CV

COO, Telstra EMEA

I took full
accountability for the day to day operations of the EMEA business. Including 
all customer-facing functions, Service Delivery, Assurance (NOC), Project
Management, Engineering, Service Management, Hosting services and 3rd Party
supplier management, H&S as well as being the executive responsible for 
significant customer issues and escalations. In addition to my responsibilities
 for the customer experience, I also owned the support of our network and 
hosting infrastructure and the 3rd party providers that made up a significant 
part of that capability. Business Restructure: – Created the plan that changed the revenue
 structure through a radical shake-up of the business profile and customer make
up. The company needed to change its product and service mix to reduce churn
and improve customer profitability. Significantly reduced the volume of product
supported and services under management. Large parts of the base were moved
 off. The result gave significant gains in promoter scores moving the business 
into positive territory and considerably improved churn. The remaining
customers were large institutions with fully managed service on a global 
footprint. EMEA IT transformation: – IT in the EMEA business spanned some 66
 separate platforms and software services, it was complicated and not connected
making it impossible to understand one source of the truth from a reporting and
management point of view. Led the business on a wholesale simplification of IT
with reductions in the volume of platforms and therefore cost. This also leads
to significant improvements in workflow and, therefore, reduced the book to
bill times. For the first time, the business had had a single view of its
customers services and assets in the EMEA region. The project took 18 months
 and £1.8million of capital and saw the business move most of its services to
Cloud based solutions. Saving of several million pounds delivered through the
switch off of heritage platforms and license costs across both the BSS and OSS
 platforms. ISO27001: – I was appointed executive wholly responsible for the
delivery and attainment of ISO27001 across the business hosting centres and
management office. As part of this function not only was I responsible for
delivery and ongoing management I also took direct responsibility for the
business continuity planning and management regularly hosting BCM tests and 
Security Incident Response Team meetings (SIRT). In the last certification, the
 company received a verbatim from BSI “commendably low level of 
non-conformity, and it is noteworthy that the client was the first to complete
 transition to ISO27001:2013 in the UK”, for which I am immensely proud. Hosting Centre upgrades: – Directly responsible for the management of
our hosting centre capability in Docklands and Woking, I oversaw and managed
some significant engineering projects. These included the negotiation and
change to a new E&M outsource provider. The delivery and commission of
numerous electrical installations and the build of a new Dry Air Cooling
capability all at our London Docklands facility as well the replacement of
existing Generators. These upgrades were essential to support the ongoing
growth of the business as well ensure business continuity and removal of any
single points of failure. Projects Redford, Newman and Eastwood: – Having completed the business
restructure I took the lead to condense (remove) the UK network assets
consolidating them down to just a few pops in EMEA (Redford). I further owned
the initiative to outsource our entire EMEA voice capability to a 3rd party
(Newman). Allowing me to remove the significant cost of both hardware (DMS
Switch) and buildings in the UK. Further product consolidation continued so
that I could align with the Telstra Global capability and remove heritage
products that could only be used in the EMEA region. All of these projects
required significant customer interaction at C level and clear reporting lines
to ensure synchronisation and communication at many levels.I took full 
accountability for the day to day operations of the EMEA business. Including
all customer-facing functions, Service Delivery, Assurance (NOC), Project
Management, Engineering, Service Management, Hosting services and 3rd Party
supplier management, H&S as well as being the executive responsible for
significant customer issues and escalations. In addition to my responsibilities
for the customer experience, I also owned the support of our network and
hosting infrastructure and the 3rd party providers that made up a significant
part of that capability.

Director Service Fulfilment, C&W

Responsible for managing and end-to-end Provide Process across all functions 40 direct staff, 1200 Matrix staff.

Spanning, Customer Front Office, Field Force, Planning, Project Design, Technical Back Office e(NOCS) as well as Service Management and Process teams. Service delivery and revenues protection build and supply of network
transmission to any one of 72,000 customers across all platforms and for any
geographic area. Ensured services where delivered on time and protected the £1.6 billion revenue based on service excellence. Escalation management ensured all provide issues and escalations raised
were managed and dealt with before escalation to CEO, involving direct hands-on
contact with customers often at board level and across several territories. Accountable for managing all major incidents affecting the delivery of service. Process and systems change- significant issues impacting delivery and
process. Worked to deliver new IT systems and Process changes to improve the overall delivery capability. Successfully delivered £1.2 million Workforce Management pilot system improving field performance and reducing headcount by 40 heads. Instrumental in the delivery of £22 million Siebel system from just 5 seats to 120 in 8 months. Change Management: – issues in organisational structure increasing lead
times and expensive in headcount.
Rationalised the structure of the Provide teams. Delivering both efficiencies in time to
deliver as well as overall cost.
Achieved significant savings in staff costs as well decreasing mean time
to provide on some products by 7 days.

