Profileimage by Rodger Howard vCIO (Virtuelle CIO), Interm Manager, IT Strategie Consulting, Digitale Transformation from Sangerhausen

Rodger Howard

available

Last update: 06.09.2022

IT Strategy Consulting, Digital Transformation, Interim Management

Graduation: BCS, MBA
Hourly-/Daily rates: show
Languages: German (Full Professional) | English (Full Professional)

Attachments

Rodger Howard IT Director CV - 2021.pdf
Rodger Howard IT-Leiter Lebenslauf - 2021.pdf

Skills

  • IT Organization Development
  • IT strategies, operations, policies, procedures
  • Data center, infrastructure service planning and provisioning
  • IT budget planning, forecasting
  • IT supply chain and external service provider management
  • Infrastructure planning and development management
  • IT Service & Requirement Management
  • Agile Project Management
  • Recruit, develop, inspire employees

Project history

03/2020 - 10/2020
Head of Corporate IT
Tipico Technology Services GmbH (Other, 500-1000 employees)

Lead the Corporate IT department and be responsible for performance and availability of all technologies including hardware, software & services remotely or from any of 10+ office locations in Europe, North & Central America. Accountable for data center & hosting services at 2 data center locations as well as corporate cloud services in Azure. Manage a team of 22 IT Service Desk, Systems and Network Engineers delivering infrastructure support and services to employees and contractors across all organizational and business unit lines. Manage procurement and delivery of contracts with external providers. Plan and deliver transformational projects driving improvements in corporate collaboration and communication tools, productivity, and compliance.

  • Budget responsibility >€2.8M OPEX + €640K CAPEX
  • Optimized Azure resource costs reducing monthly spend down from € 21k down to €13k
  • Enabled smooth transition to work-at-home environments in response to COVID-19 by upgrading the video conferencing solution, setup up a backup VPN for redundancy purposes, and rolled out virtual Windows Desktops for those without suitable equipment at home.
  • Developed IT performance scorecard framework including a draft IT Financial KPI
  • Delivered seven- (7) mini-projects including Microsoft Intune MDM, CMDB based on Device42, and a Proof of Concept project to implement 802.1x Network Access Control based on PacketFence.
  • Successfully concluded ISO-27001 annual audit review

07/2018 - 01/2020
Director IT Central Europe
Tunstall GmbH (Pharmaceuticals and medical technology, 50-250 employees)

Develop, communicate and implement stable IT strategies for Central Europe by delivering leadership for the design, implementation, and optimization of global IT platforms. Deploy SaaS recurring revenue model by initiating in-flight business transformation projects. Establish a productive network of professional relationships with colleagues across the Tunstall Group of companies in the UK, Sweden, Spain as well as staff members across the Central Europe Territory in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands to achieve targets and produce exceptional results. Plan and implement ITILv3 based Implement IT service request management (ITSM) tools and practices using Atlassian JIRA and Confluence.  Migrate on-premise analog PBX with Hosted Skype for business and upgrade production VMware private cloud in twin geo-resilient flagship data centers.

  • Modernized Agile IT project management processes through JIRA software for task and workload management /issue tracking system and Smartsheet online project management tool.
  • Steered transformation to manage services by on-boarding >12 alarm response centers onto a private cloud SaaS solution, while harmonizing regional IT strategy with global IT strategy.
  • Directed IT organizational planning and recruitment tactics for a planned headcount of 12 – 15 FTEs across BE, DE, and NL modifying structures and processes to continually improve delivery results.
  • Spearheaded end-to-end management of technical aspects to on-board 12 emergency response centers into the multi-tenanted platforms enabling €20K per month in recurring revenue.
  • Strategized and optimized IT spend in support of modernization of office technologies, introducing more modern ways of working in conjunction with the finance department.
  • Supervised ITIL v3 based IT service management, incident/problem management, escalation/crisis response management, and program/project management for revenue-generating platforms.

07/2016 - 03/2018
Head of IT
Learnship Networks (Other, 50-250 employees)

Oversaw disciplinary and professional management of approx. The 15-member team located in Cologne and ensured the availability of web platforms as well as associated hybrid cloud Infrastructures. Headed IT operations including Agile/SCRUM-based development, DevOps automation, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), and a full stack of infrastructure services. Executed hybrid cloud strategy combining managed hosting, colocation services, and various public cloud services. Deployed and migrated new Microsoft environment including Active Directory domains, Exchange 2016.

  • Tailored hybrid cloud strategy as an overlay to data center and colocation services infrastructure.
  • Streamlined remote office IT infrastructures in France and Germany as well as evaluated IT suppliers with special attention to network, telecommunications, and data center services providers.
  • Managed projects in software development to ensure internal and external IT support and launched centralized Sophos anti-virus and anti-malware security solutions.

