About Me
I am an experienced IT Transformation Program Director and ex CTO/ CIO with a proven track record of success leading major IT, Digital, Data and Business Transformation programs. I have over 25 years of hands-on senior leadership and Ex-Co experience. I consider myself to be an expert in developing and delivering cost effective 3-5-year IT strategies aligned to corporate goals, business objectives and commercial growth.
Over the last 10 years I have been leading the successful delivery of several major business and IT led Transformation programs for a number of large Insurance /Assurance organisations (Wesleyan, LV=, Atlanta Group, AXA, and the Phoenix Group). Prior to this I delivered IT transformation programs for a major Automotive Organization (SRI), and a large Digital Database and Analytics Marketing company (DST- Now Paragon). These large programmes of work involved implementing significant IT change and cloud migration strategies and resulted in the sun setting of legacy IT architectures and application systems as we introduced. new digital- headless architectures and MAAS, PAAS, IAAS and SAAS Infrastructure solutions delivered by numerous 3rd Party Integration partners.
My career to date has been predominately based on improving IT and operational delivery capabilities however I have also managed several IT Operations, Digital Transformation, Service Delivery, Application and Product Development teams and I have also owned several strategic Data Cleansing and migration programs – D365 F&O, CRM, CMS, ERP Share point and Salesforce implementations and rollouts. These strategic programmes of work were all seen as both time and cost critical.
Personally, I am commercially focused and financially astute, with a real passion for delivering right first time on time business critical solutions across multiple geographical locations. During my career I have managed 100’s of third-party IT vendors, partners, and system integration experts and as such I have become a very experienced third-party vendor manager and tough contract negotiator. I have also been heavily involved in designing and developing business TOM’s and TSAs due to corporate acquisitions, business mergers and company disposals
Education
Farnborough Institute of Technology 1980
Computer Science
A Level Computer Science - Day Release
Work & Experience
Phoenix Group 02/01/2024 - 06/30/2025
IT Transformation Program Manager
My role at the Phoenix Group was to lead the group’s data center rationalization and consolation program. Reporting to the IT Change Director and the group CTO. I was engaged to define, develop and implement an IT migration and consolidation strategy that would reduce the number of in-house supported / managed data centers within the group initially from 6 to 4 and to investigate the options of moving from 4 to 2 in the future. After an initial assessment phase I set about creating a business case and finding a suitable third-party integration partner. Upon gaining executive board approval and funding at the end of August 2024 I created the data center migration strategy with the chosen partners and business SMEs. The decoupling of these data centers from the Standard Life /ReAssure Group also meant we had to create a new network transformation project.to enable us to make use of newer Internet and Azure cloud Services. I recently completed the first phase of the program with the successful migration of two data centers, moving these to a more strategic IAAS solution which concluded at the end of June 2025. I have also prepared the Business case for the 2nd Phase which is currently under consideration with the exco team.
Atlanta Group 02/02/2023 - 12/28/2023
Transformation Program Manager
I joined the Atlanta Group in February 2023 and was given the role of Transformation Program Manager primarily responsible for business readiness, testing and third-party technology implementation and planning. • To provide ongoing Business Change and Readiness Leadership for the BPS CAR - Program of including all business areas and technology projects and integrations within the program. • Ensure that the Atlanta business is ready to successfully implement the new BPS Car platform migration (PAAS). • Work closely with the key business stakeholders, third party platform and integration partners, internal technology, and testing teams to ensure the smooth delivery of the BPS program. • In partnership with the Program Director to manage the overall program governance and budget to ensure we do not lose sight of the operational business benefits / efficiency models. • Working closely with key stakeholders within the business partners to ensure program governance, produce a business readiness tracking framework and detailed testing and implementation plans for the delivery of the BPS – Car program. • The first phase of the program includes the migrations of three specific car insurance brands (Carole Nash – Autonet – Be Wiser) onto a single modern technology platform (PAAS) which was completed at the end of 2023. • Produce an implementation a business readiness approach strategy including detailed cutover plans for each brand and produce key milestones and delivery approach for Phase 2 - BPS Van & Bike migrations in H1/2 2024.
MTS - Sumittomo Rubber Industries 12/01/2020 - 12/30/2022
CTO
I joined MTS in December 2020 on a fixed term contract as the new IT Transformation Director with the direction to build an effective IT organisation capable of supporting the company’s future growth plans. After completing an initial review, it became evident that the business required a major technical overhaul that would allow them to remove their technical debt and legacy architecture. Over the next 3 months I engaged with several 3rd party vendors and integration partners to develop and present a large technology transformational program which included the migration from an inhouse managed IT Infrastructure to a PAAS model in the Azure cloud, and a complete Network and Telephony refresh also to be supplied as a service. We also developed a new digital headless architecture and web portal capable of supporting both the Wholesale and Retail marketing and consumer front ends. After gaining board approval from the Japanese parent company (SRI) I was asked to proceed and was then given the full-time role of CTO. • To deliver a new technology refresh program creating a scalable - stable 21st century architecture capable of supporting major growth initiatives. • Replace legacy architectures and implement and new DX transformation program introducing new cloud-based solutions, architectures, technologies, and partners. • Create a new Program Office capable of supporting the new change portfolio and introduce PMO best practise. • Work with the CFO and Line of business directors to introduce a recognisable change programme and become the advocate of change within the business. • Find the appropriate long-term partners capable of supporting such a large program of change within a 24-month period and evaluate the portfolio risks and additional operational risks introduced through implementing such a large period of change. • Ensure the business can continue to function its BAU activities without impact to revenues and day to days operations. • Provide stakeholder leadership for the transformation portfolio ensuring delivery to budget and contract management. • Complete a full security review in line with JSOX compliance and undertake a review of the inflight D365 F&O and D365 CRM implementations.
Portfolio
