Director of Engineering
Nawras Telecom Oman
Total years of experience :19 years, 8 Months
Oct 08 to present - Director of Engineering - Nawras Telecom Oman
Started as Director of Engineering for the Mobile Network, prompted to the Director of Engineering converged Fixed and Mobile network (66 Personnel; managing a 2010 budget of $200m) when Nawras was granted the Fixed licence.
Achievements
• Initiating and driving a converged Engineering team in line with the general convergence of the fixed and mobile services. The traditional Engineering teams of PS/CS core, VAS and transmission were successfully transformed into customer centric organisation where the services were central. The organisation was built to have 4 major departments, i.e., voices services, data services, value added services and transport.
• Establishment of a collaborative Engineering department and implementation of a sustainable and effective strategies for various network segments
• Building up the network strategy based on the commercial requirements and agree (with board members) resulting in tender specifications and implementation of the infrastructure and creation of the necessary services which meets the business targets and the license requirements
• Delivery of tangible results within an extremely aggressive timescale; successful and timeous commercial launch of Nawras' fixed services based on: o Fixed Broadband for residential segment through Wimax
o Fixed Broadband for Business segment through Wimax
o FTTX for Business segment
o In excess of 2400 km of fibre backbone infrastructure
o In excess of 2600 km of hybrid MW backhaul network to carry the 2G, 3G as well as IP based Wimax traffic in a cost effective way by upgrading the existing assets. The backhaul is ready for LTE.
o International Gateway for Voice and Data
o Establishment of the VSAT hub
o TATA submarine Cable for international connectivity
Sep 04 - Sep 08 - Director of Engineering - Nawras Telecom Oman
Director of Engineering for the Mobile network, building up and leading 35 personnel of various nationalities and experiences managing a 2008 budget of $77m.
Achievements
• Successfully established the outsourced managed operations contract for the mobile network ensuring the business and the license needs were met
• Review, agreement and production of contractual structures with external and in-house legal representatives leading to establishment of a $12m pa managed services contract
• Successfully re-tendered for the 2G and 3G RAN in 2006 resulting into establishment of a 3 years frame contract for the supply of core and RAN resulting in modernisation of the core based on MSS
• Successful set up the business continuity plan and achieving the approval of senior management and the Board of Directors for introduction geo-redundancy for vital core and charging elements
• Successful integration of personnel of differing nationalities in to a cohesive team who were able to communicate effectively and become influential cross-functional mediators toward the business, the vendors and the network operations
• Successful build up and getting the necessary board approval for the annual operating plan and the corresponding budget for over 5 years.
Apr 03 - Aug 04 - Management consultant - Nawras Telecom (2nd GSM license in Oman)
Responsible for
• Preparation of the bid book for the second license in Oman
• Launching the initial tendering for Nawras' network infrastructure
• Pioneering role in the vendor selection process for Qtel's new endeavour in Oman's second mobile license; setting up tendering process, inviting major GSM infrastructure suppliers and performing technical as well as commercial evaluation of the vendor responses.
Achievements
• Successfully run the initial tender and been the lead technical and commercial negotiator resulting in demonstrable and major reductions of 30% on a $150m turnkey offer
• Achieved senior management buy-in to the contractual decisions and gained the approvals of the Board of Directors resulting into successful contracting of the turnkey supply to Ericsson for the initial two years
• Contract negotiation for the outsourcing of the operation to the selected vendor which includes setup of the KPI's, penalty schemes, organisation setup and resourcing based on a Establish-Operate-Transfer principle.
2001 to 2004 - Management Consultant - Norconsult Telematics
Starting with a network audit for Omantel in 2001 then later in Qtel account as senior project manager to set up and execute tenders, commercial evaluations and leading commercial negotiations for the infrastructure tenders.
Dec 02 - Mar 03 - Management Consultant - Norconsult Telematics, Qtel
Responsible for
• Commercial evaluation of the vendor bids for the expansion of Qtel's multi vendor network
• Driving the tender process for introduction of Multi Media Messaging within Qtel.
Achievements
• Successful finalisation of commercial evaluation of the E4 expansion for Qtel GSM network resulting in establishment of frame agreement with the infrastructure suppliers for a three years period
• Successful finalisation of tender process for the Multi Media Messaging of Qtel involving major leading vendors
• Achieving senior management buy-in of the gained results and the contractual documents.
Aug 01 - Feb 02 - Management Consultant - Norconsult Telematics, Omantel Oman
Responsible for
• Project management of an audit project for Omantel GSM Network aiming to assess service quality and to recommend action plans for capacity management based on long-term customer growth scenario's and service usage of the network
• To recommend necessary changes to prepare Omantel for competition on the Omani mobile market.
