Michael D. Stark Email & Phone Number

Christchurch

Tower Insurance is a Kiwi born and bred, and is proudly the last remaining NZX listed general insurer. Tower operates in New Zealand and across six Pacific Island nations, providing our customers with cover for their houses, cars, contents, businesses and more.As Towers sole Enterprise Architect, I lead the co-construction of the business grounded technology strategy, and foster cohesion among a fantastic team of highly talented technology, insurance, and general business experts. Tower is light, lean, and highly focused. We're relentless about progress and moving forward. We're reinventing insurance for the modern-day world by using innovation and data to transform the way we do things for our people, customers and communities.ACHIEVEMENT HIGHLIGHTS✦ Watch this space!!!

New Zealand

In addition to carefully seeking my next great full-time position at an exciting company that is ready to take its architecture to the next level of lean efficiency and creative vision. I’ve never been busier, focusing full time on uplifting the practice of enterprise architecture using my extensive architecture experience and diverse areas of interest including technology, business strategy, philosophy, and psychology. HIGHLIGHTS✦ Authoring blogs on thinkingEA.com, with an emphasis on a small number of blogs that bring a unique perspective to our trade.✦ Authoring a book about how to survive and thrive in the emotionally taxing, and often humbling, worlds of technology strategy and enterprise architecture. With 46k words competed by March 2024 the goal is to have Surviving Strategy and Architecture published in the first half of 2024. A number of chapters have been based on, or released as, blogs on thinkingEA.com✦ Collaborating with other enterprise architecture professionals via publishing of their blog posts on thinkingEA.com✦ Building out a network of enterprise architecture professionals across the globe.

Australia

Vendaly is an exciting startup platform that will simplify event vendor bookings and management in Australia. I am helping Vendaly as a freelance platform startup advisor on a pro bono basis. Areas of focus include the platform business model, refining the core interaction, and network effect interaction through friction reduction. Also assisting with lean hypothesis development for early platform model testing. Some initial start-up advice as Vendaly grows their team.

New Zealand And Australia

ACHIEVEMENT HIGHLIGHTS✦ Leading the establishment of the architecture governance approach (EGM endorsed) for a $250m+ trans-Tasman broker platform program and chairing its Architecture Forum✦ Chairing the Architecture Alignment Forum and fostering a more open environment✦ Trusted on several highly sensitive NDA strategic investigations, at times as the sole technologist – without the technology Executive, EGMs or EMs being ‘in the tent’✦ Leading technology due diligence and strategic guidance for several acquisitions of NZ subsidiaries/adjacencies including regulatory, governance and risk considerations✦ Assessing a $70m in-progress implementation, developing a strategic realignment narrative, and presenting to business and technology EGMs to stop and pivot program✦ Leading technology assessment and strategy for the decommissioning of a $280m revenue Australian insurance subsidiary (ex-Berkshire Hathaway insurance)✦ Relentlessly advocating a business Profit and Loss (P&L) focused narrative for technology✦ Architect coaching and mentoring ‘in-the-moment’

Christchurch, New Zealand

Achievements:✦ Assisting my EM to establish the group Enterprise Architecture capability in the newly unified/centralised technology operating model for IAG group, leading various aspects✦ Delivery of IAG’s EGM approved API Strategy (2019), covering B2C, B2B, and B2B2C ✦ Overseeing the development of Enterprise Integration Pattern with IBM (2020)✦ Defining IAG’s Platform Integration Model, Platform Standards, and Platform obligations✦ Defining and achieving Group Architectural Authority endorsement for moving from 30+ TOGAF style principles, to 9 Lean Architecture Principles as empowering guardrails✦ Chairing the Architecture Alignment Forum and fostering a more open environment✦ Representing enterprise architecture on a $700m core system transformation program ✦ Delivering Videocast library of 15+ Core Policy systems architectures (extremely popular)✦ Architect coaching and mentoring ‘in the moment’, along with structured coaching

New Zealand

Achievements:✦ Evolving a Business Services as APIs ethos for supporting B2C, B2B, and B2B2C✦ Evolving synchronous and asynchronous integration pattern guidance✦ Review of delivery friction points in our cloud native digital execution based on PaaS, FaaS, and advanced concepts like CQRS✦ Reviewing refining and administrating our NZ architectural governance framework✦ Leading the NZ Architecture Guild to uplift architectural capabilities, including presentation development and delivery (live and videocasts), social media (Yammer), and coordination ✦ Large scale core system replacement business case estimation (migration lead)✦ Co-representing NZ in the broader IAG group processes and risk governance attestation

Christchurch

Achievements (top two due to space):✦ Delivery of Information Architecture and Information Management Strategy for IAG NZ, including: Information Management, Data Governance/Classification/Valuation/Attainability/Indigestion/Retention/Archiving/Destruction/Quality, Metadata✦ Representing NZ in the broader IAG group data concerns and attestations, and in group big data appliance selection (Greenplum) and group wide metadata platform selection

Christchurch

Achievements:✦ Technology representative for major RFI/RFP and selection of AMI’s core policy system replacement (Exigen)✦ Leading solution architecture for transitional scaffolding on the above, enabling a successfully implemented $70m core system replacement program for AMI✦ Involved in various company integration activities to meet share-market operational synergy obligations with the AMI acquisition by IAG✦ Supporting new Head of Architecture to establish an IAG NZ architecture function, including establishing early governance approaches

Achievements:✦ Leading the design of extensive data model for AMI’s key strategic move to an inbuilt CRM/MDM strategic customer capability✦ Leading the defining of the significant “all of company” customer data uplift and data migration strategy for the above✦ Data warehouse data modelling including relational staging area and star schema models✦ Data model design for various legacy core policy system implementations✦ Evaluation and leverage of industry models: Acord, eEG7, IIA✦ Designing and co-developing AMI’s Enterprise Data Dictionary, including embedding, training, and advocacy✦ Performing a Technology Business Continuity/DR review for AMI Executive Leadership Team after the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake Disaster event which significantly impacted AMI’s operations

Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

Achievements:✦ Leading Database Administration (DBA) for AMIs first successful Data Warehouse implementation✦ Leading ETL development for Data Warehouse ✦ Leading data reconciliation and transformation testing for AMIs Data Warehouse ✦ Leading the designing and program managing the delivery of a custom built Data Quality Engine✦ Enhancing the data warehouse load metrics portal✦ Management of data replication technologies from mainframe to RDBMS

Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

✦ Data architecture for the CDHBs Data Warehouse✦ Stakeholder management with Decision Support for compliance reporting

(originally Healthlink South which got merged into CDHB in 2000)✦ Leading the SAP data migration from two legacy patient management systems and a financial management system (supporting all of Canterbury's Mental Health and Older Persons Health services) eventually going live on time without migrated data issues, which was particularly important for data relating to court sectioned patients. There was significant political pressure on this controversial program, and significant timeline pressure.✦ Design of the historic data viewer to support emergency acute mental health services✦ SAP ABAP development

Christchurch

ACHIEVEMENT HIGHLIGHTS✦ Database application development✦ Managing US Military unclassified communication system✦ Supporting US Military personnel as required✦ Representing ASA NZ at USAP conference in Denver, USA✦ Security clearance for President Clinton visit

Christchurch

FOCUS✦ Database development and training including data modeling