Welcome to my Online CV
Introduction
I am a seasoned Product Consultant with over 30 years of experience in IT, including diverse roles and responsibilities. Beginning my career as an apprentice programmer in South Africa, I developed my technical expertise for the first 12 years before transitioning into people-focused roles. These included business analysis, product ownership, product management, and product delivery. This experience enables me to bridge technical and business perspectives effectively, driving impactful outcomes.
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My strongest skill is uniting diverse teams around a shared goal + vision, aligning varying (sometimes opposing) agendas, and delivering products that not only drive business value but also inspire pride among stakeholders. I like to create teams that have focus, are motivated and respect each other.
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I find it incredibly important to keep up with technology and keep myself relevant. I learnt about Gen AI and Prompt Engineering between Jun-Nov 2024. I then tested my knowledge with a Gen AI project where I led a team to deliver a Gen AI powered travel app. I did the prompt engineering and database design to test out my skills.
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I further studied Snowflake between Nov 2024 and now understand the full cycle of obtaining data and building data lakes that can be used together with Gen AI. I obtained 5 Snowflake badges which were part of the Snowflake Core Certification.
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Psychological safety and mental health within teams are important to me. Not because they're trendy, but because I've seen how much better people perform when they are in psychologically safe teams and are feeling good in life. For this reason I have developed and delivered psychological safety workshops within my company, as well as mental health presentations that I delivered during monthly business updates.
I love my job, but am looking for an opportunity due to recent sets of redundancies (three in the last 18 months) that were made at my company.
My Professional Timeline
90's - Worked as an apprentice programmer for the South-African government
2000's - South Africa - Nedbank. Worked mainly as a COBOL analyst programmer. Yes, I helped fix Y2K bugs
2004 - 2006 - Worked as a business change analyst for Standard Bank South Africa
2006 - Moved from South Africa to Northern-Ireland
2006 - 2012 - Analyst Programmer (COBOL mainframe) at Allstate Northern Ireland
2009-2012 - Part time study, Diploma in Higher Education in Counselling with distinction
2012 - Moved to Dublin, worked for AMT-Sybex as a Business Analyst
2016 - 2018 Product Manager on email security product
2016 - Part time - Founded and established Django Girls Belfast, an international charity that introduces women to coding. www.djangogirls.org/belfast
2018 - Moved to England. Worked as a Systems Analyst for Equiniti
2020-2021 - Product Manager at Access UK
2021 - 2022 - Product Owner at Caredocs
Now (last 2.7 years) - Product Consultant at AND Digital
From Mainframe to Cloud
Product Consultant
And Digital
Hybrid
Since Jun 2022
Avios - an AND Digital client
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Led the delivery of a new Reward Platform that served the booking of flights using Avios
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Co-ordinated delivery across 5 development teams, 2 were external
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Aligned development deliverables across all team
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Co-facilitated planning workshops in Spain, Athens and Amsterdam
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Established comms channels and milestone delivery plans across multiple teams
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Managed and mitigated risks / dependencies
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Managed NDC Integration between 4 new systems
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Co-ordinated the delivery of weekly releases
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Mentored and coached business analysts and product owners
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Ran Agile ceremonies like Planning, Sprint Reviews and Retros
British Airways - an AND Digital client
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Business Analyst and Product Owner in a digital transformation project for the health care systems of British Airways.
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15 health care applications were replaced by one vendor selected platform
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Led product delivery and business analysis.
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Conducted on-site workshops to elicit requirements, build relationships with stakeholders and ensure alignment with business goals.
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Implemented Agile ways of working within 2 development teams which improved team productivity, motivation and delivery.
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Mentored and coached business analysts and Scrum Master.
AND Internal - Gen AI project
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Led a Gen AI project which delivers a travel app that calls an LLM to return personalised holiday suggestions as if they were researched by a travel expert
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Solely responsible for engineering, refactoring and refining the prompt
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Did POC & MVP definitions, roadmapping, prioritisation, planning and ran refinement sessions
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Created user personas with data dictionary definitions
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Delivered all of the user stories, acceptance criteria, wireframes and test cases for both the POC and MVP
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Mentored and coached junior product consultants​​
Technologies/Methodologies
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Miro, Figma, Office 365, Jira, Confluence, Visual Code, JSON, XML, Postman, Snowflake, SQL, github / Agile, Waterfall
Jul 2012 - May 2015
​Asset Management (physical assets)
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On site consulting (Network Rail, UK)
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Requirements gathering, analysis and design
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Functional and technical specifications
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Data analysis and mapping
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Supported developers and testers
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Designed and produced test plans
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Performed integration/UAT Testing
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Built Perl scripts for automatic code release
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Technologies/Methodologies
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SQL, PL-SQL, Perl Scripting, Web Services, SOAP, XML, COBOL, CICS, Unix, Oracle, FileZilla, Beyond Compare, Visio, Powerpoint, MS-Office, Sharepoint, Remedy (homegrown), Agile-fall, QMS ISO 9001
Product Owner CareDocs
Remote
Jun 2021 - Apr 2022
Health and Social Care​
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Worked closely with Head of Development to deliver an MVP for a Point of Care mobile app
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Implemented Agile Scrum in the Development team to create focus, motivation and continuous delivery
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Did planning and prioritisation of Product and Sprint backlogs
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Led refinement sessions
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Produced and managed Roadmap and Jobs to be Done (JTBD)
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Did requirements gathering through feature workshops and wrote detailed user stories with acceptance criteria according to DORs
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Coached Development team in Agile ways of working.
