Renier’s Consultant CV

Renier Botha

 Mobile: 07546 113 717

 renier@renierbotha.com       http://uk.linkedin.com/in/renierbotha/    

Location: Hampshire

PROFILE

A successful, energetic and results-driven Business & Technology Management Consultant, bringing enthusiasm and vision to his clients delivering predictable performance and quality, driving business growth.

  • 20+ years of demonstrable hands-on and board level experience in leading technology organisations and large IT operations combined with complex change and digital transformation programmes across multiple international industries and market sectors in roles as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Information Officer (CIO), Managing Director (MD), IT Director, Programme Director, Non-Executive Director (NED) and Business & Technology Management Consultant.
  • Trusted advisorto C-Level Executives, Boards and Entrepreneurs in formulating strategies integrating technology innovation into mainstream business revenue channels, promoting continuous business improvement and business growth.
  • Supported organisations from FTSE 250 to Start-ups, in multiple regulated and non-regulated industries within financial services, healthcare, marketing, hospitality, travel, loyalty, technology and telecommunication.
  • An accomplished, innovative and critical thinking strategist able to translate client and business requirements into tangible, realistic roadmaps, programme deliverables, products and services.
  • Customer centric and confident with client, stakeholder and vendor management at all business levels.
  • People focussed, collaborative and transformational leader who managed cross-functional, diverse, multi-national onshore and offshore teams of up to 190 individuals in complex settings.
  • Commercially astute with a laser focus on financial governance managing budgets in excess of £40m.
  • Seasoned in information technology services and certified as Chartered IT Professional (CITP), directing technology companies and teams to deliver product development and IT service operations of the highest quality to technology end users in excess of 10,000.
  • Able to lead the design and execution of organisational change & business transformation programmes, developing and executing strategies to improve business value chain operations aligned with customer needs.

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
  • Delivering the Shawbrook Bank 2020 Central Functions portfolio forecasting a 10.1% budget saving.
  • Managed the £900k Customer Due Diligence (CDD) automation project in Shawbrook, implementing the TruNarrative SaaS platform to automate regulatory financial crime and customer due-diligence, enabling c67% time efficiency improvements.
  • Programme-managed the challenging £1.3m Ambit Enterprise upgrade (asset management system) across 14 business units, each with multiple product offerings, on time and under budget. The programme received board accolades as the best managed delivery in Shawbrook and initiated a second contract extension.
  • Established the InfoTech-Hub in Glasgow as a center of excellence (2018/19) and introduced new innovative ways of working to achieve c9% operational efficiency savings per annum.
  • Designed and Programme-directed the business transformation plan for Systems Powering Healthcare Ltd (SPHERE) that grew the business from Start-Up to established Medium Sized Enterprise in two years (2016-17) with revenue growth of 42% and an overall 700% increase in assets.
  • As trusted advisor to the CIO and COO of Regus, developed a technology innovation and business transformation driven IT transformation plan delivering an annual saving of £3.6m. This resulted in a contract extension to conclude the implementation within the 2014/15 financial year.
  • Directed the technology product development to deliver a functional first version customer loyalty system for Allegiant Airlines within 10 development weeks.
  • Designed and implemented a transformation strategy focused on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as the foundation of an IT centralisation initiative in Collinson Group, exceeded first-year (2012/13) £15m budget targets by 5%.
  • Introduced Software as a Service (SaaS) and Private Cloud technologies into Collinson Group. Managed the product transition development of the TLS (The Loyalty Solution) into a SaaS solution and led the technical business development initiatives (2008-12) to successfully win six business of six new loyalty-system clients.
  • Programme-managed the internal distributor setup projects that successfully established technical production and IT operations for CFS-International in eleven countries between 2001 and 2008.
  • Managed the product development of the CFS “Tracka” product that won the 2004 Industrial Innovation Award of the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa.
  • Led the development and international deployment of the CFS reporting platform that got acknowledged as Reporting Services pioneer for being the first in South Africa that commercially implemented the Microsoft SQL Reporting Services platform internationally. Microsoft used the project as a case study on road shows and published it in the 10.2004 Microsoft TechNet magazine.

EXPERIENCE / CAREER HISTORY

Dec 2019 – Present:  Head of Delivery and Innovation (Central Functions), Shawbrook Bank

 Shawbrook is a specialist savings and lending bank serving the needs of SMEs and individuals in the UK.

Objective: Lead the change portfolio delivery and associated support services for the bank’s central functions (covering Risk & Regulatory, Compliance, Finance, Human Resources, Procurement and IT Infrastructure teams) to achieve annual growth and service delivery targets.

Assignments & Achievements:

Enabled strategic and continuous change while taking technology ownership of applications and associated service delivery for the bank’s central functions. Directed the change teams responsible for delivering a £5.5m Central Functions strategic & continuous change portfolio.

