Alan Rofe
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Chester, United Kingdom
Toptal member since October 13, 2022
Alan is a dynamic and delivery-focused professional with over 20 years of experience delivering complex projects to maximize business value, meet regulatory demands and increase operational efficiencies. His collaborative approach to engaging with business representatives aims to understand essential business requirements, translating them into robust solutions. Alan's expertise in Agile, waterfall, Scrum, and Kanban methodologies results in successful program delivery and benefits realization.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Delivery
- Cloud Infrastructure
- IT Program Management
- IT Project Management
- Jira
- Project Management
- Technical Project Management
- Waterfall Methodology
Work Experience
Program Manager
Handelsbanken
- Directed all aspects of program leadership and delivery, effectively interfacing with the business, engaging with third-party stakeholders, managing vendors, and leading infrastructure and software development teams.
- Ensured program management and delivery, including program planning, scope, budgets, and risks.
- Reported program progress to the wealth management chief operating officer (COO). Chaired steering meetings with directors, departmental heads, and C-level colleagues. Delivered key business application re-platforming with minimal business impacts.
- Migrated a complex data processing system with multiple external interfaces, including critical price and holdings information.
- Delivered the upgrade and re-platform of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Led the external consultancy resources and internal team to deliver migration within four months with no business impact.
- Managed email and calendar cloud migration, including Microsoft 365 upgrade and SharePoint data migration.
Program Manager
HSBC UK
- Managed all aspects of program leadership and delivery, effectively interfacing with the business, engaging with third-party stakeholders, managing vendors, and leading infrastructure and software development teams.
- Ensured program management and delivery, including program planning, scope, budgets, and risks.
- Completed the separation of payment flows in HSBC across Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS, STEP2, TARGET2, and FX payment schemes enabling the processing of thousands of payments a day through the new ring-fenced UK bank.
- Delivered a mandated regulatory project to enable the HSBC wealth team to contact the exchange marketplace fully. Led the rapid cloud migration to a vendor-hosted digital web-based system.
- Chaired meetings with C-level colleagues. Defined and executed business cases, maintaining financial control for a series of initiatives. Recruited, assembled, and led teams of project managers and business analysts, emphasizing career progression.
- Realized operational efficiencies of 100% and enabled over 200% increase in customer case workload. Delivered target operating model (TOM) change in payment processing operations through in-depth analysis and change management.
Program Manager
Barclays Bank UK PLC
- Directed program leadership and delivery, providing business and technical leadership for major enterprise cloud adoption and transforming programs within Barclays, delivering change and innovation.
- Realized annual maintenance savings of £2 million and software rationalization savings of £10 million via the deployment of the IBM License Metric tool to gather accurate license data and define requirements for software licensing.
- Worked closely with business representatives to understand detailed requirements and plan migrations. Identified growth requirements and rationalization opportunities, engaging with senior stakeholders.
- Spearheaded the delivery of a key program to deploy new applications onto the cloud infrastructure. Promoted adoption of cloud technologies, transitioning to rapid deployment and agile development.
- Embedded Agile project methodology into IT application, engineering, and third-party vendor teams.
Program Manager
The Royal Bank of Scotland
- Managed a large-scale change initiative across the investment banking division of the RBS, migrating a portfolio of over 100 business applications, including equity FO and trading systems, from the legacy ABN infrastructure onto new RBS platforms.
- Directed all aspects of program leadership, overseeing all elements of network project streams within the RBS insurance division divestment, with Direct Line Group (DLG) being established as a separate group.
- Delivered significant server virtualization, covering VMware, storage area network (SAN), and networking. Led the request for proposal (RFP) process across multiple suppliers.
- Drove a major £30 million resilience program, providing mobility to users by allowing remote desktop access.
- Reported to business and IT senior stakeholders on issues and risk management, budgets, and resourcing. Resolved a major stakeholder conflict to ensure successful delivery.
- Led the development of standard designs, infrastructure delivery, and legacy decommissioning. Achieved success in installing over 5,000 virtual desktops, replacing legacy solutions with Citrix.
- Provided effective leadership to large teams of technical architects, engineers, and project managers. Spearheaded the wide area network (WAN) migration of 50 remote sites.
Project Manager
Lloyds Banking Group
- Acted as a program manager in the roll-out of a £22 million business change program for credit operations, integrating the bank's collections and recoveries activities onto a single platform.
- Developed key relationships in a challenging stakeholder and supplier environment. Collaborated with stakeholders to ensure robust testing and migrations plans for business readiness.
- Managed testing and deployment schedules within multiple test environments across workstreams. Led an urgent infrastructure upgrade and process automation program to provide new servers.