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Technologies/Methodologies
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Oracle, Adobe XP, Aha!, Invision, Office 365, Jira, Confluence / Agile, Waterfall
Product Manager Access UK
Brighton
Feb 2020 - Jun 2021
Health and Social Care​
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Transformed a newly acquired care compliance product from being non-profitable characterised by high churn and low prospects into a successful, profitable offering. Implemented various increments, resulting in the doubling of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
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During the uncertainty of the Covid lockdown, due to resource constraints fulfilled roles of Product Manager, Development Manager, and Business Analyst
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Technologies/Methodologies
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JSON, XML, Visual Studio, Adobe XP, Aha!, Office 365, Jira, Confluence, Postman, Agile
Systems Analyst
Equiniti
Worthing
Jun 2018 - Jan 2020
​Pensions and Life
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Was part of a cross-functional team that built a new Pension Platform where customers could merge their Pension pots and manage their Pension savings, including managing their Investment portfolio
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Was responsible for producing technical design documentation and API blueprints for Developers
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Actively participated in Daily Scrum and bi-weekly planning sessions
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Agile hybrid
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Supported Development and Test teams
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Technologies/Methodologies
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JSON, Apiary, Postman, Mongo, SQL, Visio, Balsamiq, VSTS, Markdown, Jira, Sharepont, Microsoft Office suite, Agile hybrid.
Product Manager, Proofpoint, Belfast
Jun 2016 - Feb 2018
​Email security
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Through customer feedback, analytics software and interviews with stakeholders, produced road map with priority backlog
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Data-driven approach including fact finding for meetings with senior management
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Elicited and produced clear and concise requirements for cross-functional project team
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Daily standups and regular progress meetings to remove all blockers to keep team focused and motivated
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Managed Product and Scrum backlogs
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Managed customer relationships and expectations through regular communication including release comms with user guides
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Trained marketing, account management and support teams before big feature releases
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Created knowledge base product documentation and articles (using MindTouch)
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Worked on the Professional Services team to get deeper understanding of latest product acquisition (customers and technology). Gained deep knowledge of DMARC, DKIM, SPF
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Technologies/Methodolgies
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​SMTP, DMARC, SPF, DKIM, PHP, Perl, VMware, API design/testing using Postman, Linux, SQL, Microsoft Office Suite, Keynote (Mac), Salesforce, Atlantissin Confluence and Jira, Agile.
Data Analyst
SR Labs
Belfast
Jun 2015 - Apr 2016
​Bloomberg - monitoring and reporting
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Converted SQL data into customer reports containing Bloomberg usage information
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Developed screens/reports/dashboards using Looker
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Wrote online help and documentation used by BI tool​
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Technologies / Methodologies
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SQL, Excel, Looker, Microsoft Office / Waterfall
Business Analyst
AMT-Sybex
Dublin
Analyst Programmer
Allstate NI
Derry
Jul 2006 - Jun 2012
​Car Insurance
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Determined feasibility of changes/new development requested by business and estimated cost + duration
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Delivered functional and technical specifications
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Developed and changed COBOL/CICS/DB2 software applications
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Managed databases in Oracle and SQL
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Mentored junior members of the team
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Technologies/Methodologies
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COBOL, CICS, DB2, JCL, TSO, ISPF, VSAM, FileAid, Spufi, Easytrieve, OS/390. AS400, Oracle, VB6, SQL, Visio, Powerpoint, MS-Office, Sharepoint, Agile, CMMI, SOX (Sarbanes Oxley) compliance
Business Analyst and Programmer
Standard Bank
Johannesburg, SA
Jun 2002 - Jun 2006
Banking - Credit Cards
Worked on the CPS (Credit card Processing System) firstly as a developer using COBOL/CICS/DB2 and later transferred to the role of business analyst.
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As a programmer - analysed and implemented changes to the Credit Card Processing system. Standby duties
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As a business analyst - Was responsible for writing functional specifications and test plans, mainly for a large integration project where all of the credit card types would work on all of the Standard Bank systems. Was also responsible for integration testing - testing of issuing credit cards and using them on IBM ATM machines and overseas merchants
IT Contractor
Nedbank Johannesburg, SA
May 1998 - May 2002
​Banking - Swift/Forex
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Development of Personal Banker's Platform using COBOL/CICS, DB2, JCL, VB6, ASP, HTML.
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Standby duties on Swift/Forex mainframe batch programs
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Y2K conversion of online and batch mainframe COBOL programs for SWIFT banking applications
Academic
Institutional Training
1989
Matric, South Africa
Equivalent to A-levels
June 1990 - February 1991
Certificate - Entry Level Programming
Apprentice programming course as part of a scheme run by the South-African government to train and recruit programmers, subject to passing aptitude tests.
2009 - 2012
Diploma in HIgher Education in Counselling
Mid-life crisis qualification. Helped me understand peoples' behaviour better. It still baffles me.
IT Related Training
2024
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Prompt Engineering
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Generative AI
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Snowflake (obtained 5 badges, working towards official accreditation)
2022
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Got PSM1 certified (to prove that I can do Agile)
2017
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Proofpoint accredited email security administrator
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Proofpoint accredited email fraud defence administrator
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DMARC, DKIM and SPF
2015
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Python through Pycon Ireland
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Django through founding Django Girls and teaching women how to code
2014
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Perl programming
2013
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HTML
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CSS
2005
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Presentation skills
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PROSCI Change Management
2002
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VSAM Fundamentals
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CICS Application Design
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CICS Command Level Programming
2000
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Visual Basic 6
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ASP
1995
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Instructor's course. I did this while I was working at the South-African government as a computer programming trainer (using COBOL!)
Django Girls
2016 - Started this charity chapter in Belfast to teach women how to code
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May our paths cross