I joined du during its pre-launch phase to help with the delivery of mobile data services. My role involved working with Marketing colleagues to evaluate products and their unique selling points, refine the pricing and service propositions, translating these in to technical requirements, creating and releasing RFPs, managing the evaluations, participating in the technical, financial and contractual negotiations, and finally working with our PMs on the product delivery and launch.My experience with RFPs led to a request to help troubleshoot and salvage other RFPs, which in turn led to a role overseeing RFPs, ensuring that market and financial justifications are present, proper background research and due diligence is conducted, and contracts satisfy du requirements.Following on from the RFP governance role I was tasked with stabilising our SIM card supply, which had recently experienced a disastrous lack of availability. I worked with an external consultant on investigating the root causes and then followed through on implementing the recommended corrective and preventive actions. I authored policies, defined lifecycles, specified procedures and introduced new business practices with our IT, Logistics, Channel, Marketing, Customer Care, Supply Chain and Security teams that have led to a stable, predictable supply of new SIM cards. This has directly contributed towards our growth targets, and by itself achieved an annual efficiency saving of 2m USD and 7m USD additional revenue. Along with the day-to-day management of our SIM production pipeline, I also handle budgeting, invoicing and financial justification (business case) for numbering resources; act as an escalation point for customer complaints related to SIM cards; work with internal and external auditors to reduce revenue leakage; liaise with our local regulator on numbering-related issues.Additionally, I also have the responsibility to define the training and development needs of the department.

I was initially employed as an engineer looking in to IMS and SIP. I assisted with group RFIs & RFPs, as well leading research teams whose work led on to direct input in to the relevant standardisation bodies (IETF, W3C, ETSI & ITU).I then moved on to researching user interfaces, user experience, handsets and devices. Work during this period involved assessing tools and technologies that would enable the optimal Orange Experience to be delivered to customers. A key project of mine during this time was ‘Zero Pain Services’, a web-based multi platform app market solution. I developed the concept, investigated the feasibility, lobbied key stakeholders to secure funding and resources, and developed the project implementation plan that was presented to the project approval board. The project was approved. My work at Orange/France Telecom fed in to group initiatives concerned with RCS, IMS on handsets, device APIs, web runtimes and mobile apps.

Systems Engineer for a vendor of SIP application server and SIP Centrex. Duties involved technical sales and support for customers in the EMEA region. I responded to tenders, held customer meetings and deployed the product in to test bed and production environments for large carriers (e.g. British Telecom) as well as smaller service providers (e.g. Utfors). Additionally I provided emergency onsite support and troubleshooting, training and professional services consultation, along with collecting customer feedback, experience and directions for our Product Development team.

Engineer helping with the design and evolution of the Softswitch network. I helped to define the architecture for the European expansion of the network, worked with the marketing and product development teams to help define and drive the service roadmap, and authored the European architecture, deployment and testing documents.

R&D Engineer researching core IP technologies and IP-based services. I responded to tenders, developed customer experience demonstration labs, conducted research in to voice quality for VoIP and helped shape the company strategy and roadmap for IP networking products.