Flexmanager - Project Manager / Interim Manager

Project Manager / Interim Manager

Work Experience

Project Leader - Euroclear Bank, Brussels, 1/7/2004 to present

Representing the Corporate Technology division, Stephen has produced Technical Designs, contributed to Business Cases and managed technical teams to deliver IT infrastructure to a portfolio of projects, including:

- SWIFT 2005: Modification and extensive testing of impacted systems (Tandem and IBM Mainframe) to comply with changes in SWIFT message format.
- Fraud Detection: Selection and deployment of a tool to filter and profile financial transactions for suspicious names and money laundering activity.
- Client Reporting Performance Improvements: Monitor, Analyse and re-design SAS-based reporting systems to reduce production duration and CPU usage.

Project Planner - Euroclear Bank, Brussels, 8/10/2003 to 30/6/2004

Euroclear is undertaking the 3-year, 100 Million Euro, Single Settlement Engine (SSE) programme to redevelop their group settlement processing functions.

Within the Programme Support Office, Stephen was responsible for:
- Construction of project plans for the SSE Programme.
- Coaching of team-leaders and project managers in Belgium, Holland and the UK to maintain and update these project plans.
- Monitoring and reporting project and programme progress (deliverable, budget & risk tracking) to the Programme manager and Steering Committee.

Project Manager (Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Brussels), 16/12/2002 to 31/10/2003

Under the Lambermont accord, certain Belgian federal responsibilities were devolved to the regional authorities. Within the Lambermont ICT program, Stephen managed a project to integrate departments of the federal ministry of agriculture into the infrastructure of the Ministry of the Flemish Community.

This role involved:

- Designing and costing the overall approach to integration of Desktop, LAN/WAN and Server infrastructure for the 9 involved sites across Flanders and Brussels.
- Planning and co-ordinating the activities of multiple technical service teams within Siemens Business Services to bring the pilot and rollout of this integration to a successful conclusion.

Operational Service Projects (BASE, Brussels – formerly KPN Orange), 25/9/2001 to 15/9/2002

KPN Orange was awarded a license in June 1998 to build and operate a GSM network in Belgium. The network was launched in September 1999 and by the end of 2001 had grown to support 1,000,000 subscribers. During April 2002 KPN Orange re-branded to become BASE.

Commissioned by the Technology Operational Services group, Stephen’s role covered:

- Co-ordinating Mobile Number Portability deployment through the GSM network and Value Added Network systems. Charged with managing all operational activities in this scope and delivering within a strict project timeframe.
- Preparing the business case for a consolidated operational trouble ticketing system.
- Co-ordinating the technical implementation of the BASE Company re-branding project, reporting to the business project sponsor.
- Defining a service-based model of the technology infrastructure and participating in the establishment of Service Level Agreements with internal business user groups.
- Determining development cycle and fault management roles & responsibilities across the technology departments.
- Auditing the support status of systems under responsibility of the Operations & Maintenance division. Gap-analysis, prioritisation and action planning.
- Rollout of a central repository tool consolidating development and operational management data relating to all GSM Network and Business Systems.
- Detailed analysis of the Intelligent Network system. The subsequent recommendation and successful implementation of a project to improve operational change management procedures.

1998 to May 2001 - Server & Storage Manager - Belgacom Mobile, Brussels

Belgacom Mobile IT Infrastructure supports business systems serving 3,600,000+ GSM subscribers and 3,000 internal users. Platforms include Sun, Compaq, Fujitsu-Siemens, EMC², IBM and StorageTek.

Leading the 30-strong Server and Storage group comprised of three teams, and reporting to the Infrastructure Manager, key responsibilities and achievements were:

- Sponsorship and steering of multiple successful IT projects, including:
-> Server & storage consolidation and capacity expansions;
-> High-availability architecture design and implementation;
-> Datacentre Move.
- Management of 20 Million Euro capital expenditure budget.
- Recruitment and development of front-line managers and technical staff.
- Strategy formulation and vendor selection.

1993 to 1998 - Principal Consultant - Logica, Brussels & Prague

Infrastructure Project Manager (Logica), 1997/1998:
As a consultant contracted to the Belgacom Mobile group, managed projects to migrate OpenVMS applications from Digital VAX to Digital Alpha platforms and established a Business Simulation test infrastructure.

These projects involved the co-ordination of specialist teams including Voice/Data experts, System Administrators, DBAs and Application Administrators. Personal responsibilities included:

- Analysis of project requirements, from an IT infrastructure perspective.
- Formulation of project approach/planning in co-operation with other IT groups.
- Management of allocated resources in line with plan, ensuring project success.

Operations Manager (Logica), 1996/1997:
Following an interim assignment period from Logica Belgium, undertook an inter-company placement as operations manager for Logica sro in the Czech Republic, with specific responsibility for the Reuters account, involving:

- Transfer of all Reuters project activity from Belgium to Prague.
- Establishing a technical infrastructure including data centre facilities.
- Defining Quality standards and procedures for project execution.
- Recruitment and career management of technical staff.

Application Support Manager (Logica), 1995/1996:
Successfully managing the outsourcing of a company results database application from Reuters UK to Logica Belgium, responsible for:

- Consolidating the project planning and management of three development teams.
- Defining ITIL based service level agreements and service delivery plans within a five-year contract, and reporting into a Reuter steering committee.
- Provision of application support, enhancement and operational improvements.

Project Manager (Logica), 1994/1995:
Delivered projects to deploy an environment based on the V-Test suite which formed the basis of Reuters IDN network integration testing platform and implemented a scheduling system to automate market close procedures to ready financial instruments for daily trading. Responsible for:

- Preparation and presentation of proposals to client management team, securing the projects.
- Design and execution of projects within time and budget.
- Providing training and documentation to technical staff.
- Supporting the successful start-up on live systems at Reuters IT Centres in London.

System Designer (Logica), 1993:
Maintenance and enhancements to a toolkit of Pascal based market rules to process real-time data-feeds from European Stock exchanges.

1992 to 1993 - Consultant - Levi Strauss & Co. Brussels

The manufacturing production planning process is supported by HP systems at Levi’s European headquarters in Brussels. HP FOCUS was installed to give production planners and schedulers access to views of the central databases via networked PCs. This role involved:

- Supporting a 40-user department in creating FOCUS reports for production planning and quality reporting.
- Implementing a user-driven reporting system to replace batch procedures.
- Providing user training and support to regional planning managers.

1989 to 1992 - Systems Analyst - Ford Motor Co. Ltd. UK

A variant of the core Shipping and Receiving system is installed at each European Ford production plant. The shipping sub-system was re-engineered under VAX/VMS using C with embedded SQL on a DEC-Rdb database. Prototyping was carried out with DEC/PC FOCUS. As a member of a 10-man team, participated in this re-engineering, which involved:

- Application and database design and prototyping.
- Leading a C/SQL programming team.

Prior to this, successfully installed a DATAPOINT 7800 shipping/receiving system in Genk, Belgium, taking responsibility for:

- Overall installation project management whilst on-site for 9 months.
- Analysis and specification of requirements to a contract programming team.
- Acceptance testing and obtaining audit clearance and user sign-off for the system.

As a sponsored undergraduate from 1985 to 1988, undertook industrial placements within Ford ranging from development and maintenance of an IBM/COBOL Accounts Payable application to installation and support of a VAX/PASCAL Process Control system.