Manager of Data Engineering, Business Intelligence Analytics, Data Platform, Integrations and legacy software decommission teams. Recent experience leading a transition from legacy data warehouse technologies to cloud-based AWS Databricks and Tableau Cloud. 

A rare combination of business-orientated strategic perspective, being a top-rated first and second level people manager while keeping hands-on software, data, AI, ERP and internet skills current. Top notch AI skills in Databricks, Gemini, NotebookLM, Nano Banana and Agentic development tools. I code in Python with Google Gemini APIs.

Key Skills

Fast Delivery.

Ensuring we find what users need and value, what technology changes are evolving and anticipating intelligent plays.Then enacting various project management, process, data, integration and reporting approaches to take maximum advantage. Examples: (1) Initiating project through to Production Go-Live of Databricks on Jisc’s AWS tenant; included meeting all financial, vendor/channel engagement, procurement, legal, data governance, data protection, information security and staff training obligations (2) Provision of a facility to show the end-to-end flow of requisition, approval, ordering, receipt and payment of company purchase requests; Synapse data lake runs 10 mins behind live ERP system.

Business and Industry Knowledge.

I maintain an extensive network of contacts across IT, Software and Telco Industries. I'm a voracious reader, listener and (as an ex-systems programmer) routinely evaluate new software, cloud vendor, data and AI related technologies. To understand how developments can affect business structures and to aim efforts “where the puck is headed”.

Examples: (1) Articulating Jisc’s IT Strategy visually using Wardley Maps, which helped lay bare some questionable and time-consuming implementation choices in 2019; strategy was changed. (2) I demonstrated ChatGPT to several hundred staff in Jan 2023; I follow data plus AI technology and business developments, aligning my teams’ work to exploit these.

Management.

I am an experienced, balanced, collaborative and consistent first and second-level people manager with a relentlessly positive disposition and a can-do attitude which generally persists long after others give up. I devote considerable energy to developing employees to realise their full potential and achieve their personal career aspirations. I manage

to keep my hands-on IT skills current while at the same time executing my senior management responsibilities.

Experienced IT Professional with Financial, Commercial and Analytics Skills.

I am adept at using my IT skills to self-serve data from any IT system and to use analytics tools on the result. To understand the key dynamics of a business and spot opportunities to improve business performance. Examples include: (1) after a £30M company move to SAP, we were told that no business reporting would be available for 6 months. I reverse engineered tables in SAP and provided a reporting database that maintained consistency with the company’s long JBA based trading history. This allowed us to run a £790M business, reducing DSO from 60 days to 30 during my tenure (2) A sales unit responsible for high-value technology change contracts were making regular director visible financial losses. I built a facility that linked a presales quote database to sales data on a different system. A discovery from this ensured no director-visible costly mistakes were ever repeated. (3) I engineered an AI legal case management system using NotebookLM, Python and AWS, carrying 5 years history and resulting in a £50K arbitration settlement.

Use of Partner Relationships.

I have a long history of managing significant budgets and vendor relationships to deliver successful business outcomes. I interact comfortably with IT directors, developers and the industry channels (complementary vendors, distributors, resellers, system integrators, ISVs and their key staff). (1) I recruited 17 of Red Hats first 21 UK Advanced Partners. (2) at Computacenter, I managed a £50m strong long tail of software vendor relationships with 4 staff, agreeing

commercial terms and ensuring that overall profit and service objectives were delivered every quarter without surprises.

Expertise

Certifications: Databricks Fundamentals (2025). Databricks Generative AI Fundamentals (2025). ITIL V4 Foundation (2025). Microsoft AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals (2022). Microsoft DA-100 Data Analytics Associate with PowerBI (2021-2025). Previously held: Amazon AWS Certified Business Professional. Google “Making Sense of Data”. Passed MongoDB “MongoDB for Python Developers” and “MongoDB for DBAs” 7-week online training, both with distinction. Red Hat Certified Salesperson for Platform, Middleware, Virtualisation and Storage, VMware VSP, Citrix CCSP.

Courses: Institute of Leadership “Leading at Jisc” Institute Approved Programme completion in November 2022. Selling to the CxO (Citrix Elite Sales Training). Leadership and Followership (Sandhurst). Pricing for Profit (Winkler including how to increase profits during a price war, later applied!).

Consultancy Projects, Blewbury, Oxon. AI related Consultancy work for local businesses. April 2025 to date.
Jisc, Milton Park, Oxon. Head of Analytics & Data Projects, Group CTO. December 2022 (6 month overlap running two teams, latterly 3 teams) to March 2025.
Jisc, Harwell, Oxon. Head of Finance Systems & Projects, Group CTO. April 2018 to May 2023.
Software Enabled Services, Goring. Oxon. Owner/Director, Business Improvement Projects. December-2012–March 2018  
Computacenter, Reading. Enterprise Business Improvement & Analytics, Internal Sales. August 2011-November 2012  
Computacenter, Reading, Category Manager, Virtualisation, Open Source & SW Renewals. February 2009-August 2011
Computacenter, Reading. Director, Merchandising & Operations, Software Business Unit. January 2006-February 2009 

I have previous employment with senior positions at BT Global Services, Demon Internet, IT Distributor Metrologie UK Ltd and a wide variety of software technical and managerial roles (culminating as UK Software Business Group Manager, responsible for $120M revenue managing 3 teams, 25 people) at minicomputer manufacturer Digital Equipment (DEC).

Recent Reading

Reshuffle (Choudary). Zero to One (Thiel). The Data Storytellers Handbook (Greenbrook).Unbundling the Enterprise (Fishman/McLarty). Working Backwards (Bryar/Carr: Amazon 14 Principles). Good Services (Downe: Designing services that work). The Value Flywheel Effect (Anderson/McCann/O’Reilly: ideas developed at

Netflix & Amazon). 10x is easier than 2x (Sullivan/Hardy: achieving more by focusing on less). Driving Data Quality with Data Contracts (Jones). Supplemented by intake from Substack, Medium and a variety of audio podcasts.