  • Directing the delivery teams to deliver the 2020 Change Portfolio covering 16 programmes, projects & continuous change workstreams, forecasting a 10.1% saving against budget.
  • Built a highly skilled, customer focused and empowered core change team (ensuring key knowledge retention).
  • Negotiated commercial and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) while maintaining strong relations with vendors and flexible resource partners ensuring viable and specialist service delivery.
  • Established central function’s Change Portfolio Management Office (PMO) with skilled staff mentored to collate delivery and service metrics to produce automated real-time Management Information (MI) for proactive governance.
  • Coaching & Mentoring of technology and project management staff to achieve career objectives and business goals.

Aug 2018 – Sep 2019:  Management Consultant (Prog Director) (Contractor), Shawbrook Bank

Objective: Establish the Tech-Hub in Glasgow as a center of excellence while developing and introducing innovative new standards and agile driven governance to project and service delivery teams.

 Assignments & Achievements:

Engaged within the Business Finance division transforming the Asset Finance, Working Capital, Structured Finance and Development Finance technologies and IT operations. 
Responsible to govern and deliver a portfolio of programmes and projects. 

  • Defined and delivered the “Tech-Hub Maturity Transformation” Programme to establish the Infotech-Hub in Glasgow utilising a new Target Operating Model (TOM) that introduced innovative ways of working that achieved delivery targets c9% more efficiently. Support issue resolution reduced from 30+ days to less than 2 days.
  • Established the Business Finance PMO (Portfolio Management Office): Developed portfolio governance processes, templates and associated metrics, KPIs, tooling and real time management information (MI) to manage delivery with measurable improvements, setting new standards of data driven, commercially focussed delivery now widely adopted across the rest of the bank.
  • Directed the innovative initiative to create a Testing Capability for the bank, including the risk mitigating test strategy, automation framework and the associated Azure cloud development and test environments.Delivered the operating model and test-automation toolset proof of concept (POC), enabling continuous delivery (CD) reducing regression testing efforts by 95%.
  • Programme managed the challenging £1.3m Ambit Enterprise upgrade (asset management system) across 14 business units, each with multiple product offerings, on time and under budget. The programme received board accolades as the best managed delivery in Shawbrook.

May 2018 – Aug 2018:  Management Consultant (Contractor), Rainbird Technologies

 Rainbird is an AI-powered automated decision-making platform.

Objective: Define a bespoke agile delivery methodology to accommodate the niche AI platform and deliver two proof of concept projects implementing the Rainbird AI-powered decision-making platform.

Assignments & Achievements: 

  • Defined and established the Rainbird AI platform implementation process and introduced an Agile delivery approach using JIRA as the project governance toolset with custom workflows and issue types configured to accommodate the niche aspects of the AI platform.
  • Delivery of a POC implementation for PWC, spearheading rollout to 157 countries.
  • Implemented the Rainbird AI for the Grant Thornton, Tax and Advisory Services provider.

Jan 2018 – Jan 2019:  Non-Executive Director (NED), KAMOHA TECH

Technology Service Provider – building and design software while providing IT & Business support.

Objective: As NED, assist with corporate governance and product/service development (RPA – Robotic Process Automation and ITSM – IT Service Management) to establish the company as an independent IT Service Provider.

Dec 2015 – Nov 2017:  Managing Director & Head of Service, Systems Powering Healthcare

Systems Powering Healthcare (SPHERE) is an IT specialist organisation delivering core IT infrastructure and shared services to more than 10,000 healthcare workers in the NHS.

Objective: Stabilize the newly founded business with specific focus to move away from a cost-plus model to a commercial-service-catalogue model. Prepare and grow the business through onboarding of other healthcare clients.

Achievements:

  • Within the first 3 months, compiled a six-year strategic business plan with associated budget for SPHERE, with clear annual investment and service delivery milestones.
  • Directed a staff compliment of 75 resource in executing the plan and grew the business from a start-up to an established medium sized enterprise, achieving the third year’s targets at the end of the second financial year, increasing assets with 700%.
    • IT Infrastructure: Directed the planning and execution of a five-year IT estate refresh strategy, the associated transformation programme and business cases totaling £42M, covering seven core capabilities: IP Networks, Service Hosting, End User Computing, Unified Communications, Public Communication, Identity Management, Data & Service Protection.
    • IT Service Delivery: Developed and implemented a customer centric service orientated Target Operating Model (TOM) with Service-Now as the supporting Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) toolset, servicing more than 10,000 end-users. This digital transformation further increased business maturity while delivering a five-year £2.4m NPV saving and ROI of 493%.
  • Through M&A, business transformation, key ITSM improvement initiatives (as per strategy) and the onboarding of a 3rd NHS Trust, grew SPHERE’s Revenue by 42%. This growth delivered a shareholder investment ROI of 280% (82% IRR, £3.1m NPV) in 2017, which secures the path for an 1149% ROI (£12.6m NPV) over the six-year strategic plan. This new shared service solution saved the NHS c£3m per annum.
  • Defined “Cost per IT User” as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), demonstrating the value proposition of SPHERE’s IT services to its shareholders and clients. The strategic business plan delivered an 11% reduction in the Cost per IT User in 2016 and a further 13% reduction in 2017, exceeding the target KPI by 12%.
  • Developed the commercial Service Catalogue that was successfully used to win a tender bid to become an IT Service Provider to Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, worth £10m.
  • Delivered the c£7m per annum operational continuous change portfolio of 30+ Programmes and Projects.
  • Through promoting a commercially aware, customer centric and people focused business culture, built a high performing, involved and empowered team – resulting in staff (knowledge) retention increasing from 82% at the beginning of 2016 to 98% at the end of 2017.

