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EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW

Innovative Cloud Technologist with 28 years’ experience delivering creative, client-centric applications & products and business-driven solutions. Proven C-Level leadership experience with a successful background in the Financial & IT sectors. Commercially aware, with broad experience, having worked across the spectrum from FinTech, technology start-ups to world-class & international organisations.

Experienced leader in Cloud, Application Development, Agile & DevOps and thought leadership, specialising in system design, ALM, CI/CD, SDLC & automation.


Strategic approach to successful hands-on leadership
, engaging with board level, C-level, key business stakeholders, 3rd parties & all levels of an organisation.


Highly accomplished at delivering change and implementing best practices,
coaching & mentoring, building strong teams & driving a performance-driven culture.


MBA (Technology Management), B Tech (Hons), BSc (IT) and ITIL Expert qualified with strong experience in implementing and driving best practice frameworks & tools.

CORE COMPETENCES

  • AWS & Azure Cloud strategy
  • Technology Strategy and Planning
  • Bank grade mobile development
  • Software Development Lifecycle 
  • Service Delivery & Support Management
  • Cloud Infrastructure & SaaS
  • Technical Architecture & Solution Design
  • Offshore & Partner Management
  • Capacity & Risk Management
  • Portfolio and Product Management
  • IT Best Practice Methods and Frameworks
  • Security - PCI / ISO / GDPR
  • Project Delivery 
    (Agile & Hybrid Waterfall)
  • Team Building and Development

Work experience

RingStone

2021/10present

CTO / Technology Advisor / M&A / Technical Diligence

RingStone works with investors, software, and tech-enabled companies to add value to their businesses and investments. RingStone provides tech due diligencevalue creation, benchmarks, and various assessments, and company optimization services including software architecture, transformation programs and organizational diagnostics.

Lead buy-side and sell-side technology engagements, mentoring, and coaching, as well as transformation programs (Cloud, Agile, DevOps).

Streetbees

2021/062021/11

Interim Chief Technology Officer / VP Engineering

Streetbees is an AI-powered Consumer Intelligence platform, which identifies global growth opportunities for world-leading brands like Unilever, Coty, RB and Danone. Connecting companies through advanced machine learning with over 5 million consumers worldwide and providing in the moment insights. Streetbees is a 6-year-old start-up that secured a record-breaking £80 million in series B funding.

Key duties included scaling the engineering team, driving digital transformation and improving team health and efficiencies, whilst pivoting from a service-oriented system to a SaaS-based platform.

Crosslake

2020/032021/06

CTO / IT Transformation / CIO Advisory

Transformational and short term engagements helping Start-ups & SMEs leverage technology, tools, and processes, to rapidly scale and grow as an organisation. Engagements included Interim CTO, Organisation & Process analysis, AWS & Azure Cloud Strategies, Technical Due Diligence for M&A, Agile coaching, and CIO Advisory services.

  • Led numerous Private Equity technical due diligences (Buy-side Due Diligence & Sell-Side Diligence & Preparation) leading to circa of $12B successful investment outcomes
  • Advisory to CIO/CTO, e.g., mentoring of CTO for a Pharma Life-Science, while scaling the engineering teams and acquiring two other leading life-science companies within the AI / Machine Learning space
  • Led several Organisation and Process re-orgs for SME to large firms, establishing a path for the engineering organisations to grow and scale

Paysafe Group

2019/102020/03

SVP Technology Re-Engineering

Paysafe Group is a multinational online payments company with over 20 years in payments and home of Skrill, Netteller, Paysafe Card, iPayments, Payolution, Rapid Transfer and Unity payment platforms. 

  • Led a 6-month engagement to build Paysafe's multi-cloud migration strategy for both AWS and Azure representing a £12m Cloud investment
  • Established Cloud training programs targeting 1,100 engineers achieving 48 certified professional within 2 months, establishing an AWS Cloud hub
  • Led the Cloud migration of Paysafe's large footprint of applications, platforms and services across multiple technologies hosted in 11 Data Centres across Europe / UK & NA, and migrate these to the Cloud

Bofin Tech Services

2018/092019/09

Chief Information Officer

Built a mobile first, world-wide challenger bank based on the Booking.com / Uber model and rapidly scaled the technology, people, and process. Complete design and build from Sprint 0 to App Store release implementing a cloud first, military grade secure and highly scalable mobile platform.

