Richard Hudson Email & Phone Number

Peterborough, Gb

Reporting directly to the Group Chief Architect, I've stepped into a Lead Solution Architect role, supporting and guiding the development and management of a full-stack portfolio of solutions across the Retail & Broking (Distribution) Division. This role includes:* Responsibility for line management, mentoring and leadership of Solution Architects aligned to the division.* Support the creation and establishment of an Innovation and AI team.* Ensuring Assurance is embedded across the divisionKey Achievements (to date):* Active identification and implementation of QA Automation PoC using GenAI.* Actively bringing Markerstudy and BGL colleagues together as one function.* Bringing the technology teams into the Markerstudy culture.* Support of several key projects, including setup of Outsourced Contact Centre, Short term insurance policy administration platform, transition of WFM platform to group standard platform.* Fostering strong relationships with the Business and IT Senior Leadership Teams.* Active lead and support in design of Enterprise Architecture Principles and high level target modular architecture (Packaged Business Capabilities), including introduction of C4 Modelling tooling to support * change and roadmap planning.* Active push of TSA exit planning.

Following the acquisition and merger of BGL Insurance by Markerstudy, my role continued to be responsible for the technical vision and design assurance.During this initial transformative period, I forged new working relationships with new colleagues, stakeholders and suppliers ensuring clarity and understanding on existing platforms, identifying routes for pragmatic short term integration, and longer term strategic direction.Continued to support, coach and mentor technical excellence within a wider technical leadership community.Achievements:* Provided stability in tech leadership to ongoing projects, leading to successful transition to BAU* Provided architectural leadership to several new projects, including Customer Survey platform, Webchat and Virtual Assistant platform migration, migration of Outbound Campaign Dialler platform.* Supported successful completion of annual PCI audit.* Supported RFC process for new Markerstudy Group wide telephony platform.

Peterborough, United Kingdom

Responsible for technical vision and design assurance within the Contact Center, in support of the Business and Operational target vision.With the Architecture team, responsible for positioning the future view and technical target of our business platforms. Championing continuous improvement, coaching and mentoring technical excellence within the technical leadership community, conducting research and development, exploring and assessing the application of technology for competitive advantageAchievements:* Successful move of entire on premise telephony platform to cloud in 8 days at the start of the COVID pandemic, enabling all Contact Center staff (1100 agents) to work remotely at home, all whilst maintaining existing high levels of customer service.* Designed and led the technical implementation of a credit card capture process in the voice channel, removing Contact Center agents from being connected to the customer while card details are captured, limiting PCI risk, especially from a home working environment.* Successful assessment, design and implementation of NLP and automation services in voice and messaging channels, using a combination of existing on premise systems, new cloud services and third party SaaS offerings.* Supported and provided technical leadership for AI Strategy.* Supported and provided technical leadership for Contact Center Strategy and Target Operating Model.* Shift of NPS platform to a new third party platform and integration into existing system of records.* Working with Data, Cyber and Infrastructure Architects, produced clear reference architecture for common components of Cloud Strategy, predominantly focused on Event Driven vs Orchestration, Data Stores, streams and pipelines, secure ingress and egress from work units, and operational monitoring.* Public talking at conferences on extending Self Service capabilities across all channels including voice, using Conversational AI.

Peterborough, United Kingdom

Lead the front end engineering community within the IDO Business Technology business unit. Accountable for:* Coding Standards.* Practices and technology, driving technical excellence and quality within the community.* CI / CD strategy.* Recruitment of Software Engineers at all levels.* Technical Line Management / Competency Framework for .NET engineers.* SME for .NET through Design Assurance process.

Working with colleagues, continuing to deliver first class web solutions, alongside supporting and mentoring colleagues in technical excellence, quality, delivery and best practise. Stepped into a technical lead role to support the design and implementation of a green field front-end solution, defined technical competency framework for Software Engineers, set up a near-shore development team, and took on the recruitment process for .Net developers.

Peterborough

Part of a team developing, and delivering first class web solutions. Joined BGL as part of the team developing the new Sales and Service platform, which provided white labelled applications based on C# Asp.Net MVC, javascript, JQuery and MS SQL Server.

Founded to provide in house developed ERP SaaS solutions to clients in the Insurance supplier industry.

Founded to provide an Internet-based eSignature service to Industry (Insurance and Financial Services) and Government, allowing legal admissible electronic document creation, distribution, storage and management.

Bsc, Computer Science

A/As Levels, Gcse'S

A-Levels

Education record