Stephen Parker
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
London, United Kingdom
Toptal member since September 30, 2019
Stephen is a pragmatic, systematic program/IT director and senior project/program manager with20+ years of experience utilizing risk management, transformations, and operational governance across diverse industries. He has displayed resilient adaptability throughout his career, which has enabled him to understand, develop, and drive company culture. Stephen's experience can also provide value interim CTO/COO capabilities.
Project Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Programme Director
Merkur Sportwetten GmbH
- Set up a €10 million programme of work with three employees in financial control, five project managers, and 12 workstreams, covering three core companies.
- Helped re-structure business, roles, responsibilities, and processes as part of the transformation.
- Co-ordinated, presented, and steered for C-suite and sponsors across the group of companies to ensure alignment of direction, scope, timelines, and budget.
- Coached internal project managers on project management principles, practices, and the journey of the programme to help them get the most out of their delivery teams.
- Recommended delivery workflow improvements. Redesigned strategic prioritization workflows.
- Contributed, reviewed, and participated in approvals for decision requests before presentation to the board for final approval.
Program Manager
SG Digital (Sports)
- Created the security program and strategic roadmap to reduce risk in their digital estate.
- Acquired budget approval of business cases to deliver the program.
- Worked with six products across five development regions to ensure security is deployed across their software development lifecycles.
- Held regular steering meetings with CISO, COO, CIO, and multiple SVP's to recommend strategic direction for the program.
- Collaborated with multiple product directors to ensure security program is ingrained into product roadmaps to meet security's own milestones.
Senior Project Manager/Program Manager
Johnson Matthey Plc
- Oversaw cybersecurity and infrastructure improvement for around 1,000 corporate applications worldwide.
- Headed workstream investment valued at over £5 million.
- Managed six core team members during discovery, anticipated to grow significantly into delivery.
Program Director
Bede Gaming
- Led $30 million digital transformation for the fourth-largest lottery in the world.
- Created and managed a PMO of eight people, managing a top four digital consultancy service provider.
- Oversaw seven development workstreams and three operational workstreams.
- Directed the program's scope and quality to meet aggressive timelines.
- Held full accountability for program budgetary management and effective escalation of all issues.
- Delivered a mobile-first platform incorporating compliance, security, and software development.
- Incorporated marketing, CRM/ERP, payments, infrastructure, migration, and transition in/out activity.
- Added Sportsbook capability to brand's product offering.
Technology Consultant
Tesco Plc
- Drove Agile product transformation across all functions and channels within Tesco.
- Successfully led a technical workstream within a major Tesco Agile product transformation initiative.
- Aligned company strategy and drivers through redefining product, program, and portfolio service models.
- Embedded a new suite of tools enabling greater transparency, decision-making, and workstream efficiency.
- Utilized Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to roll out to 400+ Tesco staff, managing £200 million of investment.
Senior Project and Portfolio Manager
First Rate Exchange Services
- Led the successful management and oversight of a major £1+ million financial services program.
- Successfully led the discovery phase of a fraud transformation initiative for a financial services company.
- Drove RFI and RFP, selecting appropriate vendors to deliver an enhanced fraud solution for the business.
- Transformed fraud screening identification by 80% and reduced fraud decision-making time by over 80%.
- Reduced chargeback costs by 50% and ensured risk and AML considerations were built into requirements.
- Established and governed FRES’ online retail change portfolio, delivering £2+ million incremental annual benefit.
Program Manager
Entain Group
- Oversaw £7.5 million marketing operation programs, merging brands into one single operation.
- Designed team and governance structures rapidly and ran discovery and delivery program phases.
- Audited Ladbrokes and Gala Coral marketing operations, creating a detailed list of delivery requirements.
- Produced requirements using AHA integrated with Atlassian suite, with a combined benefit of £8+ million in Y1.
- Delivered real-time communication effectively across multiple channels for 1 million customers in 5 minutes.
- Produced a single view of the customer in real-time by using Salesforce Sales and Marketing Clouds.
- Established a new CRM conversion team in the Philippines, saving £500,000+ in annual resource overhead.
- Projected a further £2.5+ million uplift over five years through more targeted campaign conversion capabilities.
- Re-deployed Google Analytics using certified partner, redesigning the tagging framework across all brands.
- Delivered a total of 40% performance improvement successfully across the web and mobile deployments.
Project Manager
Bede Gaming Ltd
- Transformed Bede’s portfolio operations using SAFe methodologies to scale delivery.
- Headed full program and project leadership remit, including planning, scope, budgeting, and implementation.
- Implemented SAFe methodologies to scale delivery and meet Bede Gaming Ltd’s needs doubled.
- Supported the chief technology officer in devising a portfolio of cross-functional development teams.
Cutover Manager
Bede Gaming Ltd
- Managed all aspects of program leadership and delivery, engaging with senior stakeholders.
- Focused on migrating a gambling operator’s digital business from OpenBet to Bede’s Hub Platform.