Director Customer Operations, Telstra EMEA

Direct accountability for the Provision,
Assurance and management of all customer services. Including all circuit 
provisioning, equipment delivery and network build for new global services. I
am also responsible for the assurance, fault management and service management
for all EMEA customers. Additionally, I own the Project Management, Service
Management and Business change functions within the company as well owning and
 running the Customer Satisfaction Management (NPS) for the entire EMEA estate. 
I later took on the carrier management function from a service (not commercial point of view. Implemented Customer Service measurement programme (NPS) measuring for
the first time the customers overall experience. Implemented significant change across the assure and fulfil teams 
driving service improvements measured in the companies NPS score moving over 60
 percentage points in the right direction. Additionally moved delivery on time
from 49% to 95% consistently month on month. Transformed the overall bid to bill process functions delivering
business efficiencies in both headcount and OPEX.

Director Customer Operations, PIPEX

Responsible for managing and bringing together 8 Pipex brands; 
Freedom2Surf, Nildram and Pipex Business Services from the operational, 
cultural, IT and people aspects. Reporting to the MD, I was accountable for the budget setting and
management of the operational areas as well as external providers and internal
engineering groups. Implemented significant change, to the existing operational entities of 
3 companies and melded a management team that works across three brands. Broke down the barriers to interpretation, creating a platform for all brands to operate through a common management team across 140 direct staff and 200+ Business focused staff. Managing B2C and B2B Call Centre teams. New IT delivery and process change, set in training migration from the
existing 63 platforms to 3 core platforms (Provide, Assure and Bill), which
will deliver the functionality required to run 3 or more brands on a common
platform with the necessarily demonstrable savings in FTE, OPEX and
 complexity. Additionally offering better customer service increased turnaround of work and reductions in outstanding WIP. Business case and received £5million of funding for the delivery of this project. Management of WIP has taken the average run rate WIP from £4million to
 £1.2 million through a better focus on tasks and issues. Driven accountability to get cash to the bottom line through communication to service teams and Project Management teams. Delivery an outsourcing culture, have made a fundamental change in the
way the company operates by taking decisive action to remove the engineering
group the building of a new MPLS network and outsourced it to 3rd party
providers. Set up the necessary operational interfaces, SLAs and accountabilities, liaised with both internal and 3rd party senior management teams to ensure absolute buy in to outsource model. This delivered a saleable product in just a few months several months ahead of a scalable in-house solution. Realised significant savings in Capex and a fundamental change in mindset at a senior level in Smarter, Quicker and Cheaper ways to deliver service.

Director Customer Services, C&W

Accountable for the delivery of Pre-Sales and Service Management to Key Business Units ensuring customer satisfaction and sales growth were achieved. Provided direct hands-on support to customers where services level turnaround and major fault situations existed. Customers included BBC, IBM, Accenture, CAPITA, Atos and Sky. Provide leadership and direction:- A number of skills issues identified and no direction for people within the team, implemented Career Progression Plan and skills training necessary to support the sales initiatives. Rolled out ITIL-based services model which was achieved in less than 4 months, improvement in morale and sales figures maintained. Deliver Pre-Sales:- needed to improve Pre-Sales to assist in hitting sales targets and customer satisfaction. Developed niche skills training programme, created a highly technical expert team. Customer satisfaction with Pre-Sales increased scoring exceptionally in customer reviews. Prospect lists rose by 60% in value. Deliver Service Management support to achieve customer service and satisfaction targets, maximising revenues and margin from existing services delivered. Ensure all customers get the right amount of Service Management at the right time. Retain and Grow revenue ensured the current revenues were protected and deliver growth opportunities in all existing accounts through the delivery of Service excellence and Pre-Sales support. Turned around a number of accounts as well as the delivery of large bids as a direct result of personal intervention generating additional revenue in those accounts. Create Service Level Agreements (SLA) and manage debt:- Service levels in some areas were not up to scratch and Debit in Query was out of control. RE structured teams to accounts and put in programme of debt reduction. Delivered consistently some of the highest scores on Customer Satisfaction surveys. I decreased our overall output of service credits by £2 million reduced Debt in Query from £4 million to a monthly average £30k.