Amer Saeed

Leading GDPR retrospective review and remediation programme,

Led timeliness data quality initiatives for BCBS239 compliance. Led the introduction of data residency schedule and rules matrix as part of Cloud Controls for new Google Cloud roll out. Led data management controls framework for data residency.

Leading data governance programme for HSBC global compliance function

Programme Director - Dec 2019 - 31st Mar 2020
I supported the newly appointed UK Chief Data Officer (CDO) with the initial development and rolled out of a firm wide data strategy and governance framework. Developed initial firm wide data governance policy and contributed to the set up of an enterprise data governance programme with key workstreams, together with approach. Focussed initially on key DQ remediation processes for CRM and HR functions, master data management and automation across key business areas to ensure optimal ExCo/COO MI reporting (via Qlik and PowerBI) and moving towards a data driven organisation. CDO unable to extend contract due to impact of Covid-19 crisis.

Programme Director - Dec 2018 - Dec 2019
Post-GDPR programme, as Programme Director within the Information Security Team, I led the UK wide CIO sponsored Identity and Access Management (IAM) programme for the UK firm covering privileged access management (PAM) and standard user access management (UAM) projects. I lead the entire UK IAM programme with a budget of £6M and directly managed team of PMs, SMEs and consultants. This involved firm wide deployment of CyberArk and SailPoint technologies across on-prem and cloud platforms, completing phase 1 and 2.
Significantly reduced Cyber Security risks and enabled adequate responses to key Audit findings.

GDPR Programme Director - Dec 2017 - Nov 2018
As the GDPR Programme Director, I led the internal GDPR compliance programme for the KPMG UK firm. Having initiated this very high profile programme from scratch, I built a strong core team of 7 staff (PMs, SMEs and BAs) together with roadmap, plans, stakeholder map, budget £2.5M, reporting and compliance artefacts and matrices. This high profile role reported directly to board level senior partners and the executive board. This was one of the first internal programmes in KPMG UK to impact every area of the firm and proved to be one of the most successful with personal recognition from the managing Partners for impeccable structure, rigour and stakeholder management. I delivered status updates directly to the UK Board as well as to the monthly GDPR Steering committee. I also presented GDPR awareness and compliance progress to multiple internal KPMG conferences with attendance in excess of 200 members of staff. Enabled adequate compliance with the GDPR, significant reduction in reputational risk and exposure to regulatory fines.

Reporting to the EMEA CDO, I managed the global GDPR compliance programme for State Street bank from inception, building a strong team, programme roadmap, plans, governance and internal communications and awareness. I directly managed 15 staff across six workstreams, ranging from Project Managers, Business Analysts and Privacy SMEs. The programme focussed on working towards achieving an adequate level of compliance by the 25th May 2018 enforcement date. The programme had visibility up the board, reporting to the GDPR Steering Committee. The role involved liaising closely with the Privacy Office, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Data Governance and IT teams, managing all aspects of discovery, design, and implementation, including resourcing, budgeting and stakeholder management. Working with a budget of approx $25M. Enabled adequate compliance with the GDPR, significant reduction in reputational risk and exposure to regulatory fines.

I worked as a Sanctions Data Project Manager managing and leading the Global Sanctions Name Data Readiness (SNDR) programme for Global Commercial Banking. This involved the management and co-ordination of global enhancement of customer and connected party data for all commercial banking customers across 56 countries and five regions, with the aim of improving accuracy and efficiency of sanctions screening. The role involved managing all aspects of design, planning, implementation, budgeting and resourcing, through to transition into BAU. Effective co-ordination with regional / country leads across five regions. Utilisation of 3rd party data vendor sources to enrich data e.g. Bureau Van Dijk (BVD), Dun & Bradstreet and Avox. Working closely with CDO teams, to build a strategic solution for monitoring sanctions data quality (DQ dashboards / heatmaps / MI), providing assurance and aligning with newly introduced HSBC Data Governance policies.

I worked as a Sanctions Data Project Manager managing and leading the Global Sanctions Name Data Readiness (SNDR) programme for Global Commercial Banking. This involved the management and co-ordination of global enhancement of customer and connected party data for all commercial banking customers across 56 countries and five regions, with the aim of improving accuracy and efficiency of sanctions screening. The role involved managing all aspects of design, planning, implementation, budgeting and resourcing, through to transition into BAU. Effective co-ordination with regional / country leads across five regions. Utilisation of 3rd party data vendor sources to enrich data e.g. Bureau Van Dijk (BVD), Dun & Bradstreet and Avox. Working closely with CDO teams, to build a strategic solution for monitoring sanctions data quality (DQ dashboards / heatmaps / MI), providing assurance and aligning with newly introduced HSBC Data Governance policies.

