MENA Head of Information Governance, Privacy & Security Practice
FTI Consulting
Total years of experience :23 years, 11 Months
· Set up the global Project Management Office (PMO) responsible for governance, scheduling, development and release management of over 350 projects per year.
· Data Protection Officer (DPO) implementing data protection, privacy processes, conducting training and audits across the company to support GDPR alignment.
· Migrate all development activities to Agile methodologies, customized for the Entertainer’s unique circumstances.
· Set up real time automated reporting metrics and dashboards through Smartsheet integrated with Jira, Confluence, Tempus, MS Office and Tableau.
· Enabled automated project proposal submission, approvals and estimation through advanced workflows.
· Globally dispersed team developing and supporting apps for over 100 clients in 14 countries.
· Delivering hundreds of projects a year, including for some of the biggest companies in the world like VISA, HSBC, Mastercard, Emirates, Samsung, Al Futtaim and DHL.
Crew Consulting is a specialised project management consulting firm providing a full range of services covering resourcing, PMO creation, project audits, bid management, project delivery and full lifecycle project management
Highlights:
• Managing the business operations and ensuring client satisfaction in every engagement
• Delivery of business and IT optimization for several middle east clients through business process definition, IT hardware and software standardization and setting up IT support functions
Responsibilities:
• Developing leads for new business opportunities and ongoing relationship management with all clients
• Creation and recruitment of resources and developing into highly effective teams
• Defining the scope of work and contractual negotiation with both clients and vendors
• Working with clients to set up internal project teams, project management offices (PMO) and setting up industry leading project governance standards
• Acting as lead consultant on engagements where project deliverables are complicated or where specifically requested by the client
· Running the GDPR implementation and training program for Jumeirah Group covering 21 hotels in 7 different jurisdictions.
· Providing strategic program governance and running a team of internal resources and 4 external vendors covering legal, DPO, IT and operationalization to enable GDPR compliance.
· Oversight and management of the teams developing the policies, procedures and IT solutions for GDPR alignment, and reporting into C-level program steering group.
· Interface with Dubai Holding IT, Compliance, Legal and internal audit functions for all project deliverables and governance adherence.
Contract position to deliver the changes necessary for OTI to move from trading as part of a joint venture (with supplied SaaS) to a standalone entity
Highlights:
• Responsible for managing the team delivering the technical program to migrate OTI from a JV partnership to standalone entity using internal, contract, out-source and vendor project teams across 15 time zones. Migration of 10 years’ worth of data from the JV partners’ bespoke systems to OTI.
• Significantly enhanced operational efficiency by setting up SAP ERP and OmiDocs for accountancy, HR and ERP across offices in China, Singapore, The Netherland, Oman and the UAE
Responsibilities:
• Spearheading team establishment and migration of Allegro Commodities Trading and Risk Management (CTRM) platform from Vitol’s Vista application
• Setting up and configuration of SAP ERP, NewGen OmniDocs enterprise content management suite; migration of financial activities related to development of new Data Centre in DIFC and migration from combined data centre in Switzerland.
• Development of key plans for individual deliverables / milestones of the work breakdown structure (WBS) on a weekly basis. Evaluating and incorporating project risks within the risk management plan in consultation with the customer project sponsor.
• Troubleshooting and updating risk management plans in a high-pressure time sensitive environment to evaluate project issues and risks. Documenting additional processes for maintaining project SLA parameters.
• Ensuring compliance with high quality standards of the organization and clients associated with project deliverables. Enhancing project outcomes with minimal impact on customer business.
• Mentoring and providing development opportunities to members of the IT team in line with their career aspirations and the needs of the company.
• Recruitment of the right IT personnel to provide both the program and long-term resources to support the business and core applications.
Responsible for running programs of major strategic projects from feasibility to closure with a combined programme budget of over US$6 million:
Key responsibilities:
• Development and implementation of a bespoke, web based, common underwriting platform for all general insurance lines across 13 countries in the Middle East, Africa and CIS regions.
• CXO level stakeholders and steering group from regional, corporate and global levels
• Running and executing multi-million dollar bids for Bancassurance deals across the Middle East and Africa region.
• Ran project teams deployed across five countries in three different companies. 10 direct reports running a combined team of over 100 people
• Full budget responsibility
Working with a wide range of clients across the Middle East region to optimise their IT management and operations. In this role I am working with clients in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to:
• Develop and implement IT outsourcing and sourcing arrangements
• Implement ITIL process & procedures
• ISO20000 and ISO27000 training, implementation and certification preparedness
• ITIL tool selection,
• IT performance improvement (PBSM).
