PROFESSIONAL STATEMENT
Mark is a strategic thinker and planner, highly skilled at team building and talent management, proposals, tender process management, contracts negotiations, procurement, contractors & vendors management, leadership, and advisory on time. In addition, he has extensive knowledge in scope, quality and cost controls (Agile and Waterfall), cost saving and revenue generating solutions, effective program and project risk management, budget/finance and P&L management, organizational change and performance management, policies and processes development and improvement, supporting Internal audit and Compliance to drive necessary change.
He plans for best practices of IT project and program management to develop and implement methodology and processes that will help any team to deliver superior quality projects and services. A creative, analytical and strategic thinker, he works effectively with diverse global teams with multicultural and multidisciplinary staff, consistently motivating and leading them to focus on the organizations’ goals and objectives.
EDUCATION
+ MBA, Regenesys Business school, 2014
+ Higher Diploma in Business Management, Damelin, 2007
+ Electrical Eng. Durban University of Technology, 1995
Additional Training
+ PMP Certified (PMI, USA)
+ SAFe 5 Agilest, Leading SAFe (UAE)
+ PMO Governance (IMPO, 2020)
+ Leading Complex Projects (IPMO, 2020)
+ ITIL V4 certified
+ Agile Bootcamp (2014)
+ Agile SCRUM Master (2016, 2018)
+ Neuro Linguistic Programming (Coaching)
+ Systems Integration PM (Germany)
+ Prince2 Practitioner
PERSONAL DETAILS
+ Nationality: South African
+ Date of Birth: 30 December 1972
+ Gender: Male
+ Marital Status: Married
+ Languages: English and Afrikaans
Head of PMO/Acting Governance Head – Digital Transformation Program Manager 2018 –2020
+ Deem Finance, UAE
Key Responsibilities:
+ Managed strategic project delivery of Business transformation (company was previously Dunia Finance).
+ Delivered entire technology portfolio successfully – worth an excess of 100m USD.
+ Managed a number of individual projects and their project managers.
+ Managed service management, vendor management, and risk.
+ Delivery of Credit card platform with Network international aligning Open banking technologies toward becoming a digital “bank”.
+ Managed all technical risks and issues in a complex Microsoft Tech stack environment
WORK EXPERIENCE
PMO Manager
2018-2019
Emirates NBD, UAE
Key Responsibilities:
+ Managed ITAB, demand management, and invoicing for IT
+ Working with all VPs (Product Owners) to ensure planning of respective portfolios
+ Backlog grooming portfolio reporting to CIO
+ Managed the day-to-day operations of the PMO department by providing expertise, encouraging and ensuring teamwork and aligning work processes in order to achieve high performance standards.
+ Provided guidance and recommendation on overall projects selection and execution strategy and ensured alignment with banks strategy and vision.
+ Developed policies, procedures and standards for continual improvement in delivering IT projects and services.
+ Support management of velocity/ burn-down charts with Scrum Masters to ensure expected story points and epics are delivered
+ Support Product owners with prioritization as well as ensuring processes are clear as to how sprints address respective product backlogs – used tools like Asana, Trello as well as JIRA
+ Managed technology Academy and trained on Project lifecycle, workflow, tools and process training, primarily focused on program and project managers (Project Financial controls, Change methodology, Risks and Issues mgt., approval, reporting)
PMO Academy Head, Delivery Manager
2013-2018
Nedbank, South Africa
Key Responsibilities:
+ Trained on project processes, methodology, tools and processes.
+ Improved competence of Project Managers (Finance, Planning, Estimation, Process & design thinking, architecture, testing
+ Developed understanding of data modelling, ETL and data governance
+ Supported all reporting requirements of the IAM Sail-Point’s IIQ system as Delivery Manager – identifying and documenting data definitions, requirements for MicroStrategy, using Aginity, SQL, and PowerBI
+ Managed all technical risks and issues in a complex Microsoft Tech stack environment
Senior Project Manager
2008-2012
ABSA Bank, South Africa
Key Responsibilities:
+ Delivered payments projects related to Misys Message Manager, SWIFT and local clearing house across multiple business units in ABSA.
+ Managing Operations program
+ Capacity management
+ LEAN initiative to remove waste and delivered 3 waves successfully above target
+ Managed change project to move all testing capabilities to India (Barclay’s directive)
Senior Project Manager
2006-2008
Standard Bank, South Africa
Key Responsibilities:
+ Worked within CIB to deliver payments projects related to Misys Message Manager, SWIFT and local clearing house.
+ Managed all syntax changes from SWIFT and STRAIT (local clearing house).
+ Effectively managed team and all stakeholders
+ Delivered all projects within time, cost and scope expectations
Customer Project Manager
2001-2005
Ericsson, South Africa
Key Responsibilities:
+ Managed Telco projects across Key accounts in Sub-Saharan Africa
+ Senior stakeholder engagement up to customer CEO and CTO level;
+ Jointly responsible for P&L with KAM (total profitability over time)
+ BID management (tender and RFP as well as selection process)
+ Supported many operators in fixed line and mobile core networks, RAN and network management
+ Extensive knowledge of e-TOM, OSS and BSS.
+ Certified as Systems Integration Project Manager in Dusseldorf Germany and Sweden
+ Played a key role in consultative selling
Product Manager
1997-2001
Alcatel, South Africa
Key Responsibilities:
+ Managing all network design and pricing for Cisco Products and WAN Voice over Data products.
+ Supported the field engineers with queries and test lab scenarios (trial new features and software builds)
+ Jointly responsible for P&L with KAM (total profitability over time)
+ Joined account managers to present technology solutions, prepare proposals, tender responses and technical sales role
+ Achieved profitability of the Business unit for the first time
Field Engineer/Telecoms Engineer
1990-1997
Q Data and Telkom SA, South Africa
Key Responsibilities:
+ As a Field Engineer managed the WAN and LAN Support of various products: Cisco, Xyplex, Bay Networks, Micom
+ As a Telecoms Engineer supported the X.25 cloud and related services as well as first Internet from the national operator (SAIX).
+ Worked on first VoIP solutions and networks in the country.