04/2014 - 06/2016
Head of IT
Jago AG (Consumer goods and retail, 250-500 employees)

Coached, mentored, and led 30+ personnel distributed throughout three continents. Conducted recruitments to successfully direct business and technical IT strategy for a global infrastructure and operations, overseeing all planning, feasibility studies, budgeting, strategy, and execution of a portfolio of mission-critical IT clients. Applied core functions crucial to business stability, including 2-tier backup and recovery solutions, secured VPN, SIEM, and end-point and client systems management. Coordinated resource and capacity planning while driving measures to improve costs, efficiency, and utilization. Modernized internal IT operations with the latest industry standards, including ITIL v3, scaled Agile framework (SAFe), and SCRUM.

  • Changed business IT strategy for best-in-class business and technical infrastructures, leveraging the latest in open-source software to build a business-domain-driven service-oriented architecture.
  • Managed €1.2M capital spend budget with operational budget run rate averaging €190K monthly.
  • Provided €600,000 in new monthly business by launching new revenue-generating IT solutions such as product listing, product feed management, and webs shop solutions.
  • Operated at less than 4% of net revenue by maintaining tight control over IT function finances.
  • Altered business infrastructures using free and commercial open source software (FOSS/ COSS) for single sign-on and IAM, groupware, IT service, and project management/helpdesk.

02/2010 - 03/2014
Technology Relationship Manager
Johnson Controls (Other, >10.000 employees)

Developed productive relationships with global clients and provided strategic leadership and guidance to streamline operations for regional and global clients. Executed workplace technology solutions, IT best practices, standards, and policies. Deployed new solutions for business management and enhanced account penetration while leading technology planning and development. Determined and fulfilled business requirements for IT initiatives and establish project plans. Monitored budget and finance activities, including cross-charge, charge-backs, and commercial pricing. Directed the activities of diverse distributed teams, including internal and external technology service delivery teams involved in client engagements.  Addressed and resolved escalated stakeholder issues.

  • Fostered adoption of process standardization and best practices for expense projects under $100,000.
  • Improved process efficiencies and technology for over 2,500 activities valued at over $10.1 million in revenue.
  • Saved over $7.6 million in the capital and a further OPEX reduction of an estimated 5% through more efficient space utilization on a per-person-housed basis.
  • Deployed the pilot of Workplace Motion, an infrared presence detection system for office space utilization reporting.
  • Overhauled team activities for 12 tactical space and occupancy planners servicing 6.1 million rentable square feet of office space in 89 countries.

06/2008 - 04/2009
Head of IT
Der Schmuckkanal Deutschland GmbH (Consumer goods and retail, 10-50 employees)

Orchestrated IT operations for teleshopping business unit, including project management, outsourced services, off-shore development, and application support/maintenance, and website enhancements. Coordinated technical support, administration of IT infrastructure and drove planning, budgetary controls, vendor selection, financial forecasting.

  • Improved utilization of IT systems by 30% while boosting system availability from 95% to 99.5%.
  • Directed off-shore / outsourced development teams, reducing application deployment costs by over €275,000.
  • Produced an e-commerce strategy that created 34% growth in sales via a 67% increase in site traffic conversion rates.
  • Reduced operational budget by 40% through cost avoidance, tighter financial controls resource management.
  • Provided business requirements, project prioritization, leadership/planning support for diverse technology projects in C#, .NET /.ASPX, Python, Sitecore CMS, Brainstorm eStudio, Windows Services / XML, Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, etc.

10/2007 - 03/2008
Director IT Infrastructure
Sprd.net AG SPREADSHIRT (Consumer goods and retail, 50-250 employees)

Chosen to command selection/implementation of IT strategies in IT infrastructure operations and services. Supported top-performing teams of administrators charged with e-commerce systems and internal applications. Managed Open Source IT infrastructure - Linux / Apache / MySQL, etc.

  • Implemented Akamai Web Accelerator services for global content delivery of e-commerce platforms.
  • Developed comprehensive IT budget; Directed major improvements in IT operational performance enabling a reduced staffing plan, improved network and connectivity, created capacity planning processes based on enhanced management metrics.
  • Provided primary oversight to the technical infrastructure and planning of a new corporate headquarter facility including LAN/WAN design, enterprise storage, backup, and disaster recovery architectures.
  • Provided primary IT oversight to the relocation planning of 220 staff members

 


Local Availability

Open to travel worldwide
In-country up to 75%, internationally based on requirements.

Other

IT is highly strategic, intensely operational, hard to staff, and extremely expensive. With cloud, mobility, consumerization, and big data, the IT paradox is not disappearing; it is growing stronger. To navigate those challenges, IT leaders must be business-savvy, agile strategists possessing a practical working knowledge of the key technologies necessary to define and implement modern digital eco-systems. With more than 25 years of experience in IT for mid-sized, large, and complex companies, I have proven myself to be one of those versatile global IT leaders – combining a broad-based business and technology understanding with cross-functional enterprise domain expertise to form the hybrid approaches needed for any IT-fuelled business to grow in the modern market.

Whatever you are challenged with I assure you I have solved it before.
Profileimage by Rodger Howard vCIO (Virtuelle CIO), Interm Manager, IT Strategie Consulting, Digitale Transformation from Sangerhausen IT Strategy Consulting, Digital Transformation, Interim Management
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