Simon Newcombe Email & Phone Number

London, United Kingdom

I am currently engaged as Project Manager for an international retail brand. The project scope is part of an international Security Compliance Programme

Prague, The Capital, Czech Republic

I headed the Global Projects team, with governance over Interoute’s portfolio of Global projects and Channel partner agreements for all our Product sets. This includes customer networks (MPLS, IPSEC, VPN deployments), Security and Hosting products, Video solutions, Voice and traffic management and Cloud solutions. I head a team of 6 Project managers and 12 coordinators, with matrix management over an additional 36 in our regional offices. This covers a customer portfolio of over £320m spend, typically compromising of over 30 customer projects & programmes.I was also responsible for the processes and adherence to the PM Programme across the business and the representative of this programme to other internal departments and board level. This also included a complete rewrite of our existing programme, and reconfiguring our customer documentation including Project Plans, RAID logs, Tracking sheets, Cost 2 Completes, and reporting logic.I was also responsible for security, reporting and process compliancy across the N&0 departments, customer documentation for projects, and all specific security concerns for all major secure projects such as UEFA (IPS, DDOS protection, and PCI compliancy), British Airways (Secure VPN and IPS), Rank Casinos (PoS devices and secure authentication, remote access and PCI compliancy) and BMW (Secure remote hosting services) as well as the governance and reporting against these to VP levelMajor Programmes completed to date include setting up the process for Hosting project management to cover our Hosting offerings and Security product sets, 200 site network refresh for RANK casino’s including PCI compliancy, secure data hosting and anti intrusion processes, a critical project for UEFA to host all live streaming of matches as well as protect against security attacks and safeguard customer data, and a major VoIP project for Microsoft to update all conference call facilities across the company

Prague, Czech Republic

I initially joined Interoute to head up the Central service delivery team based in Prague, but shortly after transitioned to the role of Manager, Projects & Channel due to a restructuring of our delivery model to better facilitate our customers

Following a successful initial project with TJX Europe for a pan European multi site WAN refresh project, I was retained to expand the original project scope and include new and refurbished stores that were initially out of project scope Again reporting to the VP IT, the role included all original facets of the first project as well as the added management of additional vendors, telco's, and suppliers necessary due to the expanded scope, both in terms of hardware and software Having finished this project for TJX Europe, I was extremely proud to come in significantly under budget by £152k, and in an acceptable timescale considering the challenges we faced during the lifecycle, including a world wide shortage on Cisco hardware needed, flooding at site on 3 separate occasions, and 3 separate project manager changes from our carrier

London, United Kingdom

I joined Projectcorner to head up a multi million pound network refresh for TJX Europe, the holding company of well-known retail outlets TK Maxx and Homesense. This was in conjunction with our network refresh consultants ‘The Network Collective’. It had been some time since TJX had looked at their IT infrastructure so this was a complex and intrinsic hardware and software rollout changing from Frame Relay to primarily an ADSL estate, and encompassed 311 sites across UK, EIRE, Germany and Poland. I also had to manage not only major hardware changes, but also detailed infrastructure work in the company’s 2 Data Centres, as well as the management of 6 support staff on the project team. Project scope encompassed full responsibility for the project planning of the proposed rollouts, project plan production, budget appraisals and cost to completes, RAID production and advisement, and the full range of quoting in terms of technology and proposed circuitry, as well as vendor appraisal / management for hardware, software and engineering and technical consultants during the actual rollout, This was a client facing role with full governance of project issues and reporting not only to project stakeholders on the client side, but also reporting back to the business. Coupled to this was full accountability for all security aspects of the project scope as it pertained to the retail sector, including full PCI compliancy for customer data and hardware devices, management and security of stock, and vendor and 3rd party contractor appraisal for access to sites I finished this project for TJX Europe and am pleased coming in significantly under budget by £152k, and in an acceptable timescale considering the challenges we faced during the lifecycle, including a world wide shortage on Cisco hardware needed, flooding at site on 3 separate occasions, and 3 separate project manager changes from our carrier.

Working as the Lead Senior Project Manager on high level Genesis accounts, I was in charge of numerous multi million pound accounts including Fitness First (Global WAN and VoIP rollout), Vesuvius (Global MPLS rollout 200+ Sites), Ernst & Young Asia Pac and Africa (Global WAN deployment) and Sunlight (ADSL Rollout)Full responsibility and accountability for the budget and overheads of my team and the project from pre sales to project completion, and in all cases balancing and coming in under budget where possible. As well as full accountability for all security concerns on each project, including PCI compliancy, data storage and secure VPN access, and responsibility for customer and 3rd party data between customers and suppliersI was also responsible for the management of multiple project teams, including direct level management of a project co-ordination team, technical team, design leads and 3rd party engineers and logistics. I was also fully responsible for budgetary control over multimillion projects from conception to completion, full legal and technical control over project plans, PID scope, production and sign off, risks, actions, and, issues (RAID) construction and maintenance, direct client leading and support to all other parties both internally and externally in a client facing roleOther responsibilities include the management of the personnel in my team, financial and commercial reporting across all projects, full management of Oracle and Remedy systems across the projects, full rollout and migration management of deployment, staging of equipment, high level network and VoIP design, Carrier relations management, escalation planning and crisis management, Prince2 project planning and full project plans, RAID logs, reporting and Cost2Completes both internally and directly with the client. Coupled to this comes vast experience in a client management and client retention on a global scale as well as New Business accruals

Working as the sole Project Manager for the UK and Europe, I was responsible for the provisioning and management of all Telecoms policies and projects, as well as the support of 10+ Linked Avaya systems across Europe. As manager of a team of over twenty accredited engineers across EMEA, I was responsible for the full maintenance and trouble shooting of the companies Avaya media gateways and Voip systems and handle all in-house support with backup from Avaya themselves. This involves complete system and user configuration using Avaya apps and console, Level 3 Support and the designing and installation management of new VOIP solutions for new sites across Europe. This also involves a large amount of client relationship with companies such as Avaya, Vodafone, BT, and Verizon to optimise our company’s setup and a good deal of budget management of products, services and staff to ensure my team functions efficiently and within our constraints. Coupled to this my responsibilities also stretch to project leading initiatives across EMEA, recent projects include my full rollout off a mobility solution for wireless email, from sourcing to deployment and setting up a European support model, to over a thousand senior executives, as well as sourcing and configuring 700 CPS moves of our fixed lines with a new vendor across EMEA. Other notable projects managed by myself include the full installation and setup of new Avaya IP solution in Ireland, a region previously troublesome for us without a fully VOIP solution, negotiating a new business relationship with Vodafone for all mobile solutions globally, and the full training of over 50 helpdesk engineers in advanced Blackberry configuration and maintenance for heads of the company that I led personally with in-house training from my experience

I was responsible for the management of the technical support department involving the installation and maintenance of integrated IT and PBX phone systems and IT solutions. This involved not only the man management of 3 engineers, the entire department and budgeting, but also the demands of efficient time management and customer care. This included prodigious phone systems including market leaders ‘Ascom (now Aastra)’, ‘Mytel’ and ‘NEC’. I was also responsible for our premier clients which included ‘Sophos Antivirus’, ‘Somerset House (London)’, ‘Lexicon Partners(London)’, and ‘The National Air Traffic Services’