Engineering Consultant / Assistant Group Vice President
Zaki M. A. Farsi Group
Total years of experience :34 years, 4 Months
Responsibilities:
• Playing a vital part in directing, monitoring and coordinating sectional processes, evaluations and plans to guarantee smooth running of all of the company's various projects and business operations.
• Evaluating long-term projects and business opportunities and recommending to management the implementation of suitable strategies in order to meet company objectives.
• Spearheading crucial projects by coordinating laterally between diverse technical teams and vertically across management hierarchy to seamlessly implement project rollouts, management systems and process enhancements.
• Maintaining awareness of relevant industry trends and technologies. Prioritizing business and technical requirements based upon business and user needs as well as technological capabilities.
• Coordinating with internal and external parties to organize the various components needed to initiate, run and conclude major projects.
• Preparing schedules, planning activities and tracking progress on a daily basis. Ensuring projects meet requirements, quality standards and adhere to budgets and time frames.
• Working closely with clients, suppliers and external specialized consultants and vendors, to prototype possible approaches to problems and implement corrective solutions.
• Conducting strategic planning, administration and development of entire group activities either by direct supervision or by managing subordinates.
• Designing and implementing operational procedures. Operating in an efficient and timely manner with up to date administrative systems.
Responsibilities (Cont'd):
• Implementing and administrating HR strategies including medical, employee benefits, attendance, payroll, employees travel, accommodation, staff supervision and drafting HR strategies for succession plan.
• Enforcing HR policies and procedures including recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, performance appraisal, training and development, authority matrix, contracts, employees travel, accommodation, and other related personnel and administration policies.
• Managing recruitment services from initial identification of qualified personnel, contracting, visa issuance, passport office and office of labor related issues.
• Establishing efficient recruitment procedures by identifying manpower budgets through means of departmental requirements, job specifications, job competencies, interviewing, salary evaluation and other legal formalities from local and external sources.
• Managing the training element of the organization's workforce that gives staff the understanding, practical skills and motivation to carry out particular work-related tasks.
• Maintaining a high standard of HR management and compliance to internal controls and procedures to minimize losses, guarantee exceptional customer service and accomplish future growth and profit objectives.
Key Projects:
• King Abdul Aziz University Hospital project: Implementation, operation and maintenance of the Hospital's Management Information System.
• Web deployment project with Saudi Airlines: Implementation of training courses for Saudi Airlines; including AIX training, Microsoft training and Security System employment.
• Solder House project for IDB Bank; operations include point of sale, Chorister report, and DB2.
Responsibilities:
• Led project work planning and operation plans and formulated approaches to support the implementation of company projects and to efficiently construct and monitor project schedules.
• Liaised with clients and organized meetings with stakeholders to gather data needed for defining the functional and technical business requirements to understand their business processes and requirements.
• Translated project requirements into technical terms, presenting stakeholders with prototypes and working with the technical team to resolve technical issues.
• Analyzed project designs to effect maximum utilization of data, methods and processes in order to meet deadlines, cost objectives and quality specifications.
• Ensured optimal usage of all available resources to operate as per schedule and within budgeted overheads. Enforced budgetary guidelines and cost control and efficiently organized project utilities in order to meet agreed project delivery deadlines.
Joined Bank as Data Center Manager. Charted an impressive career graph and was repeatedly promoted to finally hold the position of Assistant to Sector Head.
Designation Chronology:
• 1998 - 2001: Assistant to Sector Head.
• 1996 - 1998: Technology Support Service Manager.
• 1990 - 1996: Data Center Manager.
Highlights:
As Technology Support Service Manager:
• Established the Bank's office automation standard for hardware, software and technology.
• Instituted an IT help desk facility.
As Data Center Manager:
• Installed a base consisting of two 9800 configurations, 9300’s and Tower UNIX platforms.
• Assumed direct responsibility for a major redesign of the computer room, including physical site specifications, architectural modifications, and hardware installation and check -out.
• Managed the installation of a 9800 AP-4/VRS-E Rel. 4 configuration in the Jeddah Data Center, and assumed responsibility for the production workload migration to the new environment.
Overall Responsibilities:
• Managed the Bank's Computer Center and evaluated and identified organizational requirements to establish operating procedural standards.
• Recommended IT infrastructure requirements and up gradations to ensure acceptable levels of security, disaster management, and data recovery plans.
• Oversaw and supervised major issues pertaining to the planning, administration and security management, of all systems, network and database installations. Devised ways of optimizing existent resources to improve throughputs thus enhancing system performance parameters.
• Liaised vertically and horizontally with varied technical resources to formulate a concise and effective techno- managerial support infrastructure. Created turnkey disaster recovery, business continuity and information lifecycle management solutions.
• Monitored and executed trouble-free and non-disruptive archiving, migration and deletion of data across all storage functions architectures and platforms.
• Kept up to date with the latest technological progresses and used the potentials of new technologies to respond to the distinctive and special needs of the organizations.
• Handled the IT department's financial and administrative operations. Estimated systems operation costs, prepared cost-benefit analysis and computed departmental costing.
Other Designations Held:
• 1980 - 1990: Operations Manager - Riyadh Bank (Jeddah Branch), KSA.
• 1976 - 1980: Gained experience in Accounting and Foreign Correspondents Reconciliation System.
