Andreas Selwood
Personal Details
Address : Villa 45, Jumeirah 3, Dubai
Mobile: +971 55 557 5481 Email: Andreas@theselwoods.co.uk
UAE resident, British and German citizen
EXPERIENCE and KEY SKILLS
- I am a hands on, Technical IT Director / Head of IT Infrastructure and Services / Project Manager
- I am a Registered Prince 2 Project Manager, a qualified Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, a Certified Ethical Hacker and am ITIL v3 certified.
- I am experienced in managing large IT infrastructure projects over three continents and up to $1mm budget.
- I have installed new Data Centres in Norway, UK and Dubai and managed teams of IT engineers across the globe.
- I have 26 years of experience in IT, managing customers, clients and vendors and have regularly supported a user base from 100 to 12,000 (Etihad, Shell Oil, Siemens, Unilever, BBC and CSC).
- I am currently based in Dubai, and am looking for another challenge either leading an IT department, improving a current infrastructure, building the IT infrastructure for a start-up company or managing a good sized IT infrastructure project.
- I speak fluent English, and conversational German and French.
- I bring with me extensive experience from Global Enterprises and Start-up Companies.
CAREER SUMMARY
• Recent roles reporting to the CEO or COO, Dubai - 13 years
• CTO, KLD Learning, Dubai and Saudi Arabia
• IT Director, Qatar National Library, Doha
• Global IT Services Manager, Mercator, Dubai
• Group IT Director, HAE Group (Heavy-Weight Air Express), Global responsibility
• Global Head of IT Services, Now Health International
• Head of IT, Global Commodity Finances LLC
• Managing Director, Advanced Digital Services Limited, Provided IT consultancy and contract services (UK) - 13 years
• Technical Project Manager, Shell Oil
• IT Infrastructure merger PM - TAC Europe / TPS
• VMWare Consultant - Research Machines
• European Infrastructure Team Leader - GMAC-RFC
• Enterprise Technical Support Engineer - Siemens
• IT Desktop Manager, VIP Heinke Ltd - 2½ years
QUALIFICATIONS
Prince 2 Registered Practitioner (Project Management)
Microsoft MCSE
EC Council C|EH
ITILv3 Foundation
BSc (Hons) Mathematics, University of Southampton
HNC – General Engineering, Guildford College of Technology
Languages - English (Native), German (Good) and French (Conversational)
CAREER HISTORY
Consultancy - Dubai (February 2009 - Present)
Providing Executive level Directorship, consultancy and contract services to a number of companies in Dubai:-
• Provide consultancy on IT Infrastructure and services and managing improvements for customers.
• IT Infrastructure (hardware, software, network, and services) upgrades, refreshes, improvements
• IT Audit Services
• E-mail and data migrations
• Cloud services - SaaS, IaaS, M365, SharePoint
• All Domain services
• DR and BCP consultancy and services
Qatar National Library / Qatar Foundation - Doha
IT Director
- Headhunted to oversee the IT department for QNL after the sudden departure of the previous IT Director.
- Responsible for the Library Management System Team, Application Development Team, Website Team, Digitization Team, Security Team, and the IT Infrastructure Team
- Responsible for the IT Strategy, Business plan and KPIs with a budget of QAR25 million managing three direct reports and a total internal team of 50 people
- Tasked with fixing a number of issues and getting the correct infrastructure, personnel, processes and guidelines in place to optimise the IT functions in accordance with the business requirements
- I successfully handed this role over to a Qatari National
Mercator (Dubai - UAE)
Group IT Services Manager
- Responsible for the internal IT services for the Mercator group of companies. This includes the provision of laptops, desktops, tablets, all domain services/servers, Internet connectivity, network connectivity to Emirates Group and management of the same, telephony; land line as well as mobile coverage, software provision
- Responsible for all vendors and service supplier management for the IT services for the group
- Successfully negotiated a 30% price reduction for our internet costs in the UAE
- Assisted the IT Operations Manager in the technical aspects of the role
- Successfully managed the migration of Internal IT from Emirates group to our own Cloud based solution.
- Managed and technically assisted in the reconfiguration of the network infrastructure and all VPN tunnels
- Managed the porting of all company mobile phones from Emirates under Etisalat to Mercator under Du.
HAE Group (Dubai - UAE)
Group IT Director reporting to the CFO
- Interim Worldwide IT Director taken on board to fix a large number of Global IT infrastructure issues
- Saved over 20% on the company's e-mail costs
- Fixed major issues with Active Directory, Backups, DFS, and Video Conferencing
- Implemented a new corporate website, and a Microsoft Azure solution for the company’s main bespoke software so that it could be better accessed worldwide.
- Successfully implemented a document management solution using Inforouter for the Group’s invoices
- Added functionality to the company’s freight booking and planning software
- Installed infrastructure for two new offices in Chihuahua and Bangkok
- Coded their new re-branded website
- Created a group IT strategy
Neutral Fuels LLC (Dubai - UAE),
IT and Operations Planning Manager reporting to the CEO
- Managed the implementation of a Carbon Footprint Assessment database and website currently being used by McDonald’s Distribution Centres.
- Managed the development and testing of an iPhone and Android app for Driver Behaviour
- Assisted with the initial setup of the company in 2010 including assisting with the business plan and the financial forecasting. Taken on full time to manage the rollout of Biodiesel micro-refineries for McDonald’s
- Spent time in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Australia and Malaysia planning locations and roll-out strategy for McDonald’s Used Cooking Oil (UCO) to Biodiesel project.
