CV

Services on offer
I offer 22 years business & IT experience to various organisations. I am able to work at a strategic level as well as a highly technical level. My focus is and has always been to enhance business growth through effective use of technology and people.
My current projects include:-
Business Risk Audit and report covering building/fire/flood/health&safety as well as IT systems.
Web hosting selection and web hosting design and security hardening
Ethical / applied hacking or penetration testing to find your weaknesses on the internet and help you to secure then through system hardening.
Firewall configuration (Netgear and ISA 2006 are the current flavours)
Network analysis and troubleshooting
Installation of FTP servers or Exchange 2000 / 2003 servers (evaluating 2007)
I have first hand experience of disaster recovery and saving companies form loss of reputation or business
I have training and expertise in outsource management and negotiation of contracts and services (SLA)
I have over 100 projects completed from £5000 to £40m programmes
I have worked as Operations director and have managed department budgets and teams up to 50 staff

I am flexible, friendly, enthusiastic and very positive about removing inefficiency, getting the job done and making your dreams / aspirations a reality.

I look forward to helping you, just give me a try I am sure you won't be disappointed. Most of my customers keep coming back for more.

Here is a reference from a happy customer.
“Very professional, very helpful, highly skilled, will be using again, a real asset to have on-board!”
Chris Kitchen, sql Associates Limited


Profile
A professional Business Risk, IT & Security Consultant with more than 20 years’ experience of Business/Technology Analysis & Delivery and Risk & Information Security Management, more than 18 years’ experience of Project Management, including P&L Budget Management and Contract Negotiation, more than 12 years’ Team Management, coaching and customer relationship building, and more than seven years’ experience of strategic governance and organisational change management. Excellent professional and technical expertise, communication skills and project management. Builds strong working relationships, willingly shares knowledge and motivates staff to reach their full potential.

Key Skills and Achievements

Professional/Technical Expertise
 Security audited and hardened two firewalls, ten Windows Server 2003 servers, configured ISA 2006 firewall and utilised network packet analysis to resolve the exchange services to the internet (Lazenby IT & Security Consultancy Limited)
 Audited the security risks for web hosted secure data storage provider to the insurance community. Provided detailed reports and consultancy on secure high availability hosting solutions. (Lazenby IT & Security Consultancy Limited)
 Provided initial and then quarterly risk management reports to meet SORP and international security standards on behalf of trustees. Completed penetration testing and network topology redesign to mitigate potential of hacking. (Open Doors)
 Following ethical hacking training utilised audit and hacking tools to perform penetration testing to ensure the security configuration of the firewalls, routers and servers met the standards required
 Identified 22 faults in configuration and incorrect configuration of database system built and installed by contractors immediately prior to employment. Worked alongside new manager to provide technical remedial knowledge, managed team of 20 staff over weekend to fix 300 machines and ensure robustness of system. Received highest annual bonus the company had given after three months of employment. (Thomas Cook)
 Documented the complete physical network and global systems to improve manageability and ensure internal and external security domains were completely known. Introduced distributed network sniffing and intrusion detection systems to monitor and alert on unusual traffic profiles (Thomas Cook)
 Designed redundant dual front and back firewall solutions for new foreign exchange system for UK, Canada and Australia and Hot standby disaster recovery installations. Utilised different firewall software on front and back firewalls providing DMZ area for external servers and secure controlled access from internal systems and no access from DMZ systems to internal environment. (Thomas Cook)
 Negotiated contract for 24x7 support of the firewall systems. (Thomas Cook)
 Introduced Rack Mounted Servers, managed archiving and remote tape storage services, tuned for rapid recovery of warm standby systems. (Legal & General)
 Servers, PCs, Applications, Management Systems: MS Windows Server NT 3.51 - 2003, MS Exchange 2000/2003, HP Compaq servers, Fibre Channel Connected SAN, HA/Clustering, Siebel Application Server, Siebel CRM Database Server, IBM SP2, Sybase 4.2-11, Arcserve, CA Unicenter, Sun NetManager, HP Openview.
 PC-based applications: MS Project 3.0 – 2003 ,MS Office Professional 97-2007, MS Visio v2-2003, Mind Manager X5-Pro 7, MS Windows 95-Vista.
 Network and Protocols: Cisco Routers, Distributed Sniffers, TCP/IP, IPX, SPX, DECNET, SNMP.
 Security: MS ISA 2006, NetGear Wireless Firewalls, Linux IPCop Firewall, Cisco Pix Firewall, Firewall 1 on NT, VPN 1, Krypto keys, cIPro VPN IP Sec/IKE, Nokia IP650, IP440 with Firewall 1 & VPN, ISO27000/1, Encryption, WEP, WPA. Nessus 3.0.

