Riyasudeen Farook

• Strategic Roadmap & Leadership: Developed, authored, and presented the groups 3-year IT
Infrastructure Strategy and Technology Roadmap to senior leadership, effectively aligning future technology
investments with corporate expansion goals and Saudi Vision 2030 objectives.
• Financial & Team Governance: Direct enterprise IT Operations and own the full CAPEX/OPEX investment
cycle for a 10M+ SAR annual budget, while leading a cross-functional IT team of 4 members delivering
support across 5 multi-site corporate offices and sustaining 99%+ SLA compliance across all service
domains.
• Commercial Vendor Outcomes: Renegotiated 3 major enterprise software and hardware vendor support
agreements, delivering a verified 8% reduction in annual infrastructure OPEX while simultaneously
improving critical vendor SLA response and resolution parameters.
• Infrastructure Modernization: Architected and executed the full migration of legacy VMware workloads to
a Nutanix AHV cluster, enhancing platform scalability and standardizing VM lifecycle management across all
group entities.
• Enterprise Architecture Upgrade: Directed the comprehensive Active Directory forest modernization and
migration to Windows Server 2025, future-proofing identity infrastructure scalability and enabling 32K
database page capacity across all group domain controllers.
• Cybersecurity Governance: Enforced NCA ECC-aligned security baselines and Zero Trust security
policies across 35+ Microsoft 365 domains; deployed Proofpoint for advanced email threat protection and
governed Palo Alto firewall rules to eliminate lateral movement risk across the group network.
• Endpoint & Cloud Governance: Automated centralized endpoint security patch compliance for 600+
corporate devices via Microsoft Intune (MDM/MAM) and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, reducing network
vulnerability windows by 40% and eliminating unmanaged device risk.
• Innovation & Automation: Architected and deployed an AI-powered IT Operations chatbot integrated into
Microsoft Teams using n8n and Google Gemini LLMs to govern workflows for 650+ M365 users, reducing
manual ticket routing and driving a measurable 35% reduction in L1 ticket MTTR.
• Business Continuity: Designed and implemented a robust DR strategy using Veeam for M365 and on
premise servers, aligning RPO/RTO metrics with board-approved business continuity requirements.
• Stakeholder Management: Serve as the strategic technology liaison between internal departments and
subsidiaries, identifying operational needs and implementing best-in-class IT solutions across all group sites.

• Spearheaded the implementation and maintenance of a resilient IT infrastructure, significantly reducing system downtime through SCOM and Ops Manager, which boosted overall system performance and productivity organization-wide.
• Developed and executed centralized configuration management strategies for business continuity utilizing Veeam and Veritas Backup Solutions, establishing standardized frameworks to streamline future support deployments.
• Crafted comprehensive service call policies, outlining employee proficiencies and escalation procedures, enhancing operational efficiency and service delivery within the IT department.
• Fostered a proactive IT environment, ensuring optimal resource allocation and alignment with organizational goals.

• Service Delivery: Supported IT operations for a leading financial regulatory authority, ensuring a secure,
compliant, and high-availability infrastructure environment serving 300+ internal stakeholders across
regulated financial markets.
• Cloud & Identity Management: Administered a hybrid Active Directory 2022 environment and full Microsoft
365 suite (Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive), ensuring high availability, regulatory-grade data integrity, and
secure external collaboration across VMware vCenter 7.0 / ESXi environments.
• Resilience Planning: Centralized configuration management and business continuity protocols using
Veeam and Veritas, achieving a 100% success rate in quarterly rapid-recovery compliance drills.
• Policy Development: Formulated and deployed service call policies and escalation matrices, standardizing
support workflows and reducing average ticket resolution time by 20%.
• Uptime Management: Maintained >99.9% system uptime across all critical infrastructure, leveraging SCOM
and Operations Manager for proactive monitoring and incident prevention.

• Operational Efficiency: Orchestrated a 20% improvement in overall IT operational efficiency and a 15%
reduction in response times by streamlining workflows and optimizing team productivity.
• Enterprise M365 Migration: Led enterprise Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migration of 400+ users during
organizational restructuring, seamlessly migrating all Mailboxes, OneDrive, and SharePoint data with zero
business disruption and zero data loss.
• Service Delivery: Managed and supported office and factory users across M365, Dynamics 365, and line
of-business applications across UAE and KSA sites.
• Vendor & Asset Management: Managed high-level vendor relationships and prepared RFPs/RFQs for
hardware and software procurement, ensuring advantageous SLA terms and cost control.

Managed enterprise IT infrastructure and support operations for a prominent manufacturing and retail group
operating 80+ outlets across the UAE market.
• Infrastructure & Uptime: Engineered proactive monitoring strategies that reduced system downtime by
25% and maintained 99.9% uptime for critical manufacturing and retail applications across all sites.
• ERP Support: Facilitated the rollout of SAP ERP solutions and supported retail operations, including SQL
database management and Orion Oracle 11 G administration.
• Process Standardization: Authored comprehensive SOPs for system integrations and drafted network
configuration diagrams to ensure repeatable, scalable multi-site infrastructure.

• Network Optimization: Decreased system downtime by 30% through proactive network monitoring,
resolving bottleneck issues before they impacted client operations.
• Support & Deployment: Provisioned IP PBX and PABX systems at client sites; deployed operating
systems, endpoint security, ERP, and productivity applications.
• Service Delivery: Resolved 50+ IT support tickets weekly, consistently exceeding established vendor SLAs.