- Aligned over 50+ suppliers across six countries to deliver migration within an 18-hour period on a single day.
- Delivered £8+ million program transitions to BAU and arranged immediate post-migration hyper care period.
- Managed multiple workstreams, including data security, CRM, mobile applications, payments, and wallets.
- Played an instrumental role in delivering a multi-stream (MS) project plan to effectively coordinate and lead the cutover.
Project Manager
Sophos Plc
- Successfully enabled a recently-acquired company to use Sophos’ operating model.
- Managed a £5+ million budget and 30 staff across five Agile teams to deliver a next-generation firewall product.
- Built business case for areas of approved change, enhancing existing utilization of Salesforce CRM.
- Migrated 600,000+ in partner and customer data with licensing, processing, subscription, and asset information.
- Delivered £1+ million program to advance big machines, IBM, and Salesforce eCommerce EDI deployment.
- Equipped business to handle a doubling of B2B partner payment transactions over a 3-year period.
eCommerce Manager
Aldi Retail Stores UK
- Led analytical team recommending eCommerce platforms and system integrator partnerships to ALDI UK.
- Engaged with platforms including SAP, Hybris, IBM WebSphere, Oracle Commerce, and Demandware.
- Proposed business model to be used as a template for deployment in each European country after that.
Project and IT Director
Concep Group Ltd
- Managed the client-facing, internal IT, and product development projects with a £2+ million annual budget.
- Led end-to-end project lifecycle for clients including Trader Media Group, Miller Chevalier, and Clifford Chance.
- Recommended, held accountability for, and successfully delivered ISO27001 in 2013 and again in 2014.
- Spearheaded the migration of 200+ B2B client data (200+ million total records) to an upgraded eCRM system.
- Led product integrations to Salesforce and Sugar CRM, LexisNexis Integration, Dynamics, and SalesLogix.
- Increased sales conversion of £1 million in Y1, a pioneering transformation of delivery from Waterfall to Agile methodology.
- Reconfigured software development team and release methods using continuous integration principles.
- Delivered improvements in quality and overall staff productivity and contributed to the revenue, bottom line.
Project Manager
Concep Group Ltd
- Integrated an email marketing system with multiple CRM systems and analytics packages.
- Worked with both onshore and offshore development teams and targeted the professional services industry.
- Managed teams of developers and testers to deliver new custom SaaS products for professional service, legal, and financial service firms.
Project Manager
QED Technology Ltd
- Project-managed the development of new eCommerce, warehouse management, and customer service administration system with a budget of £1 million.
- Managed a team of both full-time and contractors to develop the new platform.
- Implemented stakeholder management across multiple functions to build a fully integrated digital suite of services.
Credit and Debt Solutions Manager
GE Money
- Focused on dealing with customer inquiries and chasing overdue customer payments by telephone.
- Trained and developed new staff members in understanding how to de-personalize oneself from the conversation and how to turn a negative conversation into a positive one.
- Assisted customers with an alternative solution to help manage their debt.
Technical Director
Orbinternet Ltd
- Coordinated extensively with key clients to identify and develop websites and eCommerce sites per client requirements.
- Worked with clients, including the government, the NHS, rugby league, and global electronic firms.
- Offered domain name, hosting, and services on top of custom website services.
Project History
Securing iSports
Provided strategic guidance on producing a program of work for security as part of a newly focused investment.
The work was to advise the CISO, COO, CIO, and SVP's on the right approach to deliver the program across their verticals.
Understanding the audience, the need, and the product suite to create suitable governance and delivery structure required skilled collaboration with nearly every function within the organization.
This was not only a program manager but to steer product teams in understanding the importance of security in the day to day responsibilities. My role was also to educate security on the impact of these initiatives and the resources they will require to support the effort once deployed (BAU).
Digital Transformation
Responsible for a $30+ million technology migration for the operator of the fourth-largest lottery in the world.
Rapidly created an 8-strong PMO team, utilizing a range of Deloitte, Deloitte Digital, and Bede Gaming staff.
Delivery of a mobile-first platform incorporating compliance, security, and software development.
Equipped platform to also incorporate marketing, infrastructure, migration, and transition in and out activities
Utilized MS Dynamics, Adobe Experience, and Campaign Manager with Bede’s microservices platform.
Held full accountability for program budgetary management and effective escalation of all issues.
Cyber Security and Infrastructure Improvement Program
Successfully manage a £5 million program to remediate over 500 systems to be more secure, supportable, and productive.
The strategy is to discover and analyze in-scope systems from an infrastructure improvement and cyber-security perspective, prioritizing systems for remediation, building teams to deliver the remediation, and ensuring the correct support model is applied to maintain the system securely and efficiently in the future.
Strategy to Execution Transparency
Deliver a framework for a large retail company to trace benefits realized from programs executing on product strategies.
Successfully led a technical workstream within a major Tesco Agile product transformation initiative.