• Conducting training for clients on all ITIL V2 and V3 courses.
• Project & programme management
Clients have included Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatari and Saudi Arabian government agencies, Saudi Arabian armed forces, multi-national banks, regional media companies and a large, multi-national telecommunications company.
Working as an IT consultant to project manage a programme to implement the ITIL methodology across the IT support functional areas and project teams. Part of the role is to work as part of a team managing the roll out of the BMC software suite across the company.
Also working on projects to improve the IT security and risk reduction strategies including encryption, network access control, and implementation of virtual environments.
In this role, as an IT Project Manager working for a Canadian stockbroking firm, I am responsible for the running of projects over the whole project lifecycle, from assisting in putting together business cases to post implementation handover and closure. The internal project management methodology used is a hybrid of PMI and Prince 2, both of which I have a thorough understanding of.
I work with a range of both internal and external partners and am used to dealing with people from director level to end-user. Typically I will be managing between 3 and 6 projects simultaneously and projects undertaken have ranged in value from £50k to over £1 million.
Key projects I have managed include:
E-Documentation: Migration of Statements, Contract Notes, Consolidated Tax Vouchers and account opening documentation to a new vendor and provision of e-documentation for all documentation online across 4 brands
Computershare Enrolled: Nine-month project to provide a full white label trading facility for a third party. Included multi-lingual websites, telephone support, full international trading functionality (all North American & European exchanges, Hong Kong, Singapore & Australia), banking, reporting and all support capabilities
Gilts: Providing the ability for any individual to trade Gilts online - only provider in the UK
PEP ISA Regulatory: Regulatory project to convert all PEP accounts into ISA accounts and associated reporting, web, systemic & collateral changes
Web Re-architecture project: Complete re-coding of 9 client websites and 2 internal CRM applications to J2EE standard and associated hardware upgrades and architectural changes.
PhoneBroker: Building of a touch-tone and voice recognition trading platform to enable clients to trade on any share on the London Stock Exchange
ISA Reform: Two part project, the first to convert all PEP accounts to ISAs as per HMRC regulations and the subsequent addition of a Cash ISA offering for two different retail clients.
In this role I was involved in all areas of a project lifecycle and typical tasks included writing business requirement and functional specification documents, data modelling, gap analyses, impact analyses and system testing. I worked with other analysts, business users, managers, developers and other relevant departments over the full project lifecycle, through to overseeing user acceptance testing, documenting and providing training, writing communications as necessary and finally implementing the projects.
I possess a high level knowledge across a range of technologies and programming tools including XML, J2EE, Notes script, SQL and other AS400/Mainframe systems and user applications.
Key projects included:
Bank Launch: Launch of an online retail banking operation to support the existing retail stockbroking offering. The role involved extensive liaison with a wide range of internal customers and third parties to achieve mutual obligations. The third parties included the Inland Revenue, FSA, DNB, NatWest, VISA, ATMOS, LINK, JHC, FISERV, G&D and CFH.
Chip & PIN: Upgrading the bank debit card offering and associated clearing systems to the CHIP & PIN standards. Worked as the lead analyst and my responsibilities included business analysis and documentation, impact analysis, planning and extensive liaising with numerous third parties including FSA, ATMOS, VISA, G&D and LINK.
Agent Web: Created an intranet web based integrated cockpit application to allow customer-facing agents to view a consolidated position of clients’ accounts and future liabilities.
Tax Reporting: Implemented the changes that were required to enable the company to report under the new European Savings Directive, and to automate the process for productions of Section 17 and Section 18 tax reports for the Inland Revenue.
Equities trader on the UK, US, European and Canadian stock markets on behalf of retail clients
Distance learning Master of Business Administration with a specific focus on IT. Modules undertaken included: Contemporary management practice Strategic management practice Finance and financial accounting Human resource management Organisational risk management Managing organisational change Marketing for business managers Project management fundamentals
This was a very specialised course focusing on the Aerospace industry, fluid dynamics, general management, project management, structural, systems & mechanical engineering, flight theory and material science. Included internships at Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company (HAECO) and MMBPL structural engineers in Hong Kong Second class honours received
A' levels in Maths (B), Physics (C) & Chemistry (D)
GCSE's in Maths (A), Physics (A), French (A), English Literature (B), English Language (B), Chemistry (B), Geography (C) and History (C)