Arabesque Asset Management (London - UK)
IT Consultant reporting to the COO
- Advised the COO regarding the company’'s IT infrastructure setup
Now Health International LLC (Dubai - UAE)
Head of IT Services reporting to the COO
- Set up all the IT and telephony Infrastructure for the two offices in Dubai, one in the UK and one In Hong Kong
- Managed the IT, Telephony and User support teams in all the countries, and the Data Centre team in the UK
- Responsible for managing and implementing the on-site and on-line security measures
- Full responsibility for the IT budget for the start-up of the company and complete vendor management.
- Responsible for creating and implementing the BCP and Disaster recovery process
- Was also responsible for overseeing the office fit-out for the two offices in Dubai
Global Commodity Finance Ltd. (Dubai - UAE)
Head of IT reporting to the COO
- Set up a data centre in the Dubai International Finance Centre
- Selected IT suppliers and established supplier relationships (vendor management).
- Responsibility for purchasing all servers, network equipment, laptops, and desktops
- Full IT budget responsibility
- Managed the team responsible for equipment installation, set up and support the new Windows 2008 domain
- Migrated the company from the UK domain to the Dubai domain and then shut down the UK site
- Setup a UK based Disaster Recovery site.
Advanced Digital Services Limited - Oct 1996 to Feb 2009
Managed business providing consultancy and contract services to a number of major Global organisations including:-.
Shell Oil
Technical Project Manager
- Contracted to Shell'’s project team to project manage a series of medium sized projects (<$1Million) for Shell’'s infrastructure. To apply the project delivery framework methodology, to liaise with stakeholders, to ensure that resources are made available to the project at appropriate times and to oversee production of the deliverables.
Siemens
TIG Server Engineer
- This contract involved building W2k3 and VMware ESX servers in a number of Data Centres for the BBC.
TAC Europe
Consolidation Project Manager / Technical advisor
- Brought in as a consultant to scope out and Project Manage the joining of the infrastructure and Active Directory of two companies TAC Europe and SGS TPS. I was also responsible for the creation of a new clustered e-mail domain and the merger of the two current e-mail systems into it.
Research Machines Plc
VMWare 2.5 Consultant
- Brought in to set up a virtual laboratory using VMware to assist in troubleshooting.
GMAC-RFC
European Infrastructure Team Leader (20+ servers, 100+ Users)
- Responsible for supporting all Windows 2003 Domain controllers and application servers in Europe
- Systems Administrator to manage all AD, Domain Policy, DHCP, DNS, Exchange 2003, IIS, SUS, ePO, VMWare 2.5 ESX Server, BES
- Set up 4 clustered VMWare servers as a test area for new virtual application servers.
- Project Managed, Implemented and designed Data encryption roll-out, Veritas Backup exec, SUS and ePO solutions throughout the three European sites and upgraded the UK Domain from 2000 to 2003
Siemens
Enterprise Services Technical Support Engineer (Third Line) (300+Servers, 4,000+ Users)
- Responsible for supporting all 23 Windows 2003 Domain controllers in the UK domain, two 4-node clustered SANs, all IIS servers hosting the Siemens’ websites and intranet, 32 Exchange 5.5 e-mail servers, BES server and over 300 other application and file and print servers in 38 NT4 Domains
- Manage all Active Directory, Domain Policy, DHCP, DNS, Exchange, IIS, F&P, DFS, SAN and cluster servers
- Troubleshoot any backup problems – Legato, Veritas and Arcserve
SITA
Global Lotus Notes Administrator (50+LN Servers, 25+ Countries, 4000+ Users)
- Responsible for the admin of all Lotus Notes application and mail servers throughout the SITA group
- Pivotal role in the planning and initiation of a unified backup regime for SITA
DiverseyLever (Part of Unilever) / JohnsonDiversey
Global NT, Lotus Notes and Messaging Specialist (200+ servers, 12,000+ Users, 15+ Countries)
- Project managed the installation of NT Domains in Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Sweden.
- Responsible for the admin of the network (NT4 and 2000) 200+ servers (Compaq and Dell) in 15+ countries – Building, installing, monitoring and managing the data structure and security on the servers
- Administering the e-mail system (Control Data/Syntegra Rialto Messaging on a Unix platform)
- Building, managing and administering all DHCP, WINS, FTP and DNS servers, application servers, PDCs, File and Print cluster servers, Lotus Notes and E-mail severs
- Administering 25+ Lotus notes servers (4.6.6b to 5.0.9a) and Content Manager Websites
- Created new NT and Lotus Notes Domains following the sale of DiverseyLever to Johnson Wax
- Responsible for maintaining, testing and implementing Disaster Recovery plan at a third party site (HP)
- 2nd Line support Team leader and trainer
Microwarehouse Inc – Y2K Remediation Expert
- Developed a bespoke Macro to fix all Y2K issues in their spreadsheets
- The work was based in Holland, Germany, Sweden and at two sites in the UK
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and Anglian Water
Various Roles – Workstation & Server build / Software tester / 1st & 2nd line Support
VIP Heinke Ltd
IT Desktop Manager
• Maintaining all computers on site and with 42 users to support.
• Developing the initial set-up of the company’s IT policy including back-up procedures
• Supported Windows and Microsoft Office
• Senior member of the IT Strategy Group reporting directly to the Board of Directors