Michael Taylor Email & Phone Number

Castle Cary, Gb

Bristol, England, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

A Leader of large, complex and at-pace projects and programmes as part of a 5+ year technology integration programme across Penguin Random House UKAs Programme Manager, reporting to the Technology Programme Director, led a large team of internal business and technical specialists and external consultants to deliver a full end-to-end business change and software change programme. Culminating in a highly successful implementation of SAP (sales order processing) integrated with existing SAP Finance, Royalties and Production systems deployed in tandem with a warehouse integration project. Key areas of focus were organisational and approach planning, team leadership, driving & supporting critical data, test and deployment deliverables, upwards management & c-suite presentation and information management. Before this, I led the Digital Programme, delivering a brand new company intranet and the fantastically exciting, new consumer-facing and B2B websites:www.penguin.co.ukwww.penguinrandomhouse.co.ukThe programme also included a group-wide Sharepoint migration and upgradeLeading a highly-agile team, including design, development, branding and numerous content agencies across multiple locations, plus a lean and energetic internal team, to deliver a multi-faceted digital programme in just over a year. Scrum and Kanban methods were used extensively to deliver outstanding content-rich solutions on time and focused on critical objectives.

London, England

Focused on integrating major Penguin and Random House applications and processes following the creation of Penguin Random House in July 2013. Most notably, I completed a large application migration to a new data centre involving Biblio, BizTalk, SharePoint and a myriad of smaller integrated applications and all associated internal and external interfaces. By the end of the role had moved into a Portfolio Management position, leading several project managers in an agile and fast-paced environment. Succeeded at securing significant business benefits in line with our corporate objectives.

London, United Kingdom

3 year project (ending September 2013), implementing a new publishing system (Biblio3) and SAP across 7 publishing companies, with varied cultures within the Hachette Group. - Data Migration Lead.Responsible for working with other Project Managers to ensure a tight design phase resulting in clear functional and technical requirements for data migration from a large number of legacy systems into Biblio3 and, since January 2012, SAP.Leading external supplier resource to create efficient and agile build iterations to deliver rapid, modular data sets whilst working closely with key business stakeholders and the Testing work-stream on focussed, lean test cycles.Developed a technical team to be very agile and responsive to changes in scope/design resulting from change management, business process definition and testing activities.- Interfaces LeadManaged the design and build of enterprise (Biblio3-SAP-Vista) and external (websites, ONIX) interfaces. Working with external, SAP and Vista technical teams, as well as users across Finance, Distribution and Publishing companies - Programme Management support.Utilised as an experienced, safe pair of hands to develop the overall programme plan, approach and schedule with the contracted Programme Manager and Senior Business Management. - Project ManagementWith the Programme Manager departing half-way through, stepped up to redesign the project approach and lead the remaining implementations. Utilised strong communication and leadership skills to create a more 'all-team-together' approach. The team have since delivered the first implementation in record time with fewer issues.

London, United Kingdom

Specialising in C#, ASP.NET and SQL to develop and support internal applications, the Hachette Publishing Systems team focuses on working with the group publishers to develop and implement the Hachette technology strategy through internal development and implementing 3rd party software solutions. My role was to first work with publishers in a business analysis capacity, scoping and designing solutions before utilising agile development principles to build applications before executing testing and cut-over.

London, United Kingdom

Managing a small team and working with the Sales & Marketing, Editorial and Production Directors my role was to review and develop internal business processes, represent the business at group-level meetings and forums. Working closely with the Group IT Director, I was also responsible for implementing Group IT strategy with the business.

London, United Kingdom

From a management role at a flagship store in Piccadilly, London I moved on to run a branch in North London. Successfully implemented cost efficiency, team building and improved stock turned strategies to increase branch profitability within 12 months of joining the branch.Key initiatives included eliminating overtime in the logistics team by overhauling goods-in & returns processes as well as restructuring the purchasing process to eliminate dead stock and focus key titles from fewer, key publishers. I also reduced staff turnover by fostering an empathetic management approach as well as focussing on team strengths and tightening roles & responsibilities to allow individuals to flourish in areas that better suited team passions and interests.