OverviewCastle School Education Trust ‘CSET’ has 9 schools and 5500 children from EYFS to KS5. The Priory Learning Trust ‘TPLT’ has 8 schools and 5500 children from EYFS to KS5. On joining CSET, it was my priority to implement an IT strategy that was future focussed around their previous commitments such as Promethean and Google Workspace. Within 3 months I had written and presented an IT Strategy and 5 year budgetary forecast to the board which was approved.As part of my role as Director of IT across both CSET and TPLT, I have been working closely with the CEO to design and implement a newly structured directorate to include; Operational and Technical Delivery, Enterprise Architecture, Programme Management and Information Governance with 4 direct reports and circa 25 indirect reports.Manage the IT Team (1x Service Manager, 3x Infrastructure Team) 5x indirect reportsManage capital and revenue budgets for CSET of circa £1.5mAchievementsCreated the Trust’s strategic vision for Technology, Digital and Information, embracing a cloud first approach of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, leveraging a zero-trust end user device environment.Leveraged vendor relationships to gain preferential rates through public procurement governance, ensuring the best possible value for money. Saving on average 20%.Procurement of both OpEx contracts and CapEx investments in technology, aligned to business and education needs.Set the Trusts’ roadmap for Cyber Essentials compliance through capital investment and the introduction of best practice cyber security and risk mitigation.Introduction of ITIL Framework including Incident, Change, Asset, Problem, Knowledge and CSIP.Measured 30% improvement of the IT Service as perceived by the end user.

OverviewSAND Academies Trust has 5 schools, around 600 employees and 800 children who have access to IT. They had no clear vision and had been working with a third party for many years who helped manage their 365 tenancy. Within 18 months I have radically changed their infrastructure, heavily integrated with the Microsoft 365 offering as part of the Microsoft EES agreement I procured to centralise their various Microsoft agreements.Manage the IT Team (2x Senior Technicians, 1x Helpdesk Technician, 1x Apprentice)Provide hands-on technical guidance for the IT team, delivering training where necessaryManaged capital and revenue budgets for the IT service for the Trust of circa £250k paAchievementsCreated the Trust’s strategic vision for IT, embracing a cloud first approach, more connected infrastructure around a zero-trust end user device environment, reducing complexity to enable a more seamless UX.Contributed as a member of the Senior Leadership Team of the Trust, providing BODEA where necessary at a senior level, enabling the procurement and implementation of a HR and Payroll management system, redefining their internal HR processes.Project managed the technical onboarding of a new school into a centrally managed IT Service.Project managed a LAN redesign to implement VLANs across the trust, supporting the WAN implementation to enable a centralised approach to printing and access control across all 5 sites.Implemented an ITSM system to manage the ITIL processes such as incidents, service requests and the CMDB, enabling a detailed asset replacement lifecycle and facilitated a GDPR auditable asset disposal.Gained Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.

OverviewGloucestershire County Council had 84 sites, over 230 departments and 4500 employees. As ICT Operations Manager I worked very closely with the Deputy Head of ICT to provide technical assurance at an operational and strategic level.Managed the IT Operations Team (2x Commissioning Officers, 2x System Support Officers, 1x Apprentice)Managed the ITIL processes such as Change, Problem, CSIP with their MSP (Sopra Steria)Provided internal technical assurance to Gloucestershire County CouncilLiaised with vendors and suppliers, translating the GCC vision and strategyLiaised and provided technical information to external auditors (CE, CE+, ITHC, ICO)Engaged with customers as an escalation point within the ICT ServiceDeputised for the Deputy Head of ICTAchievementsDesigned and procured a new £5.5m MPLS and LAN to strategically support their vision of moving to a more centralised model for their 84 site WAN, including 2 datacentres, saving circa £400k pa.Provided strategic advice to consolidate third party products into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, saving circa £600k pa in third party software licences. Such as utilising Teams, Purview (previously OME), and Intune.

OverviewAceo Ltd are a specialist value added broker in Scotch Whisky, had 5 sites, and around 50 employees. As part of their rapid expansion, I joined their organisation as IT Infrastructure Manager within their Senior Management Team. I was tasked with understanding the business and how it operated, and very quickly became manager to the Bottling and Logistics operation as well as the Design Team.Managed the Bottling and Logistics Team (4x direct reports)Managed the Design Team (3x direct reports)Provided strategic IT advice and leadership within the senior management teamMaintained Regulatory Compliance (PCI DSS, GDPR)Engaged with customers and suppliers as an escalation point within the businessAchievementsWrote and implemented Information Security and Data Protection policiesProduced detailed reports including ROI and TCO figures, such as the strategic decision to move towards Office 365, enabling their operation to work across their multiple locations.Lead the digital transformation of their operational activities with the procurement of SaaS ERP. This included the assessment of several cloud based ERP solutions to ensure the activities of the Whisky industry could be replicated within the ERP, finally deciding on Oracle’s NetSuite platform.

OverviewTewkesbury School is one of the largest secondary schools in Gloucestershire, with over 180 staff and 1400 children requiring access to IT. The IT Service also supported 6 other schools in the local area with their IT provision.Managed the IT Services Team (3x direct reports)Manage the IT Service for 6 external schools as an MSPProvided leadership to the IT Strategy GroupManaged IT Procurement for Tewkesbury School and 6 external schoolsDelivered internal training for 180 staffActed as an escalation point for all internal and external customersAchievementsReplaced all computers within the school over an 8 week period, retiring an underspecified VDI estate.Migrated to Hyper-V using SCVMM from VMware, maximising the schools’ Microsoft licensing agreement, and consolidating third party software.Introduced ITIL methodologies for an improved service management, including the assessment and procurement of a new ITSM.Through innovation reduced IT spend by over 20% from £250k to £180k-£200k pa

Implement the technical migration of circa 30 academies from Exchange to G Suite.Senior Technical lead to the wider ICT Support team at head office.Deputise for the Infrastructure Manager.

Manage the helpdesk, prioritising calls, liaising with customers.1st, 2nd & 3rd line troubleshootingDeputising for the Network Manager

Architect, implement and manage the digital transformation of the IT infrastructure post a catastrophic loss of data and configuration by the predecessor.Supervise the Helpdesk Technician and act as a point of escalation.