application development & support on UK hosted solutions.Achievements• Deployed over 400 Apple iPad devices to the UK/Ireland sales force in less than 3 months. This resulted in improved efficiencies in the integrated selling process, reduced printed material costs by 60% and provided a platform for future digital selling aids. Presented with a Standards of Leadership award for the rollout that was completed on-time and on-budget.• Led the deployment of a Healthcare industry first Professional Education Facebook page. Collaborated with senior stakeholder to establish editorial policy and content schedule. This resulted in getting access to a new target audience, and a platform to capture insights. • Led a team over a six-months to implement RFID technology into a key business process within the Orthopaedic Kit function. This reduced total processing time by 80%, improved product restock accuracy to over 95%, and invoicing accuracy increased by 100%. • Led a project that involved collaborating with the HR function and an external vendor to migrate from paper payslips, P60 & P11D to an on-line portal for 4,500 employees. This resulted in a decrease in printing costs by over 95%, improved the employee experience in managing their pay related tasks, and reduced the number of pay related tickets the HR function had to deal by 90%. -
It Consultant & OwnerInteractive Applications Ltd Mar 1992 - Jul 2000Worked for numerous Blue Chip organisations and software houses implementing ERP systems and bespoke applications. IBM AS/400 platform with RPG400/RPGIII. Extensive knowledge & experience of SSA PRMS and JDEdwards in the areas of Supply Chain & the Order to Cash (OTC) process.
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It ConsultantPyxis Ltd Nov 1990 - Feb 1992Development and implementation of ERP systems, upgrades and modifications, complete bespoke software systems, performance tuning, documentation and education. Business areas included Retail, Commercial, Manufacturing and Distribution. IBM AS/400 platform with RPG400.
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Computer ProgrammerElectrolux Aug 1985 - Oct 1990Stockholm, SeComputer Programmer - IBM AS/400 platform. RPG III. Synon. JBA. CA PRMS ERP. Manufacturing & Distribution, with Financials experience.
Matthew Watkins Education Details
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University Of BedfordshireBusiness & Financial Studies -
Putteridge Secondary School -
St Christophers Junior School
Frequently Asked Questions about Matthew Watkins
What company does Matthew Watkins work for?
Matthew Watkins works for Royal Mail
What is Matthew Watkins's role at the current company?
Matthew Watkins's current role is Senior Project Manager at Royal Mail.
What schools did Matthew Watkins attend?
Matthew Watkins attended University Of Bedfordshire, Putteridge Secondary School, St Christophers Junior School.
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