I worked as a Data Project Manager managing the Group Data Programme for Global Asset Management (AMG). Directly reporting to the Chief Data Officer (CDO), I acted as the conduit between AMG and the Group Data Organisation and Group DMO, representing AMG in all relevant working groups and forums. My team performed data governance / data strategy self-assessments, performed GAP analysis and constructed a plan / roadmap to achieve compliance against the Group data management FIM policy. I managed the creation of target operating models and processes for the management, data quality remediation and assurance of critical data points. I presented the data strategy and implementation plan across AMG management and business areas, including multiple regional COOs and Global Heads. Rollout included the implementation of group tools such as Collibra for business metadata management, RTC DQIM for data quality management and Big Data Hadoop technology for data analytics and DQ MI

I managed the Trade Data Standards Compliance project working very closely with the Chief Data Office (CDO) to develop trade logical data models, Data Standards for Trade Data (inc dictionaries), build compliance level checks / assessment process against these Data Standards (utilising Lavastorm and Qlikview technologies) and finally manage data remediation of trade data exceptions. The overall aim was to build a Trade Data Treaty (formal agreement) between the CDO and Data owners whilst implementing the fairly new concept of data stewardship within the organisation. There was an overarching intention to reduce the need for manual adjustments across the trade lifecycle, often the root cause of data quality problems, and move more towards electronic booking methodologies and STP. Initial asset class focus has been around OTC rates (Swaps, Options, FX and FI) and earlier event types within the trade lifecycle i.e. trade capture and verification. I managed the budget for the project which was €1.5 million and had a direct reporting resource pool of approx seven resources split between London, Dublin and Bangalore.

• I worked as a Senior Project Manager within the HSBC Global Banking and Market’s (GB&M) Data Quality Programme, managing a team of 8 staff; two Project Managers (each with own project resources) and data/business analysts. The programme consisted of over 100 resources split across London, New York, Hong Kong and India. Working closely with Client on-boarding, KYC, Client docs, Credit services, and business / data / core regulatory change teams around the alignment of client / entity and instrument (account) data.
• Deputy to the Global Head of Data Quality / CDO for EMEA, driving all key decisions made within the programme relating to project initiation, project formation, budgeting ($2m), resourcing / recruitment and strategic growth. I represented our programme as SME DQ reviewer / approver for all reference data related changes proposed within GB&M.
• Programme managed all key DQ workstreams within portfolio ensuring they progressed to plan, dealt with issues / blockers on exceptions basis and provided bi-weekly/monthly presentations to senior management / stakeholders ensuring that the programme was progressing in line with expectation. Developed high level operating models for the programme, ensuring the correct involvement within GB&M.
• As part of HSBC's newly formed Chief Data Officer structure, I actively participated in Data Quality Framework, Controls and Policy workshops. Decisions made by myself and other senior figures in these small working groups resulted in formal data frameworks being rolled-out across HSBC group.

Risk Assurance (Data Assurance

I worked within the Enterprise Risk Service (Audit) practice of Deloitte. Within this team I worked in the Data team whose main area of work involved data analytics, data quality/cleansing, insights, audit support, data migrations and any projects (covering full SDLC) that involved analysis or manipulation of data. Engagements have included:

•OFAC Sanctions related work for Barclays bank involving extensive data matching techniques and manipulations of swift message data. Also, producing adhoc MI reports for various business users, including technical specification and visio diagrams.
•Complete end-to-end royalties audit involving detailed analysis of O2's revenue share process of the UK Apple iPhone (liaising with all relevant teams). Recalculation of reported monthly revenue share totals based on handsets sales and usage. This resulted in the identification of over £3 Million of underpayment.
•Reconciliation / assurance of H3G network data to provide assurance over a data retention solution (in line with EU directive) as well as profiling of complete UK subscriber data. The work involved scoping / requirements capturing, development of scripts and unit/UAT testing, together with relevant spec documentation.
•Calculation of compensation for Bradford & Bingley customers based on FSCS scheme (FSA) to establish total liability. A dataflux ETL model was created that incorporated the FSCS rules for compensation and identified what customers were eligible for compensation and how much they were eligible for. The work took a SDLC phased approach covering scoping / requirements capturing / translating eligibility criteria, data quality assessment / data cleanse, development of ETL dataflux scripts and reconciliation / unit/UAT testing. Deliverables included technical specification documentation for each ETL process together with visio diagrams.
•Audit/Reconciliation of credit card data for Lloyds Banking Group following migration of their credit card management system from Equasion to VisionPlus. This involved a series of reconciliation tests that were performed daily during the stabilisation phase to provide assurance over the migration. A dashboard of issues was created an investigated.
•Assessment of British Gas/Centrica usage meter estimation logic and consequent improving of the logic.

Each engagement required excellent business analysis skills in understanding / confirming scope, requirements capturing and a very thorough understanding of data and the advanced use of data query / manipulation / analytical tools e.g. advanced SQL, Dataflux (Profiler/ETL Architect), Trillium (Profiler), IDEA on mainly the SQL server platform. Working closely with Clients, understanding and documenting requirements for delivery, whilst always maintaining a very professional level of interaction and quality of delivery, have been key.

Transitioned (TUPEd) from Vodafone to EDS as part of European wide outsourcing deal. Same job role as below.

I worked as a technical developer within the Business Intelligence development team, working on the development of BI MIS reports. Extensive knowledge and understanding of Vodafone's vast interfacing systems and databases, particularly billing, were essential. Key technologies used were Teradata, Oracle, Ab Initio, Unix scripting, SQL and PL/SQL. I regularly liaised with the business in order to further clarify /capture requirements for development and its feasibility, often working from or producing functional / technical design documents.

I also worked on larger BI projects covering the full development lifecycle (SDLC) that aimed to further increase data availability and reportability from BI datawarehouse. The work involved designing (logical data modelling using visio) and coding 3rd normal form tables (fact tables and dimensions) and star schemas in the Teradata datawarehouse. Creating functional / technical design documents, development of code and unit / link testing. Formal testing was performed using Test Director, where defects were raised, investigated and remediated..

I joined Accenture's graduate scheme having completed a Masters degree in IT, working as a software engineer on a number of client based data technology projects including Sainsburys, Pfizer, Dixons Group, Thames Water and Rural Planning Agency.