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Adelaide based IT Leader
The less common blend of an uber-geek technologist, who actually likes people, with sprinkle of business acumen.
I love to deep dive into technical discussions and complex solutions, yet I am equally happy talking about new business opportunities, marketing strategies, growth Ideas or commercials. An Agile evangelist and change agent to my core, but ultimately pragmatic. I have learnt 'what works' and 'what outcomes' are important.
2017 - PRESENT
The CIO, CTO yearsReckon, okke, Cashflow-Manager.
EduCo Global
Australian Institution of Business
2011 - 2017
Head of/DirectorTotemic/Paylink/PayPlan
EMIS Health Group
TransUnion/Call Credit
Enserve/Spice plc
2008 - 2011
Change Agent and ArchitectBJSS
Carlsberg Finance
2006- 2010
Freelance Consultantweirsweb
Five Mile Design
1998- 2006
Developer/ProgrammerManheim Car Group
Halifax / Bank of Scotland
William Hill Sports Betting
1995- 1998
Student life VagabondBSc (Hons) Business Information Technology
Higher National Diploma, Mathematics
Key skills and experience
Strategy
Clear goals, objectives, principles, timeframe and tactics relating to best use of technologies for a Business within market conditions.
Technical Leadership
Guide, motivate, and empower professionals toward shared goals, leading by example and informed communication style. Bable fish between Exec and IT.
Architecture
Information technology specifications, models and guidelines, proposed to solve real-world problems using TOGAF, Zachman, Safe Frameworks.
Integration
Enabling the flow of data between disparate systems and applications, that are performant, maintainable and robust.
Change Transformation
Proposing a business change, communicating it well, —and then doing whatever it takes to ensure that improvement permeates everything the company does.
Cyber Security
Protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital and social engineering threats:- unauthorized information disclosure, disruption, misdirection, and data theft.
Data Analytics
Consolidating and analyzing raw data, to provide reports, trends AND key insights. Computational analysis of statistics that provides meaningful and actionable interpretation.
Vendor Management
Control costs, drive service excellence, smooth communication flow and mitigate risks to maximize ROI from vendors, providers and partnerships.
What is this site?
Aside from stoking my own ego, this website primarily serves as my playground to explore new ideas and interesting tech [Interesting to me].
My featured item of the moment is my Infographic, which represents a visual outline of my professional career. Intended to be more creative and less formal than a CV or Linked In Profile.
If anyone’s actually reading this, I’ll be surprised - but that’s fine, because this website is predominantly my personal technical playground.
It's called Weirsweb :- because my family name is weir and I used to build websites, hence Weir's Web[sites].
I have had this domain for over 20 years, during which time both the design and purpose of the website have changed considerably. These days I keep the domain foremost because it is my primary email address. This has allowed me to let go of those embarrassing 90s emails we all created.
Tech: The website is just a very basic Google sites, because I already pay for google business suite. This removes any maintenance headaches that I used to have hosting a dedicated WordPress site, and is much easier to edit.
This also includes a bunch of SEO, backups, version control, analytics and optimization for free, because Google favours Google Sites:- and Google Sites play nicely with other Google Services. I think I have pushed the limit of what you can actually do with such a Basic hosting set-up, and suits my needs right now.
Tech: The Infographic was designed as a static image about 10 years ago, and for a long time just lived as my background banner image on linkedIn. It was always a goal of mine to convert the static image into a more interactive, modern visual representation.
In 2024 I used some downtime to re-sharpen my HTML, CSS, Web and Javascript skills to focus on realising that goal. The current version uses Tailwind for the CSS framework, with clean HTML and SVG images. The animations and charts are primarily performed using D3 javascript (v7.9.0), plus a few native css flourishes using key-frames. The magic is hopefully in it presentation, not the technologies used. The entire file is ~350kb, which includes 90% of the images, since they are embed SVG's. CSS / JS are all in-page, and the few external libraries are all hosted on super-fast CDN services.
Key Certifications and Qualifications
A few career honorable mentions
A large part of my career journey has been launching innovative products into new markets, or tackling that challenge that I saw as an opportunity. In all cases I am proud to call each of them a 'key accomplishment', a few of which are listed below.
Credit Karma™
Implementation and launch of first-to-market Credit Karma™ free credit score direct to consumers. This required a full re-platform of existing data-bureau services onto new data technology stack to provide B2C Credit Ranking, Fraud Checks, AML, PFM, Demographic & Financial Product offerings, whilst at TransUnion.
Emis Health
As the IT Development Director at EMIS Health I delivered the two largest contracts in their history for NHS UK and Government 'Connecting for Health' mandate. This included a full gap analysis of features, migration from legacy system to EMIS-Web, re-architecture of core healthcare software, delivery of gap features and launch of a new dedicated mobile app and B2C platform patient.co.uk
Resulting in a full global rollout across UK, Emirates, Australia and New Zealand:- against a hard deadline. Chosen as a launch partner for Apples iOS8 HealthKit.
PayLink Solutions
As the CIO at Payplan (free debt advice and solution to the UK public), we carved out a new business offering as part of a wider system uplift and re-platform of existing financial and core banking systems. Through re-packaging, white-labeling, adding a mobile offering and enhancement of the Payplan software, I was able to launch PayLink Solutions. This provided as a 3rd party service core-banking, collections, payment distribution, bill payment, Open Banking feeds, AML, PFM: I&E. used by PayPal, Santander, Tesco Bank, NatWest, Zopa, Virgin Money and Hitachi Finance.
Accelerate your study pathway
As CTO at EduCo group (wholly purchased by BPP Education Group in 2024), this extended beyond being the CTO across it Universities (Southern Cross, CIC, Acsenda, Arbutus) but also included the launch of the Accelerate Digital Platform. A full student acquisition, enrolment and onboarding platform, doubly tasked with driving internal economies of scale, but also launched as commercial stand-alone business providing student acquisition and BPO services to 300+ other universities across the globe. Inception to Launch in <6months making extensive use of Low-Code platforms and AI/ML logic to evaluate student suitability. This significantly reduced operational costs, and streamlined Student Payments, Escrow deposit, Commission Payments, Accept/Reject/Substitute applications, advance course searching, academic profiling and course recommendation based on a course to student match.
Successful offshore/nearshore models
I have consistently implemented offshore and nearshore staff augmentation models that work. As a consultant at BJSS we consistently delivered projects via the Leeds based IT team to BlueChip and Marquee clients based within the London Square mile. As an early adopter of Agile (DSDM certified in 2001, Scrum in 2002) this framework coupled with improved communication focus, I have has successfully delivered projects from Poland, India, Ukraine, Indonesia, and Philippines. These tactics eventually recognized as Enterprise Agile or Scaled Agile Framework, have helped reset the perception that offshore models don't work. I have had the pleasure of establishing new teams from scratch and augmentation small and large teams to provide a burst of capacity or technical paradigm shift. Identifying and setting the correct culture is key, and whilst cost saving is never a primary goal, it is almost always a welcomed outcome.
Cyber Security
I have successfully attained accreditation for PCI-DSS and FCA compliance (UK version of CFR) with Payplan, PayLink and CallCredit. In almost all roles I have held, it has been necessary to either secure or maintain ISO27001 certification, including the ISO27001:2022 uplift and underpinned by an effective Information Security Management Framework [ISMF]. My experience working with external bodies to ensure policy and procedure has extended into ISO9001, ISO14001 and OpenBanking standards.
Notable employers, partnerships and customers
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