Head of Online Platforms and Electronic Channels
Mediterranean Bank
Total years of experience :21 years, 11 Months
Heading Product Development, Product Delivery, Software Maintenance, Applications Support, Quality Assurance and Software Supplier Management for all Online Platforms (eBanking, Investment Banking, Wealth Management) and Electronic Channels of the Mediterranean Group (retail and corporate banking):
Mediterranean Bank - Malta
Medirect Bank - Belgium
Charts Investment Management - Malta
Main roles: Director - Wolters Kluwer Financial Services Romania
Product Development Delivery - EMEA region - 20+ countries - Team of 300+ employees
Appointed to manage a large PD Centre with focus on software financial services:
Financial Compliance - Banking Regulatory Reporting (Basel III - CRD IV/CRR - COREP, FINREP),
Insurance Regulatory Reporting (Solvency II), Financial Risk - Risk Management
SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS:
Successfully built a core middle management team and leading the company through extreme growth; effectively doubling the team size from 100+ to 250+ within one year. The global corporate growth was prioritized locally. This strategic decision was based on great results like higher productivity and higher quality at a very competitive cost. We already became the largest WK Product Development centre in EMEA and probably in the whole world. On top of that we are playing the leading role not only at the business as usual level, but also in the development of the next generation, state of the art integrated platform for risk, compliance and regulatory reporting. This new platform is unique in the word on both complexity and features.
As part of the EMEA delivery (20+ country applications) role, I lead a global team that’s spread across the whole EMEA region, making the entire team I am leading in the order of magnitude of 300+. One of the historical growth components of WKFS was through global acquisitions, which brought about cultural, technical, management and operational challenges that we successfully solved, integrated and aligned on a daily basis.
Achieved third most profitable IT Company in the region for 2014, after not being in the top in 2013.
Played a leading role on the large scale organizational transition to Agile, Lean Six Sigma and PMI from Waterfall/PRINCE2. The transition is complete and a real success. I lead by example, walking the talk as a Certified Scrum Master, Product Owner and Lean Six Sigma Champion.
Achieved the creation of a competitive localized branding, corporate culture and working environment characterized by collaboration on a global scale, sustainable growth and low attrition, on a very competitive and dynamic labour market. Moved the office to the best office building in the city (ecological, A-Class level) in order to support the future growth and provide the best place to work to a team that fully deserves it.
Appointed to design the complex mobile software architecture, hands-on software development, testing and release of a new application that will technologically interrupt the current inefficient interaction of retail customers with online and offline businesses around the world. The development strategy starts with a mobile application and will evolve into a new paradigm for the innovative retail & marketing social platform.
SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS:
Successfully designed the software architecture for the first version of the mobile app. Feature list includes items, shopping lists, shops, search by scanning barcode, pictures, logos, GPS, prices, time based promotions, pricing history, best price for item, shopping intelligence based on criteria like pricing and location etc.
Successfully coded (by myself) (~50k lines of code, ~30 separate activities ) of the Java/Android code
Appointed to manage a large software department with focus on technology, projects, corporate culture, hiring the best technical team, efficient communication, optimizing the development process, updating the technologies involved, people management, project and program management. Team of 100+ employees.
SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS:
Successfully led (people and technical management) the software department - 100+ software specialists, over 400 games, tens of high availability, large transactions web gaming portals, downloadable/mobile game versions. I recruited/supervised/appraised/motivated Project Managers, Mathematical Modellers, Graphical Designers, Software Developers, QA Engineers, Network & System Engineers, DB Admins, Technical Writers - using technologies like Java, C++, C#, PHP, Unity 3D, Action Script 3, SQL etc.
Business Development and branding localizing. All that increased the awareness of the brand and the local development studio, resulting in a 300% increase in candidate interest and relevant job applications, plus boosting the morale of current employees.
Set up, communicated and maintained a corporate culture based on core values like: Empowerment, Commitment, Excellence, Passion and Collaboration.
Reorganized the departments, updated the procedures, researched and implemented new technologies, platforms, frameworks, design patterns, QA regression testing scenarios and cases. That increased the efficiency (lowering necessary man-hours/time to market) of the development and testing processes to approx. 50%.
Business Development and branding localizing. All that increased the awareness of the brand and the local development studio, resulting in a 300% increase in candidate interest and relevant job applications, plus boosting the morale of current employees.
Set up, communicated and maintained a corporate culture based on core values like: Empowerment, Commitment, Excellence, Passion and Collaboration.
Reorganized the departments, updated the procedures, researched and implemented new technologies, platforms, frameworks, design patterns, QA regression testing scenarios and cases. That increased the efficiency (lowering necessary man-hours/time to market) of the development and testing processes to approx. 50%.
Appointed to start-up Asdion Consulting Services by creating custom project management procedures for international ERP and CRM implementations up to government level. Also among the job requirements were to hire, train and supervise a team of skilled Software Project Managers for our offices across Asia, focused on implementing complex software and infrastructure solutions.
Selected achievements:
Lead architect for several software designs.
Recruited, trained and managed a highly professional international consulting team of 10 Project Managers, including assigning tasks, supervising results and appraisals.
Achieved 50% improvement in project loading capacity for 2006 by standardizing and optimizing the self-developed custom implementation work-flow and procedures.
Project Managed 20 ERP & CRM high level international implementations, including the $2m China ERP implementation for the travel industry. The client was FEAS, the biggest travel agency in China, in collaboration with Travelsky, China’s GDS provider.
courses: Completed various professional development courses and seminars (on request).