Achievements
• Successful finalisation of the network audit including capacity, quality and vendor performances, and network planning and optimization processes
• Achievement of management approvals for the recommendations for o Roadmap for evolution of the Omantel GSM network based on the global developments in the field of mobile communications both from the technology and the services point of view
o Short- and long-term expansion requirements for the BSS and the core parts and for each vendor in the network.
Feb 99 - Jul 01 - Project Management - Nokia Sweden, Italy and the Netherlands
Starting as regional rollout manager in the Netherlands, subsequently concentrating on the process definitions and creating visibility and needed efficiency to reduce loss making national turnkey rollout in the BEN Netherlands and later in Blu Italy. Thereafter, working within Nokia on the EMEA level defining templates for the turnkey rollout contracts to get the loss making business under control.
Nokia EMEA
• Project management consultancy for design of 3G project setups across Europe
• Definition of turnkey scope of work covering all aspects of functional rollout services and related service acceptance processes
• Customer turnkey contract setups
• Back to back contract set ups for subcontractors for the defined services in a functional subcontracting mode.
Nokia Sweden
• Project manager for 3G mobile rollout ramp up for Europolitan, Sweden
• Definition and sizing of organisation and building up initial rollout team
• Starting initial planning and design activities and involving the customer in the rollout approval and progress reporting.
Nokia Italy
• Mobile national service rollout in Blu Italy
• Project management consultancy in further design of project setup and design of required processes within the project
• Organizational optimization based on contractual and local external limitations
Nokia Netherlands
• Regional rollout manager responsible for steady network rollout
• Managing multidisciplinary preparation works enabling final hand over of network elements to the customer
• Set up and maturing rollout processes, introduction, implementation and management of these processes and corresponding procedures
• Functional description, design and development of Project Milestone Tracking tool for the whole network rollout process
• Setting up service level agreement between network rollout and network operations organizations in a live network phase.
Oct 98 - Jan 99 - Management consultant - Norconsult Telematics Qatar
• Establishment of Qtel GSM network strategy for further network growth
• Assessment of perceived quality of service of the network and capacity-needs based on various growth scenario's for customer base and service usage
• Defining managed and prioritized short term solutions to solve current hot spots
• Defining long term project plan for BSS expansion
• Including multi-vendor scenarios for further development of BSS part of the network.
Sep 96 - Sep 98 - Manager Radio Network Performance and Optimisation - Vodafone Netherlands
• Setting up Radio Network Performance and Optimisation group, defining its status, internal organization, work terrain, organizational interfaces and responsibilities
• Defining automatic radio network status reports as well as management reports
• Break down of the predefined key network performance indicators and mapping these into the responsible processes within and outside the group by defining quality threshold for each (sub) process
• Defining network-wide drive test process and procedures
• Interface to equipment supplier for development of new network features and traffic handling algorithms
• Vendor selection, introduction, dimensioning, planning and implementation of Tower Mounted Amplifiers into the network as a part of Radio Cost Reduction program
• Defined short and long term multidisciplinary mobile network expansion process
• Introduction of company-wide "Quality Circle" to determine and pinpoint network quality problems.
Sep 95 - Aug 96 - Manager Radio Network Planning - Vodafone Netherlands
• Defining technical system design rules and design of the Air Interface part of this GSM cellular network
• Liaisoning of design and implementation of dedicated programs for corporate indoor coverage solutions
• Network rollout
• Repeater and new antenna configurations
• Achievement of well defined network rollout process, its organizational interfaces and required procedures with other departments
• Vendor selection and introduction of Channel Selective and Band Selective repeaters to be used in tunnels, indoor areas and outlet locations
• Introduction of new antenna techniques resulting in interference reduction.
Jan 93 - Aug 95 - Senior RF System Architect - Thales Nederland B.V., Netherlands
Development project of a state of the art scanned beam phased array antenna system; a part of a phased array radar system for the new M-frigates for the Dutch, German and Canadian navies.
• Direct liaison with the scenario designers of the Dutch, German and Canadian navies to establish the antenna system design parameters
• Direct negotiation with the clients concerning high-level system performance resulting in assessment of antenna system performance requirements
• Cost/Performance analysis and monitoring
• Securing consistency among specifications of the major system components
• Development and measurement of phased array prototypes.
1985 to 1990 Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering Delft University of Technology Telecommunication and Tele-observation Technology Group Delft, Netherlands