Key Achievements:

  • Built a high-performing, technical team based out of India and UK
  • Developed an efficient delivery pipeline based on Azure DevOps
  • Implemented DevOps, CI/CD & Test Automation to drive quality
  • Increased cybersecurity through cutting-edge facial recognition, document verification combined with geolocation and analytics

Key Duties:

  • Led all technology, IT Infrastructure, Engineering and Service Operations and managing a team of 60+ individuals and contractors with aim to rapidly scale the team
  • Build Technology Strategy and Planning Roadmaps in line with the business strategy and goals
  • Delivery of innovative, stable, and secure technology platforms

Payment Cloud Technologies

2015/092018/09 - 3 years

Chief Technology Officer

PCT is a global digital payments solution company, offering Banking, prepay, mobile and e-commerce services and solutions to Corporate, Financial Services and Government sectors.

Headed PCT’s technology, building a best-in-class FinTech organisation with global reach and Blue-Chip clients. I scaled the technology offering from prepaid / debit card to a fully featured Cloud-Based Digital Banking Platform.

 Key Achievements:

  • Built complete Cloud First Banking Platform that was shortlisted for several industry awards and showcased by Microsoft for use of cutting-edge Azure technologies within the Financial & Payments industry
  • Consolidated several legacy vendor management systems onto a best-in-class Azure Cloud offering in under 9 months
  • Led from tender to architecture, to successful delivery of the Irish Post Office (AnPost) digital banking offering whilst achieving all key target deliverables - https://www.anpost.com/Money
  • Transitioned from a stagnant waterfall to a fully-fledged Agile DevOps environment with Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery and automated testing whilst improving output and quality by 220%
  • Achieved PCI DSS 3.2 Level 1 & ISO27001 certification on a bootstrap budget, addressing critical security & monitoring concerns previously overlooked

 Key Duties:

  • Overseeing all aspects of technology, IT Infrastructure and Operations 
  • Build Technology Strategy and Planning Roadmaps in line with business strategy, orchestrate delivery of innovative, stable, and secure technology platforms

Electronic Arts

2007/092015/08 - 8 years

Head of Web & Mobile Development

During the 8-year tenure, I built-up and led the Global Web & Mobile department for Enterprise Applications Services across Electronic Arts. This involved managing a large portfolio of web applications designed to cater to the business and corporate needs, building up mobile development capabilities within IT and managing & supporting several large implementations and customisations of third-party applications.

 Responsibilities:

  • Led a global team of architects, designers, and dev engineers
  • Delivered an $8.4 million ROI project (3-year projection) over 18 months with combined internal & offshore teams under $680k
  • Managed a large portfolio of over 60 web & third-party applications for North America / Europe / Asia Pacific
  • Implemented various methodologies tailored around business process and requirements - Agile, Prince2, Hybrid Waterfall
  • Defined Web & Mobile Strategies and drove continuous service improvement, defined roadmaps, drove efficiency, standardisation of processes and methodologies within my remit and department
  • Managed team capacity planning, resource allocation and estimations to ensure the various team can meet deliverables on time and within budget
  • Managed & strengthened working relationships within the business, offshore partners, and third-party providers
  • Continually improved availability and performance of the Web & Mobile Services & Infrastructure through means such as virtualisation, rationalisation, employing a standardised framework and validating recovery capabilities
  • Overall departmental accountability for development plans, designs, prioritisation & development strategy

G8Wave International LTD

2005/022007/09

Senior Development Manager

Successfully led and managed multiple development teams on several projects involving the transition of incumbent technologies to the .NET platform, the development of the company’s intranet utilising ASP.NET, creation of report & fault tolerant alerting systems, implementation of a text / SMPP messaging systems, and the development of community-based portals.


Responsibilities:

  • Led and managed successful development teams on numerous successful projects
  • Implemented Agile framework & SCRUM
  • Project managed, organised delegation of work, tasks & time scaled developments
  • Developed, implemented & reviewed New Development Procedures and Best Practices
  • Responsible for projects full development lifecycle & rollout
  • Responsible for Client & interdepartmental liaisons

Directed several Dev & Operations teams from a technical & development standpoint utilising the latest .Net framework

Burgundy Global LTD

2004/092005/02

Senior Lead Architect - contract

Senior technical lead focusing on Burgundy Global’s online reservation, communication, and payment solution for the ground transportation industry.

Atlas Telecom LTD

2004/052004/09

Senior Development / Lead Data manager - contract

Managed and led a small team of DBA’s and developers responsible for Atlas Telecoms billing and reporting systems, the internal MIS and intranet system.

