Rauf Ghafur Email & Phone Number

United Arab Emirates

London, England, United Kingdom

Programme & Project Management of Commercial R&D projects such as 5G OpenRAN and Digital Supply Chain Hub. Working with the programme directors to communicate the programme vision and directing activities to ensure the vision is realised. Managing the development, planning, initiation and delivery, and demonstrating impact and clear economic outcomes for the UK. Providing leadership, direction and support to the programme team and managing internal and external senior stakeholders.Key Responsibilities:• Develop coherent programme strategy, structure (workstreams and projects), and resourcing plans, define realistic goals, milestones and targets, to lead to the required outcomes and impact• Use the existing PMO governance model to enable programme oversight and control, ensuring that the programme's goals and objectives are aligned with those of internal and the key external stakeholders• Evaluate the progress of the programme on a regular basis, taking action to ensure that programme goals are achieved and that programme outcomes and impact are maximised and success stories are widely shared• Lead, plan, initiate, resource, monitor and ensure delivery of the activities of the programme on budget and time, ensuring early detection and management of risks/issues and achievement of set targets• Work closely with the PMO on processes, reporting, and communication, ensuring that policies and best practices are followed, in order to manage the programme to time, cost and quality and to manage risks, issues and dependencies• Report on progress and successfully build and manage relationships both internally and externally with DSIT UK (Department of Science, Innovation & Technology), Innovate UK and Ofcom UK• Provide coaching and guidance for successful delivery across the programme in line with organizations strategy and vision• Act as line manager for project management resources

London, England, United Kingdom

Customer Programme Management for Key Enterprise clients in UK & Middle East region such as Unilever, Network Rail, Barclays, FIFA World Cup™ 2022 Stadiums, Qatar Supreme Committee, Doha Bank, ooredoo, Vodafone Qatar and various Government entities and across multiple Cisco product portfolios such Core & Data Center Networking, Wireless, Mobility, Cyber Security, Cisco IOT, Analytics, Cisco Vision, Private 5G etc…Key Responsibilities:• Manage and lead transactional and subscription projects to deliver customer business outcomes• Provide exceptional leadership to achieve customer strategic outcomes and deliver projects on- time, within budget and with high quality while achieving excellent customer satisfaction• Build & manage projects teams globally• Perform overall schedule and resource planning & lead execution of projects• Implement project governance and stakeholder management strategies• Provide vision, strategy and business objective alignment to lead end-to-end project implementation• Responsible for project metric tracking, managing project financials and profitability• Identify opportunities for additional business & provide input to pre-sales evaluation• Identify risk, issues and develop risk mitigation strategies• Support Account & Legal teams with Statement of Works (SoW) creation and review• Lead the execution of the contract change management process

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Managing the Telecom Operations and PMO for ACETEL across Europe, Middle East & Africa. ACETEL Telecommunications provides a comprehensive package of Telecom Solutions & Services to Mobile Operators and Telecom Service providers globally.Key Projects:• Cisco Systems: PMO & Programme Management for Cisco Small Cell & SON Solutions across EMEA region. Responsible for leading the PMO for Small Cell & SON solutions along with Project Management of the solutions into Tier 1 Mobile Operators and Enterprise Clients.Key Clients include: Saudi Telecom (KSA), Mobily (KSA), Zain (KSA), ooredoo (Qatar), MOI (Qatar), Turkcell (Turkey), Transport For London (UK), du (UAE)• Emirates Airline: Solution Delivery Management for key IT Solutions across Airport Operations. Responsible for managing end-to-end delivery of large business IT projects and solutions involving business change/transformation, senior level stakeholder management and systems integration. Ensure the successful delivery of assigned business IT projects by applying best practices in project, system integration and change management to achieve on time, on budget delivery of the intended business benefits.• Vodafone: Technical Project Management for the deployment of a VAS Messaging Solution across Vodafone UK and integration with Vodafone Group