Project Management
 Introduced data mining reporting database and managed the implementation and alignment with strategic goals, the ability to rapidly identify trends within marketing campaigns and complete “what if” segmentation greatly enhanced the response and income generation potential. (Open Doors)
 Project managed the introduction of new telephony service utilising VOIP. (Open Doors)
 Project managed the upgrading of database system from requirements capture through tendering to implementation. (Open Doors)
 Introduced data protection legislation and procedures to meet this and BS7799 security standards. (Open Doors)
 Following major power outage, undertook responsibility for all IT-related areas of business recovery plan, managed teams from staff, suppliers and outsourced agencies to achieve 90% system functionality within three hours. One critical system not working within timescale, so identified alternative method of transferring funds of £0.5bn, thus avoiding penalty of £5m. Received gift and commendation from CEO (Thomas Cook)
 Undertook responsibility for infrastructure development project six months behind schedule, reviewed progress, identified issues and implemented solutions and completed project on time. (Legal & General)
 Designed, built and tested disaster recovery system. (Legal & General)
 Founder member of first network users group in Europe set up and managed limited company and VAT accounting. (UK Network Users Group)

Communication
 Played an enabling role in development of strategic goals, marketing campaigns and the delivery of these goals, coaching others in utilising technology while mitigating risks. (Open Doors)
 Negotiated renewals of insurance policies and utilities contracts, undertook total review of equipment insured, assigned to fixed assets, matched UK and worldwide assets risks and achieved 40% reduction in premium and increase in cover. (Open Doors)
 Managed disaster recovery plan of activity from home base due to home village and business being flooded. Directed teams remotely via mobile ‘phone, talked through IT issues relying on memory of technical aspects to enable resolution. Received commendation from CEO in recognition that no loss of business or major costs incurred due to action plan, personal expertise and teamwork. (Thomas Cook)

Training & Development
 Trained and motivated Supervisor and IT Support Analyst and encouraged to reach full potential as Heads of Department. (Open Doors)
 Introduced total training plan for upgraded database system over three-day period, implemented migration whilst staff underwent training. (Open Doors)
 Designed and negotiated holistic application training with external provider for 3000 user desktop roll-out project (Thomas Cook)
 Provided initiation and ongoing training of network topology, corporate & international standards and risk and security awareness to the graduate program (Thomas Cook)

Career
Jul 2007 – Present IT Security Consultant

Undertook variety of contracts including:
Firewall configuration for VPN, DMZ and Exchange server publishing, FTP server set-up security auditing and hardening of ten Windows Server 2003, Netgear and ISA 2006 firewalls including detailed packet analysis all completed remotely for sql Associates Limited
Security auditing and hosting design advice for web-based company (NDA)
Installed and configured new computer system, anti-virus and backup solution including data and application migration from existing system for David Cooke & Co Chartered Accountants
Project management of web-based community website and database system for Open Doors UK
Jan 2005 – Jun 2007 Operations Director Open Doors UK
Jun 2002 – Dec 2004 IT Manager
Joined initially on contract to bring IT under control then offered full-time role. Redesigned network and brought in ISO security compliance. Trained on IP VPN & QOS security tunnelling and ethical hacking gaining Certified Network Security Professional qualification. Given responsibility of supporter services department and promoted to Operations Director. Maintained control of IT department and hands-on IT knowledge, continued with risk management and security remit personally.
Jul 2000 – May 2002 IT & Training Consultant Freelance
Trained as Character Consultant, set up own company and facilitated learning experiences within schools, youth groups and businesses. Identified characteristics required for specific job roles and identified personal characteristics for development, enabled people to change.
1995 – 2000 Technology Consultant Thomas Cook Group Limited
Acting security manager through millennium period with direct report to board. Managed security design and third party 24x7 support contract. Trained in outsource management and assisted the renegotiation of services to establish a win-win service. Continued as IT DR Manager and successfully restored services after major incident. Managed all DR teams during Business DR Managers rest period.
1998 – 1999 Technical Manager
Managed team of technical analysts and project managers and became acting IT DR Manager
1995 – 1998 Technical Analyst / Project Manager
1986 – 1994 Managing Director UK Network Users Group Limited
Gave presentations on backup, risk and security management, sat on expert panel at Infosec in London
1989 – 1995 Technical Consultant L&G Investment Management Limited
Moved to share investment division and provided 1st & 2nd line support (including security) during day to front and back office teams then development of network, security and services out of hours. Instituted development, test and production environment and designed client server systems.
1985 – 1989 Network Controller L&G Assurance Society Limited
Originally, as PL1/DL1 programmer and application testing analyst before training in network security management and taking on the management of the new property development system including the security configuration of the system and application.

Technical/IT Skills
Prince Methodology; MS Project; Mind Manager; Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio

Education/Professional Qualifications
 2007 Chartered IT Professional (CITP) British Computer Society
 2006 Certified Network Security Professional (CNSP) Sec-1 Training
 1985 Honours Programming & Analysis Control Data Institute
 1983 HND Industrial Chemistry Huddersfield University
 2007 CISSP Boot Camp Training
 2006 Master Class Advanced Applied Hacking (CNSE)
 1985 – 2005 Applied Hacking (CNSL / CNSA), Fire Marshall, MS Exchange Server 2000/3, IP VPN & IP QoS, various technical courses, Health & Safety at Work
 MBCS, MISACA, MBCI (application submitted)

Employment History

Education