Shahzad Arif

Spearhead delivery of secure, scalable, and highly available IT and network solutions to valued enterprise, telecom and government clients of this Cisco Gold Partner. Provide top-to-bottom business and technical management for division projects, overseeing sales, pre-sale, implementation, and support groups and leading team of network professionals. Direct all project life cycle phases from preparation and planning through design, testing, implementation, operation, infrastructure optimization, performance monitoring, and follow-up support. Work closely with Cisco and internal business units to identify and negotiate opportunities to capture or expand accounts. Present developed solutions to executive officers and network managers.
• Liaison with Cisco, NSN and 3M management to define channels, sales and after sales roadmap.
• Successfully increased the overall business revenue in all geographic regions and verticals and heads entire P&L
• Strong relationship on management tier of customers, principals and local vendors
• Trusted technical and business advisor relationships with C-level or other executives to identify and articulate plan for their future business environments
• Coordinate key resources within an account to align opportunities with overall account plan and architectural blueprint
• Responsible for overall sales and services strategies for all regions.
• Played primary role in building strong, client-oriented teams that led directly to improvements in revenue, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Key role in design and delivery of large scale, secure networks consisting of up to 1, 200+ sites for major banking, television, oil & gas, mobile operator, and airline customers across Pakistan, including Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), NIB Bank, Faysal Bank, State Bank Pakistan, Dubai Islamic Bank, United Bank, MCB Bank, Allied Bank, Bank Al-Habib, CNBC, DAWN TV, SSGC, PSO, Mobilink GSM, Telenor Pakistan, and Pakistan International Airline (PIA).

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Orchestrated planning, design, documentation, and implementation of comprehensive information security management solution, interfacing with vendors and service providers to ensure secure access to valuable network resources. Led risk assessment and management, IT security policy development, penetration testing, control design and implementation, and disaster recovery planning.
• Championed development of general IT security guidelines adopted by banking industry clients across Pakistan.
• Completed analysis and design of complete VPN-based network for CIB department of State Bank of Pakistan (e-CIB); unified bank’s corporate network protection solution, and provided secure site design to facilitate flawless SwiftNet migration.

Skillfully coordinated efforts of vendors, consultants, and regional teams through design and rollout of complete IT infrastructure; delivered high-quality network modules supporting intranet, corporate email and messaging, and communication operation monitoring systems for cable TV, FM radio, and MMDS operations throughout Pakistan. Managed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with network hardware and WAN link providers. Maintained complete documentation of network security policies, procedures, LAN and WAN design and installation diagrams, IP addressing, floor plans, and inventory of active and passive equipment.
• Built Local Area Networks (LANs) for regional offices countrywide, and engineered, administered, and maintained secure, Cisco-based Wide Area Network (WAN) connecting all offices.
• Optimized WAN and implemented multiple security solutions to ensure data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity; removed single point of failures and provided redundancy at access, distribution, and core network layer.
• Hardened defenses by leveraging routing protocols security, IPsec & remote access VPNs, VLANs, address summarization, PBR, Cisco secure Access Control Server (ACS), IOS firewall and intrusion detection system (IDS), multiple privilege levels, front / back end service demilitarized zones (DMZs), and secure Wi-Fi access for roaming users.

Crafted roll out plans covering network, systems, information security, risk assessment and mitigation, and system implementation for wide variety of clients including Karachi Port Trust (KPT); led analysis, design, and execution of backup / disaster recovery strategies, network management and auditing, risk management, and implementation of Cisco-based LAN / WAN, security, wireless, remote access, email, and messaging solutions.
• Secured network perimeter by introducing technical and procedural controls including firewalls, IDS, access control system, and demilitarized zones.
• Leveraged IPSec and digital certificates to secure communication channels; utilized Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certification Authorities for secure emails and SSL for secure Website connection.
• Demonstrated exceptional technical and project management capabilities, earning rapid advancement through positions as Associate Network Engineer, Network Engineer, and Senior Network Engineer.

Performed wide variety of network engineering tasks to provide company employees with reliable and robust IT infrastructure; developed, documented and implemented backup / disaster recovery methods, created and instituted data / Internet security, auditing, and best-practices procedures, and managed infrastructure design and rollout for all company desktop computers and network processes.
• Utilized industry-leading tools to design and deployed infrastructure components, including DHCP, DNS, WINS and Web servers, firewall and proxy servers, Mailer Daemon, and ICQ Server.