- Enabled outsourcing and offshoring multiple business processes for over 300 staff via infrastructure implementation.
- Completed the Windows NT4 legacy eradication program, covering deployment for 1,600 clients and 200 servers. Relocated multiple banking and telephony systems, desktops, and servers following company divergence.
Project Manager
Henderson Global Investors
- Installed core Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SMS, and DFS systems, delivered a Windows XP desktop refresh, and migrated the end-to-end business data storage to Windows, eliminating legacy infrastructure. Completed desktop and Office upgrades.
- Led the RFP process, engaging and negotiating with multiple 3rd-party providers to ensure maximum value. Created and maintained plans for an infrastructure project, presenting the project approach to the board.
- Managed a large group of resources across desktop, server, and project support teams. Headed risk and issue management and reported to management regarding progress.
- Collaborated with business representatives to ensure key deliverables met business requirements. Ensured the program was delivered on time and within budget, providing technical consultancy as required.
Assistant Vice President
Merrill
- Delivered market data systems into Merrill's new headquarters. Ensured smooth migration of four thousand banking users into the new building, including critical trading systems such as Reuters dealing system, Bloomberg, ILX, and Topic Trader.
- Led the management of and negotiation with all third-party market data and WAN vendors. Tracked and controlled the £3 million budget for the infrastructure implementation.
- Managed the deployment of new software delivery and desktop management system to support every Windows XP desktop in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Project History
Bank Payment Processing Project
Completed the separation of payment flows within a major UK bank across Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS, STEP2, TARGET2, and FX payment schemes enabling the processing of thousands of payments daily.
As a product manager, outlining planned training, pilot, and roll-out, and securing the ongoing buy-in, I recruited, assembled, and led teams of project managers and business analysts. Furthermore, I regularly chaired meetings with directors, departmental heads, and C-level colleagues.
Data Hub Migration Project
Migrated a complex data processing system with multiple external interfaces, including critical price and holdings information.
My responsibilities included reporting the program's progress to the wealth management COO and chairing steering meetings with directors, departmental heads, and C-level colleagues.
CRM Migration Project
Finalized the upgrade and re-platform of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 customer relationship management (CRM) system.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering
University of Bristol - Bristol, UK
Skills
Tools
Financial Data, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft Visio, Office 365, Microsoft Project, SQL, Jira
Paradigms
Requirements Analysis, Agile, Agile Project Management, Implementation Project Management, Waterfall Delivery, Kanban, Agile Software Development, Agile Delivery
Platforms
Connectivity Platforms, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Linux, Unix, SharePoint, Citrix
Industry Expertise
Banking & Finance
Other
Project Management, IT Project Management, IT Program Management, IT Infrastructure, Waterfall Methodology, Microsoft, System Migration, Vendor Management, Data Migration, Project Timelines, Risk Analysis, Scope Management, Complex Program Management, Integration, Divestment, Budget Controls, Technical Project Management, Discovery Workshops, Technical Program Management, Technical Requirements, Enterprise, Enterprise Systems, Trading Applications, Project Discovery, Scope of Work (SOW), Scope, Business Process Analysis, Business Processes, Staffing, Risk Assessment, Communication, Cost Analysis, Cost-benefit Analysis, Project Rescue, Project Reporting, Project Planning, Risk Management, Program Management, Status Updates, Process Improvement, IT Projects, Functional Requirements, Software Project Management, Estimations, Project Estimation, Technical Project Monitoring, Remote Team Leadership, Remote Work, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), Budget Management, Risk, Projects, Cloud, Project Tracking, Business Transformation Project Management, Business Process Flow Diagrams, Process Flow Design, Requirements, Business Requirements, Discovery, Regulatory Analysis, Web & Mobile Applications, Trading Systems, Platforms, Budgeting, System Requirements, Implementation, System Implementation, System Integration, Cost Estimation, Estimation & Planning, Effort Estimation, Project Scheduling, Web Applications, Applications, Executive Presentations, Resource Management, Process Mapping, Stakeholder Engagement, Planning, Dashboards, Progress Reporting, Reports, Web Project Management, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Consulting, Reporting, Tracking, Migration, Impact Assessment, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Stakeholder Management, Governance, Agile Program Management, Hybrid Project Management, Project Scoping, Documentation, Scheduling, Work Breakdown Structure, Business & Digital Transformation, Process Flows, Team Management, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office, Cloud Infrastructure, CRM Systems, Financials, Vendor Selection, Project Budget Management, Process Improvement Project Management, Roadmaps, Data Feeds, APIs, Product Management, Fintech, Process Optimization, Best Practices, Training, Analysis, Presentations, Technical Reports, Virtualization, WAN, Trading, Payment Processing, Business Logic, Private Banking
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