May – Nov 2015:  Chief Executive Officer (Contractor), Amberlight

 Amberlight is an user experience (UX) research, design and engineering consultancy.

Objective: Develop a business transformation plan – pivoting the business model and repositioning the core business focus to enable new revenue opportunities.

Achievements: Worked closely with the owner, compiled a business plan for transforming the business model, to enable the realisation of his vision. This repositioned Amberlight’s core business focus and reduced liabilities by 12.5%.

Aug 2014 – Apr 2015:  Global Head of Systems and Professional Services (Contractor), Regus 

Regus is the world’s largest (FTSE 250) provider of flexible workspaces, offices and business lounges.

Objective: Direct the Regus IT Systems and Professional Services teams to deliver a portfolio of IT programmes and projects while ensuring high availability of operational IT systems through multi-disciplined IT service delivery and support.

 Achievements:

  • Directed the team of 105 multi-disciplined technologist delivering services in 25 countries.
  • Developed an IT Department transformation plan, which through efficient modelling of the technology requirements into a service delivery model accomplished an annual operational saving of £3.6m.
  • Programme managed Oracle Sales Cloud deployment (£7m) covering 32 Projects and workstreams,integrating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Customer Relations Management (CRM) solutions, replacing legacy systems to reduce technical debt.

 Oct 2013 – Jul 2014: Programme & Product Director (Contractor), Lola Tech & Cloud Troopers

Lola brings software to the global travel industry.

Objective: Direct the development of a commercially points driven loyalty engine integrated with the Allegiant Airline’s booking system, to drive continuous customer engagements and increase the effectiveness of existing and newly introduced revenue streams.

Achievements: Directed the technology product management and software development teams that successfully delivered the integrated customer loyalty system for Allegiant Airlines – $2.4m budget. A functional first version was delivered within 10 development weeks (5 sprints).

Jul 2008 – Oct 2013 : Group Technology Director (CIO), Collinson Group

Collinson Group is a global organisation that uses data, customer insight and marketing expertise for the benefit of its companies, clients and their customers. With four core divisions: International Membership & Travel Clubs, Loyalty Marketing Services, Insurance and Group R&D and Proprietary Products operating in 24 global locations.

Objective: Direct the technology development and service delivery in Collinson Group to deliver products and services that increase customer acquisition, optimisation and retention.

Achievements:

  • Developed and executed a transformation strategy, aligning IT operations and programme management with financial goals – establishing commercial awareness in the IT teams. This resulted in a first-year (2009) revenue improvement of £1.5m and an average 30% profit improvement, for three consecutive financial years.
  • To minimize effort duplication and reduce IT costs across the group – designed and implemented a transformation strategy focused on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as the foundation of IT centralization establishing Collinson Technology Services (CTS). With full P&L accountability achieved a £0.75M saving (2012-13 FY), exceeding the £15m budget by 5%.
  • By focusing on engaging and empowering people, achieved the highest staff retention rate of all companies within Collinson for three consecutive years.
  • Introduced Agile methodologies to the non-technology businesses improving stakeholder involvement, technology/business integration resulting in better customer satisfaction.
  • Negotiated contracts and introduced offshore & outsourced software development partners and vendors, improving resource flexibility and reducing costs by approximately 25% per annum.
  • Introduced hardware virtualisation and directed the datacenter migration project, reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by 45%.
  • Introduced Software as a Service (SaaS) and Private Cloud technologies – Managed the product development of the TLS (The Loyalty Solution) product to be delivered as a SaaS solution.
  • Lead the technical business development initiatives, in selling the TLS SaaS product, that successfully converted six new client accounts, securing recurring revenue across the Collinson Group companies.
  • Directed the loyalty product management and development, deployment, integration, system changes and support services across 14 global client accounts.

Dec 2001 – Jun 2008 : General Manager & Technical Director, Customer Feedback Systems

Jul 2000 – Oct 2001  : Group IT Manager, VWV Group

Feb 1999 – Jun 2000 : Head of IT Product Engineering, MessageLink (Autopage & Radiospoor)

Nov 1997 – Jan 1999 : Computer Support Engineer & Systems Administrator, Technicare

Jan 1988 – Feb 1997 : Commanding Officer – Biomedical & Planning Office, South African Military

QUALIFICATIONS & TRAINING
  • Company Direction – Institute of Directors (IoD)
  • National Diploma in Electronic Engineering (with distinction)
  • Eng. Electronic and Computer Engineering (3rdyr)
  • Chartered Information Technology Professional (CITP)
  • Project Management – George Washington University School of Business
  • Diploma in Business Management

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
  • British and South-African Citizenship
  • Married
  • Activities: Archery, Golf, Cross Country Motorcycling, Outdoor Cooking
  • Full clean UK driver’s license

 

…also read

The Portfolio Summary of Assignments, Programmes & Project Achievement.

The Technology Experience Summary

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