Stephen Vercella Email and Phone Number

The RNLI is the charity that provides drowning prevention & sea rescue services across the UK, Ireland and increasingly internationally through the provision of 200+ lifeboat stations, lifeguard services on 200+ beaches, inland flood rescue teams and education & training programmes. It does this through the deployment of 1,600 permanent staff, 6,000 retained volunteers and over 40,000 volunteers funded annually by over £180m of donations.I was brought into the charity to provide technology leadership to develop and implement a new technology strategy, road map and governance framework in order to support the new business strategy to expand from a traditional rescue service to drowning prevention internationally. As well as developing and implementing the technical strategy, my role included the revitalisation and modernisation of the IT department to make it fit for purpose to support the transformation of the organisation.

While at Hampshire Constabulary I conceived the idea of the merger of the IT department with that of Thames Valley Police in order to deliver substantial cost savings needed by both Forces. I built the business case agreeing it with both Forces and their respective Police Authorities and was subsequently selected to lead the merger (including TUPE transfer of staff), restructure the resulting department and manage its operations providing IT services to both Forces delivering substantial savings, improvements and new approaches to both Forces.

In my roll leading IT at Hampshire Constabulary I had full responsibility for the IT & Communication Services department within the Constabulary, covering: all ICT functions, strategy, budgets and governance; resource planning and delivery; policies; innovation; support of business goals and objectives; staff; and performance. The department has an annual budget of approximately £17m and 125 staff.During my time at the Constabulary I transformed the poorly performing, technically driven & reactive department into a proactive one that focused on supporting the Forces business objectives, achieved through knowledgeable early business engagement, innovative technical and contractual solutions, implementation of a flexible IT infrastructure and rigorous management of costs..

I was brought into the organisation to manage and transition the Salisbury based IT department of PPML (Personal Pension Management Ltd.) to Capita Group as a result of the purchase of PPML from Winterthur Life UK (Credit Suisse Group). Capita PPML (now Capita SIP Services) is the UK's largest SIPP administrator (Self Investment Pension Plan) and its purchase was accompanied by a £7m investment by Capita Group (much of it on IT systems) to significantly enhance the business in readiness for Government pension reforms.My main achievements during this engagement were:Provided leadership to the local IT department and accountability for delivery of IT services during the transition;Addressed significant shortcomings in the organisations IT infrastructure to ready it to support the new business transforming systems;Transitioned external IT services provided by Winterthur Life to provision by Capita Life & Pensions (i.e. external connections, web hosting, business continuity services, security, IT Service Desk, specialist infrastructure management);Transitioned the internal IT department staff from Winterthur Life to Capita Life & Pensions (policies, reporting, development & performance); Integrated IT support process with that of Capita Life & Pensions IT (based in Gloucester);Significantly reduced costs and improved IT support service (introduced Service Level Agreements).

Consultant to Strategic Outsource Project - Based on my extensive experience of managing outsourced customer account processing at Halifax/HBOS, I provided advice & guidance to Barclays Africa during the initial stages of their project to outsource bank account processing in South Africa (part of Barclays' return to the South African market).Advice covered service requirements definition, service levels & targets, supplier evaluation and contract & supplier management.

Interim Head of End-to-End Service Management - I was brought into the organisation to complete the building of an End-to-End Service Management function across 5 key African businesses and transition its management to South Africa as a result of Barclays Africa's decision to transfer its head office and central support functions from the UK to South Africa.The implementation of an End-to-End service management function was Barclays Africa's initiative to significantly improve customer services through targeting improvements at product lifecycle end-to-end processes rather than operational functions (also known as "customer journey").Achievements during this engagement:Developed and implemented the framework for service KPIs, performance monitoring & review and continuous service improvement in the target countries, achieving significant improvements to key customer services in high personal worth and corporate customer segments (account opening, cheque book & debit card provision, statement production & dispatch);Led a successful project to centralise card production (credit & debit) from 11 countries to the UK delivering significant cost reduction and service improvement;Provided leadership, development and mentoring for the local country based E2E Service Managers;Championed the E2E concept with operational function directors;Transitioned management of the function to the new South African headquarters.

I was brought into the organisation to develop & implement the IT operational service model to support the merge of the Halifax & Bank of Scotland's Credit Card Portfolios as a result of the merger of the two banks.I managed a team of IT service specialists in the successful development and implementation of the internal & external IT services support & operating model as part of the migration of the Halifax and Bank of Scotland Credit Card portfolios from the existing outsourced operations to a new in-house processing platform. 2.5 million Halifax customer accounts were successfully migrated from the Halifax outsourcer to the new platform in February 2003 and the 2.5 million Bank of Scotland accounts from the BoS outsourcer in October 2003. The platform is now operated, supported and regularly upgraded using the model developed and implemented.

I was brought in to undertake a number of change activities as a result of various reviews and external requirements.I managed the roll out of the Barclays Group's standard operational risk framework to the Barclays business in 10 countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean. This included adaptation of the Group framework for the African businesses, update & roll out of the Barclays Africa Operational Risk IT system, guidelines and training to the country Operational Risk Managers. I undertook a strategic review of the Remote Contingency Plan for the African central computer processing centre in Zimbabwe due to increased risks locally. This facility processes the 2+ million personal and business accounts for all the African businesses. The review developed a strategy for improving the speed of invocation and significantly extending the processing capacity of the UK contingency facility as part of overall Bank contingency planning for a rapid withdrawal from that country. This was agreed by the Barclays Africa Executive and is now implemented.I reviewed & improved the policies, systems and processes used by the Barclays Africa UK IT support & development departments for IT systems source code & release management to address security risks identified by Group Audit..

I managed the internal IT support teams that provided first & second line support to the Credit Card business and managed the the outsourced credit card processors (First Data Europe 250,000 customer accounts and EDS customer 2 million accounts). This was undertaken during the transition of responsibility of Halifax's credit portfolio to the recently purchased Bank One UK credit card operation (creating Halifax Card Services). Achievements during this engagement:Provided leadership to the IT support teams in Cardiff & Leeds and accountability for delivery of IT support services during the transition;Delivered major improvements in the £10+ million per annum service provided by the major outsourced processor (EDS) in the areas of problem and recovery management, statement & PIN production, card dispatch & delivery and change management;Successfully managed the expansion in support responsibilities from supporting 200 users (including 1 call centre) in one location in the UK (Bank One), to over 1,500 users in six locations (including 5 call centres) in the UK and Ireland;Refocused the internal support services to provide end-to-end management of credit card processing.

Successfully project managed a major upgrade to the telephony Automatic Call Distribution System (ACD) and associated management applications, a critical infrastructure element within the central customer Call Centre (approx. 1,000 agents).

Management of a number of 24x7 IT services contracts (totalling £15 million per annum) & internal IT support services supporting critical banking infrastructure for Barclays Africa's 10 businesses serving 2+ million personal and business customer accounts.

Planned and implemented a number of service improvement activities on various IT services provided by the Banks central IT function.