Dubai, Uae

Leading the Project Management Office (PMO) and Quality Management System (QMS) team for the Management of Mobile solutions across the EMS portfolio, which includes BlackBerry Launches, Apple Portfolio Roll-out, Enterprise IT solutions and Mobile solutions. The key responsibilities were as follows:• Certified Project/Programme Management of the EMS Solution Portfolio (BlackBerry, Apple & Cloud based IT Solutions)• Managing a team of Project Managers within the PMO & QMS structure• Responsible for the QMS process across the whole EMS organization and obtaining the ISO Certification• Defining and Incorporating new processes within the PMO organization• PMO Reporting Dashboards & Project Processes & Templates. Project Plan Management using Microsoft Project• Project Budgeting & Cost Analysis to ensure the projects are in-line with Budget allocated• Manage Project Stages from Startup, Initiation, Controlling and Closing a Project as per agreed Project ScopeAlso managing the commercial launch of BlackBerry Solutions & Services for mobile operators across Middle East, Africa & CIA regions. The key tasks managed during the launch were:• Leading strategic planning discussions with mobile operators on positioning BlackBerry in the new markets• Developing business relations with mobile operators at group level in accordance with EMS/RIM strategic goals• Overseeing Marketing & Sales strategies• Supporting in the Retail Enablement on BlackBerry• Managing day to day carrier Account ManagementSuccessfully achieved the following key objectives for 2011/2012:• Awarded Best Program Management Award 2011 as part of the Bukhatir Group Management Excellence Awards.• Launched BlackBerry solutions for over 30 Mobile Operators across MEA & CIS region• Implemented PRINEC2 Process Model for EMS Carrier Launch Projects• Incorporated Project Management Process into the ISO Quality Process• Devised effective Project Reporting within EMS Management and project teams

Dubai, Uae

Managed the deployment of key MCTEL solutions such as Mobile Roaming, Mobile Messaging, Mobile Charging and Mobile Device Management for key accounts in Middle East, Africa & CIS regions.

Dubai, Uae

Managed the deployment of Mobile Security Solutions such as SMS Anti-Spam, Call Screening, SMS/MMS Filtering for key accounts across the Middle East region.Also part of the Bid team to assist with Telecom proposals (RFP/RFI) and technically supporting the Sales team in the wining of new business across the Middle East region

Riyadh, Ksa

Managed the deployment of Mobile Value Added Services (VAS) Solutions such as SMS Filtering, Short Message Service Centers (SMSC), SMS Routers and Mobile Device Management for key accounts across Middle East & Africa region.Also part of the Bid team to assist with Telecom proposals (RFP/RFI) and technically supporting the Sales team in the wining of new business across the Middle East region.

Reading, United Kingdom

Primarily responsible for supporting the Sales team in the winning of new business across the EMEA region and performing a critical role in the development of key accounts and shaping the product roadmap offerings to meet that operator’s strategies for messaging.

Reading, United Kingdom

Providing Technical Consultancy services to Schlumberger MSG customers worldwide. Products included SMS, MGA (I/P Gateway), USSD, EIR etc, which are implemented on most GSM mobile networks.Technical Consultancy’s main interface was with MSG Programme Management to ensure that consultancy services are available to Schlumberger messaging clients worldwide.

Reading, United Kingdom

Providing support to operations engineers during installations and upgrade of GSM Messaging solutions. Regular communication to management with project limitations and estimates. Working with developers and architects to understand the complex GSM architecture and how Schlumberger products integrate with the GSM networks.Installation, Integration and Upgrade of Sema GSM products to mobile operators worldwide.Was part of the team to commercially deliver the first in-country VAS solutions such as SMSC, USSD, EIR to Mobile Network Operators globally. Our development engineer sent the world’s first ever text message on December 3rd, 1992 to a colleague at Vodafone.

Beng Honours (2:1), Electronics With Computing & Business, 2:1

Specialised Options: Data communications, Opto-Electronics, Analogue Electronics, Digital Electronics, Business

Btec National Diploma In Computer Engineering, Computer Engineering, Distinction