Avinash Daryanani
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Lisbon, Portugal
Toptal member since November 3, 2022
Avinash is a project manager and a delivery and operations leader with 10+ years of top-tier, worldwide management consulting experience. He has deployed end-to-end IT-enabled business transformation across the financial services, broadcast media, consumer goods, and pharmaceutical industries. A certified PRINCE2 practitioner and a CIPS associated member, Avinash excels in project planning, stakeholder and team management, business analysis, and change management and implementation.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Project Management
- Communication
- Presentations
- Program Management
- Project Delivery
- Risk Management
- Stakeholder Management
- Team Management
Work Experience
Delivery Manager
Elsewhen
- Worked as a delivery manager for three delivery teams working on one of Elsewhen's leading advertising clients, providing addressable TV advertising.
- Managed one Kanban R&D project into Agile delivery and launched into the UK; managed another project from conception to MVP and went live in seven markets; ran another support team that delivered downstream reporting.
- Managed 15 developers across three different scrum ceremonies run concurrently.
Delivery Lead
Deloitte
- Acted as a delivery lead and Scrum master in a program launching an eCommerce VAT services platform for online marketplace sellers to VAT register with UK and EU tax authorities.
- Managed two Scrum teams of eight to twelve members, spearheading Agile ceremonies, improving international collaboration, supporting testing, deployments, and operations, and planning with the leadership.
- Launched the VAT registration part of the portal within three months, allowing Amazon marketplace sellers to register for eight countries. Also deployed the filing feature to submit monthly submissions transactions to tax authorities.
Scrum Master and Assistant Product Manager
Deloitte
- Led Deloitte's Surveillance Grid proposition, a suite of apps to help financial institutions monitor compliance risk, such as insider trading, influencing the product vision, roadmap, and client opportunities.
- Delivered a market-competing market abuse app for a mid-tier investment management firm, managing a team of four developers and an onshore support team, being a proactive client liaison. It loaded and processed global market price movements daily.
- Developed a reference guide on Agile methodologies and principles with best practices for creating or enhancing apps within the suite for a more consistent approach to future product development.
Implementation Project Manager
Lloyds Banking Group
- Joined a strategic program delivering a new corporate banking and international payments platform with an investment of £300 million over four years.
- Managed a central team of four professionals, implementing two out of four major releases to launch two payment types and coordinating activities across twelve workstreams using a mix of Waterfall and Agile methodologies.
- Designed a joined-up implementation plan and produced a 1,500 schedule of events.
- Created and ran dress rehearsals to emulate the implementation day, ran the command and control center during deployments, and managed the completion of bank-compliant documentation.
Project Manager
TSB Bank
- Joined the BETA team for the acquisition of TSB by Banco Sabadell to grow their presence in the UK. Our team's objective was to ensure the target platform was ready to support customer journeys across channels after migration.
- Defined and managed the approach and the project plan across 13 functions, facilitating testing as a scrum master for products such as current accounts and credit cards.
- Worked with stakeholders across the payments, treasury, finance, and financial crime teams. Also acted as a liaison to Spanish IT teams, facilitating discussions and resolving blockers.
Operations Director
Boiler Room
- Assumed a newly formed role reporting to the CEO of this startup, a leading online music broadcaster with an archive of 4,000+ performances spanning 150 cities.
- Professionalized the workplace and shaped operations by managing five global hubs, operating as chief of staff, chairing committees, and managing recruitment. Increased headcount by 25%.
- Operated as an interim product manager, reducing the bounce rate from 60% to 10%.
- Restructured the commercial team's operating model, increasing revenue from £4.5 million to £6 million.
- Sourced a physical space and launched the New York office from the ground up, hiring a team of 12.
Executive Advisor
KPMG UK
- Worked on IT-led business projects as part of the sourcing capability group.
- Acted as a program manager for a global pharmaceutical to secure IT infrastructure services for 70 countries through a major RFP exercise with 15 vendor participants. It awarded a contract worth £200 million, achieving savings of 20%.
- Managed a manufacturing initiative for a global brewing company with a £1.5 million budget and a team of 30 across four workstreams—IT, finance, logistics, and manufacturing. Delivered tax savings in alcohol excise duties with a 6-month break-even.
- Spearheaded an RFP for network services for another global brewing company. Liaised with ten vendor participants and awarded a 3-year contract worth $10 million.
Senior Consultant
Deloitte
- Joined the consulting graduate program first in the technology integration practice, then moved to the operations team.
- Led a client account for the Royal Mail Group as part of a 3-year procurement program. Delivered Europe's first SAP Electronic e-sourcing solution for 50+ category managers, which saved £330 million and received an eGovernment national award.
- Managed the remediation of the enterprise directory, LDAP, for Barclays UK, overseeing a team of 20 elements.
- Acted as an analyst for a European telecommunications B2B provider moving their manual ordering process to an online platform available in 12 European languages. Liaised with sales representatives to gather requirements and manage testing procedures.
Project History
eCommerce VAT Services
Helped launch a new service to support online marketplaces, such as Amazon, meeting the new VAT regulatory requirements by enabling their sellers to register and file for VAT.
Surveillance Grid
https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/risk/solutions/surveillance-grid.htmlLaunched a low-cost, scalable monitoring solution for the Deloitte Risk team's clients to help financial institutions detect anomalies and potential incidents of misconduct.
Boiler Room's Fifth Anniversary Global Broadcast
https://www.vice.com/en/article/53e3xd/get-ready-for-boiler-rooms-globetrotting-5th-birthday-partyBroadcasted a continuous 24 hours event of live music and DJs in Tokyo, Berlin, London, New York, and Los Angeles, including an advertising campaign and exclusive merchandise.
SAP E-Sourcing for the Royal Mail Group
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240083631/Royal-Mail-aims-to-save-300m-with-SAPImplemented the first instance of SAP E-Sourcing in Europe for UK's national postal service, helping them achieve over £300 million in savings in three years as part of a broader procurement initiative.
Education
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science
University of Warwick - Coventry, United Kingdom
Certifications
PRINCE2 Practitioner Certification
AXELOS
CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)
Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management
itSMF
Skills
Tools
Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, Jira, GitLab, Miro, Confluence, Slack, Apple Keynote, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Word
Paradigms
Agile Project Management, Azure DevOps, User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
Platforms
SharePoint
Other
Stakeholder Management, Presentations, Team Management, Project Management, Project Delivery, Communication, Financial Modeling, Program Management, RFPs, RFQs, ITTs, Responses, Proposals & Quotes, Vendor Management, Risk Management, Technology Consulting, Project Budget Management, Client Management, Interviewing, IT Project Management, Technical Project Management, User Stories, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Resource Management, Waterfall Methodology, Trade Finance, Operations, Java, Procurement, Contract Drafting, Negotiation, Manufacturing, Accounting, Bookkeeping, Profit & Loss (P&L), IT Service Management (ITSM), Core Banking Systems, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Video on Demand (VOD), Broadcasting, Teams, Microsoft Teams, SAP, Notion
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