Russell Foster

Responsible for the creation and implementation of a transformation program for a building society based in Swindon. The role includes

• Defining and implementing the transformation strategy
• Creation and Delivery of a training program to close skills gap include React, Microservices, AWS, High Availability, NoSQL and Infrastructure as code
• The creation of a managing coalition for bringing about change 

A move to within Exonar to the Labs area of the business. 

Research, Evaluating & implementation of cutting edge items such as

• Managing off site portal linked to the Exonar appliances using VPN/Azure
• Implementation of on server monitoring within application and system metrics via docker and containers.
• Optimisation/Cost Saving exercise of the physical appliances that are shipped via compression/disk caching/Linux
• Exposure to Terraform/Kubernetes/AWS/GCP/Azure as part of testing solutions

A small startup in the data loss prevention and information management space leading to multi-facted role including:

• Development and scaling of the platform infrastructure to support 10 Petabytes of customer data resulting in 2 Petabytes of data.
• Hands on technical focus of overhauling the the provisioning and cloud hosting requirements reducing deployments from two days to sub one hour
• Daily interaction with C-Level stakeholders/all business units on requirements / direct contributions to the shipping product via a DevOPS perspective
• Customer facing on implementation
• Quick fix engineering / Project management
• A mixture of Elasticsearch/HBase/PostgreSQL/Linux + Other Big Data Technologies

Startup Direct is the official delivery partner for Startup Loans (www.startuploans.co.uk) £300million government loan scheme for startups. Startup Direct not only provides loans to early stage startups, but also provides mentorship. I am currently mentoring a small businesses via Startup Direct.

• Responsible for improving IT effectiveness and continuing a £3m transformation programme to enable new business functionality and processes
• Responsible for delivery of unified software platform to replace disparate back-end systems via AGILE/SCRUM methodologies in a geographically diverse team (20+ people) leading quantifiable improvements on delivery quality and speed
• Overseeing full revamp of product offerings and full product life-cycle management with on target delivery times including IAAS and SAAS platforms.
• Engagement of internal and external stakeholders from End Users to Board Level with Multi-Million P&L and Budget ownership
• Technical Leader and mentor on Linux, Windows OnApp, Xen, SAN technology

• Developed and deployed  strategic marketing, technical and business plans resulting in substantial growth (0 to $1 million run-rate in 12 months)
• Responsible for the overall management of product strategy, design, implementation and delivery across all channels
• Responsible for all main operations of the brand (marketing/finance/sales/marketing)
• Technical lead for the cloud platform (Linux/KVM/Xen/SolusVM)
• Engagement with internal and external stakeholders to C-Level
• Managed geographically diverse team of 10+ staff  for software development, support and sales function

• Primary shareholder and managing director for overall strategic decisions
• Full control over business functions with sales/marketing delegated to a small management team with oversight provided by myself
• Technical lead for the virtualization platform as well as chief sysadmin on Linux/Cloud platform
• Managed geographically diverse team of 15+ staff
• Focused on web hosting, virtualization and dedicated servers in the SME/SOHO market space

• 3rd Line UNIX Engineer, Sep 2001-June 2003,  SGI (Silicon Graphics) Ltd, Theale, Berks
• Senior EMEA UNIX Systems Administrator, Feb 2001- Sept 2001 Art Technology Group, Reading, Berks
• Senior UNIX Engineer, Feb 1999 - Feb 2001 GTS Netcom,  Bracknell, Berks
• Data Entry/Contracts,  Oct 1997 -> Jan 1999 - Various

MBA program overseeing all parts of business operating including marketing, finance, innovation within the IT space and general business processes