Amaraghosha Ian Carter

VSO is an international development charity that creates a lasting long-term solution to global poverty - and that solution is people. Their vision is a world without poverty.

Responsibilities
• Oversaw core IT elements of office move: 20% reduction in connectivity costs, introduction of desk booking system for hot desking, removal of 20+ printers and replacement with 5 multi-function devices, full switch to VMware environment reducing server count by over 60%

• IT core component in 'Working Smarter' initiative, with all UK employees working from home 2 days a week

• Global implementation of Office 365, enhancing collaboration, increasing service availability and reducing UK telecoms costs by £25k per year through the use of Lync for audio and video conferencing

• IT organisational changes resulting in 5% cost reduction, whilst implementing regional IT roles in Asia and Africa providing improved levels of service more suited to a global organisation; introduced IT apprenticeship scheme

• Migration of multiple legacy applications onto Salesforce platform enabling reduction of global HR headcount

• Introduced new vendors for printing and security reducing costs by 25% and 5% respectively

• Migration of legacy content management system for public websites to Drupal platform

Independent, integrated, multi-disciplined communications agency with over 21 years' experience delivering market-leading campaigns in the UK and across the world

Responsibilities

• Produced 12-month strategic plan to significantly upgrade major aspects of IT infrastructure to meet planned company growth and to improve business efficiency.

• Accountable for all budget management, profit and loss and strategic planning and for a project spend of £500k for new infrastructure and finance system solutions.

• Reviewed IT vendor relationships and legacy contracts, leading to 20% reduction in Microsoft licensing costs, 40% reduction in telecoms and internet costs and 25% reduction in direct printing costs.

• Delivered a number of key activities to support business growth including: Active Directory implementation, firewall replacements, new HP switch infrastructure, VMware and Veeam implementation, Windows 7 roll out, Apple hardware and software upgrades, complete server room re-fit, migration from tape to disk backups, new HP SAN installation, implementation of DR solution at remote data centre and fit-out of new office space due to company growth.

• Mentored a small IT team to improve all round technical skills and to enhance IT service delivery.

2010 - 2011 Professional Career Sabbatical

Volunteered IT and strategic management expertise to a number of local charities on a variety of installation, website/database development, data migration and systems automation projects

2001 - 2009 IMG Group
World's premier sports and lifestyle management and marketing firm with 100+ group companies, managing personalities including Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova.

2006 - 2009 IT Director EMEA and Global Information Security Officer
Responsibilities
• Directed 35 staff in support of 1500 personnel, 2000 computers and 140 servers, implementing the IT strategy across 26 EMEA sites to consolidate divergent IT functions after several M&As and smaller divestitures.
• Held profit and loss ownership for EMEA budget of £2million including OPEX annually, with average CAPEX project budgets of £1m per annum and with authority over global security budget line items.
• Served as interim CIO for 18 months during company leadership restructure and instituted various technical upgrades, operational and organisational change initiatives during this time.
• Reduced operational costs by 20% and saved 8-10 days of work per month by deploying new firewalls with centralised management, providing more features and enhanced security.
• Re-negotiated vendor contracts to reduce telecom call rates by 20%+ year-on-year.
• Accountable for all global IT security, benchmarking company wide security protocol to the latest Microsoft technologies to mitigate foreseeable security issues.
• Rolled out global asset management system and introduced application upgrades to decrease IT security risk and optimise services for users.
• Reduced telecom costs by 25% and software licensing costs by a further 25% following integration activity of five UK organisations (500 staff)
• Reduced Exchange hardware spend by 60% and software spend by 40% by consolidating the global Exchange Server environment.
• Consolidated historically tedious data backup system into one EMEA cloud-based, tapeless solution.
• Built successful relationships with Microsoft, Adobe, HP, Juniper, Google and Sophos.
• Created new Business Relationship Manager, Global Infrastructure Manager and Global Information Security Officer roles to enhance internal business partnerships and cross-organisational tech/security communications.
• Mentored one IT manager to obtain position as Global Service Delivery Director and a London network manager into a Global Network Manager role.

2001 - 2005 Service Delivery Manager EMEA
Responsibilities
• Promoted to ensure IT service provision for over 1, 500 EMEA users and for various high profile events (Wimbledon, Open Golf, Snooker) during company acquisition activity and controlled all EMEA IT projects and related budgets.
• Re-organised entire EMEA IT group during extensive M&A proceedings with new IT job roles, created new Application Development Team and installed staff IT training to dramatically reduce service call volume.
• Introduced security methodologies to foster a more security-aware corporate culture.
• Originated and implemented new strategy for IMG's entire voice network.
• Consolidated network servers by 15% to eliminate unnecessary IT support overheads and complications.

2001 IT Consultant
Responsibilities
• Recruited to review telephony capabilities, troubleshoot phone system performance and reliability issues and to evaluate billing and vendor discrepancies on telecoms expenditure.
• Successfully recruited to permanent position by IT Director after detecting and redeeming over £350k in vendor telecommunications overcharges.

1998 - 2000 marchFIRST (formerly USWEB/CKS and Xplora)
marchFIRST was a global professional services company, operating in 16 countries delivering strategy, brand building and technology solutions for leading edge companies

1999 - 2000 IT Director
Responsibilities
• Expanded previous role to spearhead IT integration for all acquired entities during major M&A activity that grew headcount for the UK organisation from 45 to 600 people over five sites.
• Controlled annual OPEX spend and CAPEX project budgets whilst directing operations.
• Partnered with various departments to plan and configure a framework of core IT systems and services.
• Brokered all telecommunications contracts to reduce UK costs by over 30%.
• Centralised the IT helpdesk function across all UK sites to significantly increase service levels.
• Appointed as global technical lead for telecoms infrastructure due to successful UK IT integration.

1998 - 1999 IT Manager
Responsibilities
• Successfully developed two new team members to perform at a high standard during period of on-going change.
• Ensured continuous operation of IT systems and services during countless M&A activities.
• Orchestrated entire office migration for approximately 100 staff within 4 weeks and working to full capacity.
• Brokered vendor contracts with Microsoft, various hardware platforms and telecoms providers.

1996 - 1998 IT Manager Sunrise Software Ltd

Leading provider of service management solutions

Responsibilities
• Gained two quick promotions during two years, resulting in front line management role directing the IT agenda with accountability for a 20-person team.
• Pioneered new project management protocol to significantly increase customer satisfaction rates.