Nicola Walters Email & Phone Number

Stirling, Gb

Chair of the board of Changeworks Enterprises

Worldwide, Oo

Worldwide, Oo

Edinburgh, Gb

Board member, member of Audit and Risk Committee, member of Strategy CommitteeWe are one of Scotland’s largest environmental charities – a thriving social enterprise with 30 years’ experience in sustainability. We work with organisations, communities and individuals to deliver practical solutions that reduce carbon emissions, fuel poverty and waste.Passion, integrity, innovation, collaboration and empowerment are the values which drive us. We aim to inspire and enable people to live and work more sustainably.

Winner of #THEHEAT18

Management consultant specialising in troubleshooting Financial Services IT and Business change programmes. Winner of Entrepreneur of the Year 2003. Contracts listed below were all delivered on behalf of Competitor's Edge.

Responsible for all aspects of programme management and delivery, within a banking organisation• Led the delivery & governance of a £multi-million investment transformation & automation programme• Collaborative stakeholder engagement to define & implement LEAN Six-Sigma simplification/redesign• Spearheaded workflow & robotics, utilising Agile & Waterfall methods for a confidential programme

Se-172 63, Se

Responsible for leading a Finance & Business Intelligence strategic IT group-wide implementation• Developed and implemented a best practice PMO throughout the group (Scandinavia and the Baltics)• End-to-end programme lifecycle management & delivery including planning, scope & implementation• Adopted Agile methodology across the programme, securing buy-in from 215+ heads and managers• Managed onshore and offshore resources to successfully deliver the 5th year of an £80m programme• Established a new Group Data Warehouse to replace multiple existing warehouses across the group• Synced general ledger with GDW, and implemented infrastructure platform to support global systems

It

Responsible for IT leadership of a new operational service division for one of Europe’s Top-3 insurers• Appointed as IT Director and Implementation Lead for the first-ever operational shared service division• Focused on implementation of a ‘future-proof’ IT capability, centrally serving key business unit needs• Transitioned existing business unit operation to BPO, removing obsolete infrastructure (2 companies)• Developed a bi-modal infrastructure shared services model, leveraging both group & external providers• Worked closely with procurement to manage RFI & RFPs for strategic solutions against strict deadlines• Devised infrastructure for group shared services platform with SOA/PACE approach to Cloud services

Dublin 2, Ie

Responsible for leading a strategic change initiative for an Irish utility provider, delivering transition • Drove transformation programme design phase, whilst transitioning from public to Centrica ownership• Implemented best practice governance, project management methodology and critical success factors• Ensured successful delivery within sensitive environment, maintaining BAU alongside strategic change

Travelling Germany, France, Switzerland and Ireland / Hiking from Geneva (Alps) to Roncesvalles (Pyrenees)

Johannesburg, Gauteng, Za

Responsible for spearheading the development & implementation of a company-wide global platform • Full programme leadership and delivery remit, including planning, scope, budgeting and deployment• Leadership and management of a diverse group of stakeholders, aligning cohesive vision & strategy• Established a ‘single world-wide’ architectural platform (Africa, South America, UK, Europe & Far East)• Collaborated with Systems Integrator to develop implementation plans and secure integral investment• Radically changed operational processes and governance, developing a global implementation factory• Championed a major change in mind-set and approach, delivering requirements through configuration

Johannesburg, Gauteng, Za

Responsible for leading the delivery of a complex programme to UK & South Africa-based customers • Engaged collaboratively with global stakeholders to successfully develop re-usable world-wide asset• Formed & managed a strong leadership team, ensuring accountability for individual/group initiatives• Introduced effective concept of global implementations, release management & operational readiness• Aligned development effort across 4 legal entities across 3 Continents, 25 IT systems & team of 150• Integrated best practice; stringent Quality Gates, Group Design Authority, requirements & estimations• Successfully launched a comprehensive set of market-leading Protection Products for Skandia UK

London, Gb

Responsible for leading delivery of ECF2 Programme for London Marketing Group (Lloyds of London)• Parachuted-in to take-over ‘mid-flight’ complex programme with a series of strict public delivery dates• Established Document File Viewer capability to review claim/transaction documents (1 full-text PDF)• Implemented Claims Workflow Service to identify/manage actions required on claims including BPM• Drove conversion of c5m IMR documents & MS Office documents and OCR of scanned documents• Management of Claims Data Warehouse, covering 44 business objects reports & distribution system• Achieved successful & consistent delivery of dates despite many challenges faced throughout project

Zurich, Zurich, Ch

Responsible for all aspects of programme leadership and delivery, engaging with senior stakeholders• Focused on spearheading a $12m project, leading the global ‘e’ development function for the business• Led delivery of global strategic back-office system & integration into SAP, Siebel, Docpath etc systems• Worked with COO, Life & Operations Directors, with 60% IT offshoring to India, Asia, Bulgaria & UK• Ensured alignment with Global Life Processes & Governance, providing gateway to Global Life IT/BC• Integrated Global ‘e’ Centre of Competence (CoC) into UK, Switzerland, Italy & Ireland business units

London, England, Gb

Management of the Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) change programme (IT, business process and documentation changes) as outsourcer for Pearl, with the backdrop of half their products moving to Royal London. Strong budget control £4.5m, establishing charging, financial reporting and resource management procedures. Working with compliance, technical, customer services, IT and finance to deliver a vast change programme within very short timescales. Leading on process re-engineering around billing of external costs to Pearl, bringing in greater accuracy and decreasing processing times significantly, with the resulting earlier payment of invoices by the client.

