Derek is a management consultant, programme director and project manager with fifteen years experience gained in the telecommunications, financial services, and manufacturing sectors. He specialises in the successful delivery of large-scale programmes of business and technological change, with particular emphasis on achieving real business benefits. He has worked in many roles including winning consulting business, managing client relationships, and developing staff.

Recent work has included:

• Bid Manager then Programme Manager for the Mobilisation phase of a programme to renew all billing and provisioning systems for one of the UK mobile phone operators. Derek worked closely with the client Programme Director to define the scope, organisation and plan, to mobilise an integrated team, and to engage key stakeholders.
• Lead Consultant for the introduction of a projects governance regime for a UK cable operator. Derek helped define and implement a governance regime which enabled the client Managing Director to rationalise and manage a £100m portfolio of labour-intensive capital projects.
• Programme Manager for the development and deployment of the new organisation, processes, and systems required to rollout broadband (cable modem and ADSL) and other new products and services for to the business market, for one of the UK’s leading communications providers. He led a team of 150+ client, consultant, contractor, and supplier staff that delivered all phases of this complex programme on-time and on-budget. Scope included a new national customer contact centre, and processes and systems for sales, service provisioning, customer care, and billing.
• Programme Manager for the Mobilisation phase of the launch of Virgin Mobile Australia. Working closely with the Managing Director and his core team, and leading a group of consultants from the UK and Australia, Derek led activities to define the technical architecture, define the business processes, select and engage with key vendors, and plan the implementation programme.
• Programme Manager responsible for all technology for the launch of Virgin Mobile UK. He built and led the 100+ strong team from Virgin, KPMG Consulting, contractors, and key suppliers, and delivered all information technology and telephony systems in just five months. Scope included systems and applications for customer management, billing, supply chain and financial management, online sales and service, and interfaces to the network and operational systems of One2One, Virgin’s network partner.

In insurance Derek has:

Worked for the UK’s largest firm of loss adjusters, supplying loss adjusting and claims management services to the insurance industry and to major corporate and local government clients. In this he

• Managed operational systems and infrastructure for 90 UK sites and 1000 users. Introduced controls to ensure business continuity. Introduced programme of pragmatic enhancement and upgrade to extend useful application lifetimes. Reduced maintenance costs 30%.
• Developed a pan-European motor claim handling service for a leading US-based insurer offering fleet cover to large multinationals.
• Developed and piloted a system for mobile insurance claim handling using pen-based hand-held PCs and GSM data-communications