Brahm Lategan
Verified Expert in Engineering
SCADA Developer
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Toptal member since March 17, 2023
Brahm is a highly-skilled automation controls engineer with electrical systems bias expertise. With 20 years in engineering and 14 years in sales and commerce, he is a domain expert skilled in mission-critical automation and IIoT. He successfully drives strategy, influences stakeholders, and delivers solutions across diverse sectors, including energy, buildings, healthcare, manufacturing, R&D, and data centers. Brahm is an adept team builder, mentor, and respected thought leader.
Portfolio
Experience
- Electrical Engineering - 20 years
- Integration - 20 years
- PLC - 20 years
- Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA) - 20 years
- Energy Monitoring - 15 years
- Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) - 15 years
- Power Management Systems - 15 years
- Energy Management - 15 years
Preferred Environment
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA), Power Management Systems, Energy Monitoring, Electrical Engineering, Architecture, Energy Management, Renewable Energy
The most amazing...
...project I've been instrumental in was testing breathable buildings through active damper controls and automation with BSRIA physicists and engineers.
Work Experience
Solution Architect
Schneider Electric
- Acted as a key influencer, technical go-to person, and trusted advisor for senior management and engineers in a global real-estate organization.
- Masterminded a dynamic pilot platform for collecting energy data from a high-end, high-profile commercial property portfolio in the City of London, enabling real-time scope 3 calculations and reporting with improved ESG performance for investors.
- Created and implemented innovative solutions to support corporate strategic objectives, strengthen revenue opportunities, and drive growth.
- Worked as a lead architect in deploying edge control software to an offsite hosted infrastructure on Azure.
- Set standards, created internal technical and deployment documentation, served as a technical lead on proof-of-concept and production deployments, and trained delivery engineers.
- Gained extensive experience in the design of high-availability critical control systems for data centers, hospitals, and national infrastructure.
- Acted as a go-to subject matter expert for energy and power management systems, forging strong relationships with key decision-makers as a trusted consultant.
- Developed a pipeline as a trusted customer consultant and subject matter expert for key strategic accounts, fostering positive relationships to enhance loyalty and retention.
- Supported the account management team in securing a £12 million revenue target.
Manager and Senior Project Engineer
E-TEC Power Management
- Acted as a project manager and lead engineer and worked on installing and upgrading supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), E&PMS, and tenant/rack billing systems across five co-location data centers.
- Worked as a solution architect in upgrading a tenant billing system on critical infrastructure, including monitoring and alarming 11kV protection relays and generators, all displayed on dynamic mimic diagrams for a hyperscale data center.
- Managed estimation processes, prepared accurate bid packages, and reviewed technical documentation and contracts for new tenders of up to £1 million.
- Mentored junior engineers and new hires to improve staff competency and efficiency.
Director
Energy Automation
- Started an electrical contracting, control panel manufacturing, and engineering service company from self-investment in buildings and industrial automation markets with a peak turnover of £2 million.
- Acted as a director and hands-on engineer in a small integrator business, specializing in energy management, power management, BMS, SCADA, and HMI applications in commercial buildings, universities, pharma, hospitals, and data centers.
- Worked as a vendor for an R&D organization, BSRIA, most notably on a breathable building research project, engineering services, and developing integrations between CFD software and operational technology (OT) hardware and software.
- Oversaw general management of the overall business, budget planning, accounting functions, purchasing, payroll, team of employees, subcontractors, and project contracts.
Industrial Automation Engineer
PJF Electrical
- Oversaw the technical design and software implementation on Rockwell, Allen Bradley, Schneider PLC, HMI, and SCADA systems.
- Provided introduction to project management and financial control.
- Oversaw the site sub-contractors and managed apprentice engineers.
Experience
2023: Retrofit Energy Management System for Large NHS Campus Hospital
Schneider Power Monitoring Expert was deployed as the EMS software whereby system users can interrogate their energy usage, create reports, validate energy KPIs, and benchmark.
2022: Remote Monitoring of Electrical Utility Substations for Swedish Grid Operator
A remote operating center was developed and deployed with Schneider Power Operation SCADA software and Azure. The remote operating center allowed engineers to view and action any issues via the remote SCADA.
2021: Mission-critical Power Management System for global Data Centre operator
2017: Design and Deployment of a Multisite Energy Management System for a Large Swedish Retailer
I supported the organizations' corporate and social responsibility (C&SR) and energy and sustainability (ESS) reporting and targets. Central data collection software was deployed on an offsite hosted infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform, with site-to-site VPN connections to approximately 30 sites, gathering data from various electrical, water, thermal energy, and gas metering systems along with local weather stations and footfall metrics from third-party tech companies.
Education
HNC in Requirements for Electrical Installations (BS7671)
West Hertfordshire College - Watford, UK
Engineer's Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Pretoria Technikon - Pretoria, South Africa
National Vocational Qualification Level 4 in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Russell Road College - Gqeberha, South Africa
Certifications
Ignition SCADA
Inductive Automation University
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Certification Exam 70-461
Udemy
Janitza GRIDVIS Energy Management System
Janitza
StruxureWare Power SCADA Operation
Schneider Electric
StruxureWare Power Monitoring Expert
Schneider Electric
OSS Systems Engineering Course
Open Systems Solutions
UNITRONICS Systems Engineering
i4 Automation
PLC Engineering Principles
SCANTIME
Modicon PLC Training
Schneider Electric
L3 Testing and Inspecting of Electrical Installations
City and Guilds
Skills
Tools
MQTT, Ignition SCADA
Languages
Structured Text (STX), Python
Platforms
Director
Storage
SQL Server 2012
Industry Expertise
Project Management
Other
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA), PLC, Modbus Protocol, Electrical Engineering, Energy Monitoring, Power Management Systems, Integration, Industrial IT, SCADA, Meter-Bus (M-bus), Energy Management, Smart Meters, Safety, RS485, Solution Architecture, Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, DNP3, Zigbee, Electronics Engineering, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Sensors & Actuators, BACnet, Building Management Systems (BMS), OPC, Ladder Logic, Instruction & Coaching, Charts, Ladder Diagrams, IEC 61131, Industrial Safety, Human-machine Interface (HMI), Battery Management Systems, Electric Vehicles, SaaS, Energy Storage, Renewable Energy, Microgrids, P&L Management, Electrical Design
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