Exton, Pa, Us

An interim member of the management team, of this financial services Web Portal company, through their transition to becoming a Web Utility/Aggregator. Brought the provider development team deliveries back on track within 3 weeks whilst balancing demands from the rearchitecture (migration of products from current infrastructure onto a new Accenture built infrastructure). Focus was to successfully complete the Re-Architecture of our business. This included design of the new architecture, build, test and subsequent data migration whilst maintaining a seamless business offering to our customers. Led the IT Provider Development Team. This was a technical team made up of developers, systems analysts and testers. Responsible for build of new products and the testing of their migration onto the new architecture.

London, Gb

Executive liaison with the executive steering group and sponsor on the FSA Disclosure and MiFID project. Advisor and coach to the interim project manager whilst the permanent project manager was in hospital.

London, Gb

Management of a £16m, 150FTE, product governance programme across NUL and its subsidiaries NUIL, NU Healthcare and the RBS Joint Venture. Co-ordinate reviews of 721 products, rectify known and emerging issues and provide customer redress where appropriate. The programme was previously run as BAU and lacked co-ordination, direction and consistency across Pensions, Investments, Annuities and Protection. Working through a central programme office function I established and maintained change control, reporting and communication procedures and instilled a focus on delivery throughout the programme. This enabled me to close down all Group Audit actions identified and for the programme to meet its end of June FSA commitments.

London, Gb

Management of a £4m market penetration programme into the annuities arena. In-fighting was rife and progress had ceased with the in place programme manager declaring that delivery was impossible in the timescales. A market promise had been made to have the proposition available in December, and as such, gave the programme a fixed deadline.Given the urgency of delivery and the lifecycle stage the programme was in, I felt there was the need to replace certain team members with experts used to working in a crisis management environment. Both my lead designer and project test manager from my previous programme agreed to move with me. We had 10 weeks to turn enemies into team mates, baseline scope, simplify the design, build and test the solution. With 4 weeks left to go we had an agreed delivery schedule, our code was in UAT and we were on track for promotion into production in December.

London, Gb

Management of a confidential product development programme across the NUI group to launch a market leading on-line and call centre term assurance proposition into B2C, B2B and B2B2C markets. This programme had a marketing budget of £12m including terrestrial TV, online, web aggregator, newpaper and mailing campaigns. I worked with the Executive Steering Group to balance market opportunities (end of tax year) with a quality delivery. I was the 10th programme manager to take on this £2.94m challenge. This was a project that had regularly fluctuated in scope over a period of 2 years resulting in an overall halt to progress. Within 3 days of taking charge I had base-lined scope. Within 2 weeks I had base-lined a delivery schedule and gained agreement with the Life Executive.

London, Gb

Management of a highly sensitive breach management programme with full FSA consultation. Effective co-ordination of external and internal communication resulting in only positive reaction in the press, PPIAB re-accreditation ahead of schedule and FSA approval. Leadership of multiple projects including rectification and compensation (delivered 2 months ahead of plan), cost absorption, asset and policyholder fund launches, the implementation of a new breach management process and alteration of all customer-facing activities to allow for the new disclosure. Motivation of a 40 man programme team, responsibility for a £12.6m million budget (11,500 man-days plus compensation) and management of board level stakeholders. All milestones delivered on schedule and within budget, with 2 well ahead of plan.

London, Gb

Management of a regulatory multi-site project using both in-house, contract, and third party on-shore and off-shore resources. Development of 42 systems (20 legacy and 22 access databases), across 4 legacy companies, with a team of 100 people. Delivered through a multi-phased approach. Each phase delivered on schedule and the overall project completed on budget at £1.5 million. The first project in Norwich Union Life to attain CMMI level 2 accreditation.I was the 4th project manager to take over this project. In the previous 2 years the project had not exited concept leaving the business and IT suppliers disillusioned. Within 2 months of taking over I had secured funding, signed off requirements and build was underway.

Gogarburn, Gb

Identifying strategic direction and then leading strategic change programmes.

Edinburgh, Scotland, Gb

Established and successfully managed a strategic change programme within Standard life Assurance Company controlling over 30 projects including the delivery of new service offerings, business retention activities, training, regulatory processes, system design and build and product launches. (Forecast return over 5 years to increase from £500m to £3bn). Project managed all competitor research related to the division.

Brentford, Middlesex, Gb

Proposed and delivered the implementation of remote account management trial within GlaxoWellcome, which resulted in increased compliance rates, enhanced customer relationships and achieved Net Sales Targets of £5m. Success of the trial resulted in it being rolled out nationally. Sales management of 70 Retail Key Accounts. Turned around low performing accounts, many of which became top performers.

Ba Joint Honours In Business Studies And Management Science, Business Studies And Management Science

Graduate Of The Year 2019, Business Studies And Management Science