Key Skills Profile Summary
IT Operations & Service Management
IT Infrastructure Management
IT Governance, Risk and Compliance
Project Execution & Implementation
Client/ Vendor Engagement
Financial Planning & Budgeting
Incident, Change & Problem Management
Liaison & Coordination
Team Building & Leadership
Soft Skills
Education
B.Sc. (Honours Geography) from Coventry University in 1996
Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership (expected completion date May 2020)
Certification
ITIL Foundation and Intermediate Service Operations
Personal Details
Date of Birth: 12th January, 1974
Languages Known: Arabic & French
Address: 1B, Bayston Road, London, N16 7LU, United Kingdom
Competent professional with 20 years of experience in IT Service Operations entailing Project Management, Infrastructure Management, Installation, Configuration, Administration & Support of IT Assets, Database Administration and IT Transformation across the Banking & Financial Services Sector
Formulating budgets and devising corporate IT initiatives, conducting root-cause analysis and accordingly implementing infra solutions
Expertise in managing projects on migration, maintenance, IT infrastructure development and technical support; exposure to SQL Server Database Design, setting up and testing new database and data handling systems, and monitoring efficiency
Rich experience in analysing information system needs, evaluating end user requirements, custom designing solutions and troubleshooting for complex information systems management
Supported the implementation of short & mid term strategy of Operations through the adoption of an ‘Open Source First’ Approach
Delivered high-quality customer experience, elevated customer satisfaction while adhering to SLAs & Work Processes
In-depth knowledge of ITIL Foundation, Azure, ITIL Service Operations and Agile, Scrum & Kanban Methodologies
Expertise in managing complete project management activities, ensuring timely deliveries as per defined quality standards; developed & implemented project plans, risk assessments and contingency plans
Established strong relationships with technical teams & vendors for the successful execution of concurrent projects
Added value to the organization by reducing the Microsoft renewal costs by over £80,000 in the 2016/17 financial year by changing the Windows and SQL Server licensing models delpoyed
An effective leader with capabilities in motivating teams and maintaining deliverables as per defined guidelines along with the elevation of service standards for operational excellence
Technical Skills
Languages: Visual Basics, Batch and Transact-SQL
Operating Systems: (Server) Microsoft Windows Server NT to 2019, (Desktop) Microsoft Windows 95 to Windows 10
Disk: Netapp, HP P2000s and StorageTek
Databases: Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 to 2012 including reporting and integration services
o Log Shipping
o Transactional Replication
o Server 2000 DTS
o Clustering on Win Server 2003 and 2008 R2
o Data Encryption
o Resource Governor / Database Mirroring / Availability Groups
o Installation and Configuration- Standalone and Clustered SQL Instances
o Server Profiler
Office 365, INTUNE, SCOM and SCCM
Desktop Applications: Microsoft Office suite including PowerPoint, Lotus Notes, CA ServiceDesk and ServiceNow
Server Applications: Microsoft Internet Information Server 6.0 and 7.0
Notable Accomplishments Across the Career
Drove efforts in enhancing the efficiency and performance of 4 technical teams (covering infrastructure, patching, databases and tools) through the introduction of new processes
Augmented customer satisfaction by standardizing the Incident Management Process for the Production Management Teams in terms of how incidents and requests were handled
Developed and led the implementation of a new and improved universal on-call policy, which has relaced all previous arrangements applied to all IT Engineers and Duty Managers; effectively negotiated a new on-call rate for all engineers, doubling the previous rate which led to greater satisfaction and a better work life balance for all on-call engineers
Conceptualized & introduced several new reports and KPIs to identify poorly performing services/servers, based on the amount of time engineers spent resolving performance issues
Defined, updated and created new service management policies and pioneered the roll-out of new ITSM, ServiceNow
Work Experience
Since Nov’11 with PayPoint Networks Plc., Welwyn Garden City, UK as Technical Shared Services Manager
Assignments Handled:
Mar’18-Till Date Technical Shared Services Manager; leading 15 engineers across 4 teams