Mobile Internet Gateway LTD

2000/012004/04

Founder & Chief Technical Officer

Founded Mobile Internet Gateway (MIG) and grew the company through MBO and incubation to second round of funding to become one of the market leaders in South Africa in Premium Mobile Content and text messaging. Developed the end-to-end systems including the client-side Bulk SMS solution suite, the Web Portals and the backend messaging platform that integrated into the Mobile Networks.

 

Responsibilities:

  • Head of Technology, Software Development, Infrastructure and Delivery
  • Designed & developed the multi-tiered messaging gateway, remote client software and web services

Accord Technologies LTD

1999/022000/01

Software Development Manager/ Technical Officer

Following the acquisition of Datagate, I was task to head the development department for mobile and internet solutions, focusing on emerging Mobile technologies, e-commerce and web services.

Datagate Software

1998/021999/02

Lead Web & Software Developer

Led and managed a small team of developers for a prominent South African Development House. Created South Africa’s first premium rated text message system for sending picture messages and ringtones to the earlier Nokia & Ericsson mobile handsets

Radiospoor Cellular

1997/061998/02

Webmaster / Systems Developer

Employed as web developer and webmaster for a leading cellular service provider, developing their Internal and External facing websites.

Andersen Computer Consultants / S.I Systems

1995/061997/06

Technical Consultant

Selected and hired by Andersen Computer Consultants South Africa to consult on SME manufacturing systems, networking and infrastructure.

University of Johannesburg

1993/031995/06

Systems Administrator / Student Lecturer

Hired as the Universities youngest lecturer to teach undergrad and entry level computer science whilst completing a national higher diploma in Computer Science (Full Bursary). Later was hired as the Systems Administrator for the Windows and UNIX computer labs across two locations and three campuses.

EDUCATION

MBA (Technology Manager)
Master of Business Administration
The Open University Business School 2013 – 2016 


ITIL® V3: IT Service Management 2010 – 2012

B Tech Honours Degree, Information Technology 
University of Joburg | 2000 – 2001


B Tech Degree / Bachelor of IT, Information Technology
University of Joburg | 1996 – 1999


Microsoft Certified Developer
Torque IT | 2003 – 2004


Microsoft Certified Developer
Microsoft Training Connection | 1997 


National Diploma, Information Technology
Wits Technikon | 1993 – 1995 | Graduated with Honours

Parktown Boys College
Secondary School | 1990 – 1992 | Subjects passed with Exemption & Honours


CERTIFICATIONS

  • Master of Business Administration (Technology Management) 
    The Open University | 2016 

  • AWS Cloud Practitioner Certified

  • Certified Payment-Card Industry Security Implementer (CPISI) | 2016
     
  • Managing technological innovation - The Open University | 2015 

  • MBA stage 1: management: perspectives and practice - The Open University | 2014

  • ITIL EXPERT - ITIL® V3 - ISEB / BSC – APMG | License 00004840 | 2012

  • Managing Across the Lifecycle, ITIL® V3: IT Service Management - FGI Intl - London | 2012 

  • Continual Service Improvement, ITIL® V3: IT Service Management - Learning Tree Intl | 2011 

  • Service Operations,
    ITIL® V3: IT Service Management - FGI Intl - London | 2011 

  • Service Transition,
    ITIL® V3: IT Service Management - The Grey Matters - London | 2011  

  • Service Design, ITIL® V3: IT Service Management - Learning Tree Intl, UK | 2010 

  • Service Strategy, ITIL® V3: IT Service Management - Learning Tree Intl, UK | 2010 

  • ITIL® V3 Foundation, ITIL IT Service Management - The Grey Matters - London | 2010

  • System Analysis and Design, Information Technology - Learning Tree Intl, UK | 2008

  • NET, Microsoft Certified Developer - Learning Tree International UK | 2006

Courses & Training

  • Leadology
  • Management Blox
  • PowerUP! Advanced Management Training
  • Agile at Work: Building Your Agile Team
  • Planning with Agile User Stories
  • Agile Project Management
  • Project Management
  • Get in the Game - Interview Training
  • Managing for success

Honours and Awards

  • Awarded Associate Membership – BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT | April 2012

  • School & Varsity Accreditation - Awarded scholarship based on leading Van Zyl and Pritchard Aptitude Exam

Interests

Passionate about technology and product innovation, customer experience and all things Web, Mobile & IoT.

Family life, science fiction, life sciences, blue skies, cold beer on a warm day with colleagues & friends.

Contact me

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