Mohammed Alghannam

Notable Achievements:

• Demonstrated highest standards of technical excellence, business objectivity and professional independence and successfully:
- benchmarked high quality metrics and mechanisms to measure SLA as well as led process improvements across the entire organization that catapult profit margins from 5% to 18%
- regulated public universities license and support operations generating cost-saving of over 25%
- cultivated professional and positive relationships with vendors and commanded more than 30% decline in costs
- optimized band-with utilization by over 75% by streamlining rural area content delivery
- anchored operations of TETCo services private cloud Center resulting in 40% cost optimization
- deployed open source built in-house application for LMS thereby improving cost-effectiveness by 50%
• Accelerated program operations to next phase of using Pox for the managed services by transforming MoE ITI&O to services.
• Piloted computer lab project for schools - engineered a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) that enabled a shift from laptop based labs to VDI labs while analyzed solutions provided by Huawei, Dell EMC, HP, Nutanix, VMware, and Netapp.
• Chaired end-to-end project deliverables by providing technical expertise and management in various phases of the project while ensuring cost, schedule, and performance goals are successfully for projects as under:
- engineered a cloud technology enterprise solution for high availability, data protection, and disaster recovery missions
- led K-12 school digitization by design and development of a new cloud managed network - Future gate project
- developed a robust network security infrastructure for schools
- optimized Hybrid cloud to produce education cloud that facilitates shared services to education sector
- steered the website development of TETCo.
- designed and implemented virtual classrooms (over 20) across 3 different regions.
• Pioneered the first ever ERP system by commanding the entire development life-cycle i.e. from process analysis up till final user interface while ensured meeting goals of functional performance, reliability, scalability, and security.

Key Contributions:
• Spearheading development of IT plans, and operational policies, procedures and budgets while working closely with the CEO to identify, develop, implement, and support cost-effective technology solutions that automate mission-critical operations.
• Leading complex IT programs and projects from start to finish - defining roadmaps, critical milestones, budgets as well as strategic goals in order to drive technological transformation, operations efficiency, and business growth.
• Presenting vision and technical direction to a range of program management operations such as process mapping, solutions design and development, business integration while managing shift in priorities along with time-schedules and budgets.
• Leveraging strong analytical and planning skills and administering business case preparation, project development along with extensive feasibility analysis with an aim of achieving 30% cost optimization.
• Providing comprehensive service to business by leading - technical proposal preparation for MoE related projects, IT vendor management, and modifying corporate security policy to comply with the ISO 27001 standards.
• Principal member of the IT governance committee involved in formulating long-term plans, establishing KPIs, validating regulatory and NCA compliance in addition to project leadership and budget monitoring.
• Scrutinizing external emerging technological environment while catalyzing a driving force in development of best practices, standards, and codes leading activities from ground-up in addition to stakeholder relationship management.

Notable Achievements:

• Led technology efforts for building state of the art Tier 3 data center for MOHE BC/DR with active/active setup utilizing both Main and secondary DC to serve business needs.
• Orchestrated merger of MOE-MOHE; aligned technological strategies with corporate goals and drove merger operations including data-center integration in the most efficient and effective manner.
• Standardized coding practices by deploying Peer Code Review mechanism that ensued a 30% decline in debugging costs.
• Success in advancing operational effectiveness, cost-efficiency, and productivity of IT infrastructure units encompassing:
- IT Systems & Storage Unit
- IT Operations Unit
- IT Security Unit
- IT Help Desk Unit
- IT Databases Unit
- IT Business Continuity Unit
- IT Application Monitoring Unit
- IT Data Center

Key Contributions:
• Directed a team of 40 professionals and oversaw all aspects of IT Infrastructure and Operations with focus on enterprise growth and maturity through implementation of progressive technologies and governing process.
• Architected long-term strategic plans and operational aspects to ensure IT infrastructure functionality, capacity, growth, and security needs for current and future systems while fostering a 24x7 availability environment.
• Drove actionable responses to operating procedures and successfully ensured 99.99% availability for 6 consecutive years. Responsible for stability and strategic success of smart building data center and data center co-location site (500+ servers).
• Powered enterprise backup infrastructure and disaster recovery operations. Planned, coordinated, and implemented network security measures in order to protect data, software/ applications, and hardware.
• Devised roadmaps for system migration operations at MOHE i.e. from client server technology to the cloud; eliminated bottle-necks and troubleshot issues while ensured minimum/ no disruption to routine business functions.
• Instituted automated help-desk operations that complies with ITIL standards. Contributed significantly for on-going development of IT policies and procedures while streamlined all operations to comply with ISO 27001 standards.

Key Contributions:

• Presided the process of fundamentally re-thinking and chartering the corporate security policy including risk management frameworks jointly with different units within the Bank.
• Established an end-to-end risk management architecture for Internet Banking in supplementation of security risk assessments as well as strategized various security awareness programs for various users to maximize its effectiveness.
• Identified and communicated the best international practices for banking while established security thresholds and standards for access control, security awareness, password management, application development, and vulnerability assessment.
• Spearheaded extensive assessments/ audits to scrutinize the effectiveness of security control systems, manage significant risk exposures, as well as ensure the reliability of Internet Banking applications.
• Cultivated a secure, efficient and risk-free security control unit by validating the integrity and establishing high technical standards for oracle database; AIX operating system; IIS web server and core banking application.
• Played a critical role in formulating RFPs for anti-phishing service, penetration testing, and vulnerability management tool; outlined precise quality and technical requirements along with budgets, SLAs and envisaged time-frames for execution.
• Conducting Business Impact analysis for all departments of the bank to gauge effectiveness under different scenarios while fostered appropriate control levels and communicated best practices.

Joined the organization as Security Administrator and crafted an exponential growth curve meriting multiple promotions to roles of increasing authorities and responsibilities and appointed to be first ever Security Operations Center Manager through exceptional performance.

Key Contributions:
• In-charged with a challenging task of setting-up security infrastructure for a newly introduced Internet Banking service; claimed best practices and led key initiatives and processes for amplifying security and risk management to cultivate an highly integrated and secure banking platform for the customers.
• Devised and effectuated coherent security management systems - benchmarked KPIs in order to advance quality and productivity as well as identified and addressed issues as following:
- network intrusion detection system utilizing defense in-depth technique
- host intrusion detection system utilizing ISS serves sensor
- scanning tools utilizing defense in-depth technique
- developing and implementing security infrastructure
- devising monitoring mechanisms for security infrastructure
• Defined security thresholds levels as well as triggers - ensured that the security management map is kept under constant review as well as timely amended and reflected in business strategy, models and annual plans of the bank.