Aligned company strategy and drivers through redefining product, program, and portfolio service models.
Embedded a new suite of tools enabling greater transparency, decision-making, and workstream efficiency.
Utilized Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to roll out to 400+ Tesco staff, managing £200 million of investment.
Fraud and AML
Successfully drive an RFP for the largest supplier of foreign exchange currency in the UK.
Drove RFI and RFP, selecting appropriate vendors to deliver an enhanced fraud solution for the business.
Transformed fraud screening identification by 80% and reduced fraud decision-making time by over 80%.
Reduced chargeback costs by 50% and ensured risk and AML considerations were built into requirements.
Digital Marketing Merger
Responsible for £7.5 million marketing operation programs, merging brands into one single operation.
Audited Ladbrokes and Gala Coral marketing operations, creating a detailed list of delivery requirements.
Produced requirements using AHA integrated with Atlassian suite, with the combined benefit of £8+ million in Y1.
Effectively delivered real-time communication across multiple channels for 1 million customers in 5 minutes.
Produced a single view of the customer in real-time by using Salesforce Sales and Marketing Clouds.
Established a new CRM Conversion team in the Philippines, saving £500,000+ in annual resource overhead.
Projected a further £2.5+ million uplift over five years through more targeted campaign conversion capabilities.
Re-deployed Google Analytics using a certified partner, redesigning the tagging framework across all brands.
Successfully delivered a total of 40% performance improvement across the web and mobile deployments.
Agile 4.0
Deliver an upgraded Agile delivery framework, utilizing SAFe, for a rapidly growing technology company.
Full program and project leadership remit, including planning, scope, budgeting, and implementation.
Implemented SAFe methodologies to scale delivery and meet Bede Gaming Ltd’s needs doubled.
Supported the chief technology officer in devising a portfolio of cross-functional development teams.
Cutover Project Manager
Responsible for all aspects of program leadership and delivery, engaging with senior stakeholders.
Aligned over 50+ suppliers across six countries to deliver migration within an 18-hour period on a single day.
Delivered £8+ million program transitions to BAU and arranged immediate post-migration hyper care period.
Managed multiple workstreams, including data security, CRM, mobile applications, payments, and wallets.
Instrumental role in delivering multi-stream MS project plan to effectively coordinate and lead the cutover.
Merger Project Manager
Managed a £5 million project successfully enabling a recently-acquired company to use parent company's operating model.
Built business case for areas of approved change, enhancing existing utilization of Salesforce CRM.
Migrated 600,000+ in partner and customer data with licensing, processing, subscription, and asset information.
Delivered £1+ million program to advance big machines, IBM, and Salesforce eCommerce EDI deployment.
Equipped business to better handle a doubling of B2B partner payment transactions over a 3-year period.
eCommerce Platform
Led a small team in analyzing and recommending tools and partners for a retail business to begin an online operation.
Engaged with platforms including SAP, Hybris, IBM WebSphere, Oracle Commerce, and Demandware. Proposed business model to be used as a template for deployment in each European country after that.
CRM Integration
Responsible for a program of work integrating an email application with multiple CRM systems.
• Salesforce CRM
• LexisNexis InterAction
• SalesLogix
• SugarCRM
• MS Dynamics CRM
Managed the subsequent testing and rollout to clients.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Information Systems with Management Studies
University of Leeds - United Kingdom
Certifications
CMI Member
Chartered Management Institute
Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) - Practitioner
Mavern Training Ltd
PRINCE2 Practitioner
Firebrand Training Ltd
Skills
Tools
Salesforce, Microsoft Project, Jira, Confluence, Slack, Visio, Trello, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, TFS, SugarCRM, Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), AWS ELB, SAP Hybris, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, SQL
Paradigms
Agile, Agile Workflow, Change Management, Scrum, Kanban, PRINCE2
Industry Expertise
Software, Retail & Wholesale, Call Centers
Platforms
SharePoint, Azure, Adobe Marketing Cloud, SafeCharge
Other
Projects, Technical Program Management, Strategic Planning & Execution, IT Strategy, Strategic Initiatives, Technical Project Management, Integration, Stakeholder Management, Project Management, Digital Project Management, Roadmunk, Outlook, Technology Consulting, Project Delivery, iGaming, Program Management, Agile Program Management, Project Discovery, Project Rescue, Aha!, Roadmaps, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), CRM Systems, Managed Service Providers (MSP), PMO, Project Management Office (PMO), Strategy, Director, Risk Management, E-commerce Project Management, Vendor Selection, Request for Information (RFI), Waterfall Methodology, Vendor Management, Request for Proposal (RFP), Product Management, Director of Product, SAP, Product Delivery, Product Roadmaps, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Mattermost, Salesforce Sales Cloud, CPQ, Direct Pay, Brightcove, Business Analysis, Financials, Enterprise SaaS, SaaS Product Management, Leadership, Training, eCommerce, Domains & Hosting, SaaS
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