Heading 3 Shared Services Teams including End User Compute (Levels 1 & 2), InfoSec and Infrastructure Services Teams
Leading an IT Transformation Programme within IT Operations focused at reducing technical debt and minimising costs
Planning, coordinating and supervising technology changes; providing technical support to resolve IT issues
Defining service standards and guidelines, governance structure that serve as benchmark for excellent service delivery; leading complete portfolio of projects including budgeting, planning, vendor selection and execution
Implementing project plans within preset budgets and deadlines
Driving service reviews with clients/ users, integration with project counterparts including proactive problem management, daily change calls and incident management
Setting out standards for various operational areas; implementing systems & procedures to facilitate a high-quality customer experience, while adhering to the SLAs
Mentoring & monitoring the performance of team members to ensure efficiency in process
Developing technical design documentation & implementation strategies towards addressing single points of failure in IT services used in the delivery of core business applications
Liaising with vendors for critical issues, escalations & governance calls
Managing daily operations to ensure that the network and the infrastructure are up & running
Highlights:
Entrusted with the responsibility of Supplier Management; interfaced with vendors which resulted in saving £100,000 within 6 months
Closely collaborated with IT Service Management to devise and implement several SLAs for the Desktops and DFT Teams, which has improved team efficiency and increased customer satisfaction
Played a key role in managing a piece of time-critical security remediation work to address SSL and TLS 1.0 vulnerabilities in the organiation’s PCI environment
Acknowledged as a Mental Health First Aider
Aug 14-Mar ’18 DBA & Tech Services Manager- managed 3 x DBA, 11 X Engineers and 1 x Apprentice
Monitored & managed 100 production instances across multiple legacy and existing technologies
Strategized for mitigating & managing failover, recovery, patching and new service release into live production
Devised roadmap for IT engineering and created Incident and Crisis Management Protocols
Worked as a Quorum Member of the Change Advisory Board; contributed as a SME to Service Management Governance, Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR)
Conducted initial assessment of function and planned turnarounds covering training & personal recognition, technical debt and under-investment
Negotiated the attainment of additional manpower- 4 Senior and Junior Engineers, focused on vulnerabilities
Coordinated with the Security Officer and worked towards designing:
o Various database policies and procedures for the annual PCI Audit, commencing April 2016
o Policies on Vulnerability Management, Server Builds, Hardening and Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
o Technical documentation for company and PCI Auditors
Reviewed all DBA and Technical Services Team Contracts / Agreements and assessed value for money and viability
Administered Critical Incident Management; acted as an escalation point (Duty Manager) and provided oversight and co-ordination during critical incidents
Apr’14-Aug ‘14 IT Service Manager (Secondment: Maternity Cover)
Developed & nurtured relationships with external clients including BBC & Capita and internal Business Units (BUs)
Formulated KPIs and performance reports focused on incident queues for senior management review
Nov’11-Apr’14 Senior SQL Server Database Administrator
Successfully managed rolling 24 hours c.50 production SQL instances and associated UAT and development instances
Rendered support to all in-house and 3rd party systems and back-end databases including SharePoint, GIS and ACCPAC
SQL SME for functions entailing project upgradation, technical overview documentation, server installation instructions, configuration and troubleshooting of clustered instances; trained the business on SQL clustering
Represented the DBA Team during major incidents
Imparted guidance to Development Teams on replication (existing and new), archiving, security and performance issues
2013 – 2014 new ITSM, ServiceNow:
o Co-developed and updated the incident, change and problem management policies
o Recognized as a ServiceNow Champion; coached the business on Service Management Policies and ServiceNow
Previous Experience
Jul’99-Nov’11 with HSBC Bank Plc., Sheffield, Birmingham and London, UK as SQL Server DBA
Joined as Technical Specialist- Server/ Desktop/ Windows Server Support and rose to the position of SQL Server DBA