Gurcharan Bhogal

Passionate and versatile senior technical leader contributing to complex multi-million pound digital technology projects with 30+ years’ experience in the Financial Services, Telecommunications and Energy sectors. Overseeing delivery from a budgetary, sourcing, development, and commercial standpoint to meet customer fulfilment and management of expectations whilst ensuring that the delivery is accurate, on time and within budget.

Established track record of delivering large business driven B2B and B2C projects taking a hands-on approach to define and deliver complex solutions to support large-scale global system implementations with onshore and offshore teams, optimising E2E customer journeys.

Strong technical leader with a demonstrated success of delivering within all phases of the project lifecycle including requirements, functional and technical design, development and platform build, test, and service management. Experience in a wide range of project methodologies including PMP, Prince 2, SDLC and Scaled agile (SAFe).

Expertise and experience built on a global scale – project and programme management, SDLC/software development of Digital and Cloud B2B/B2C applications and integration of CRM systems (Sales force/Order Management/Billing) to support eCommerce platforms, Content management, Data and DevOps, UI/UX design, product development, large infrastructure/data centre builds including migrations/decommissions, network provisioning, high profile business acquisitions, technology refresh, virtualisation including cloud based applications hosted by MS Azure, capacity planning, business continuity and team development.

National Grid ESO                                                              Feb 2019 to present                               

Regional Development Programme (RDP), Senior Project Manager, Scrum Master

Project Summary (Budgets to £4m, Project teams of 10+)

• Lead the Technical Delivery of the Regional Development Programme for NGESO, accountable for their systems integration with the Distributed Networks Operators to manage Distributed Energy Resources driving additional network capacity, reducing constraints, and open new revenue streams for market participants
• Mapping a new improved E2E customer journey in the development of new services that will give visibility and control to NG Control Centre of renewal generation and increase the number of consumers in this field supporting the NG ESO target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
  • Built and commissioned new BlackBerry Offices in EMEA and APAC (Glasgow/Milan/Madrid/Brussels/Paris/Singapore), £1m budget/project. 
  • Delivered the BlackBerry Experience Centre for sales, £1m budget/project.  
  • Achieved the complex delivery of the replacement of the BlackBerry core DNS and DHCP network services, 2200 networks changed overnight. 
  • Optimised Blackberry Strategic Security initiative projects to protect all hosts 

Virgin Media Business                                                        May 2015 to Dec 2018                               

Technical Project Manager, Digital Programme 

Project Summary (Budgets £1-3m, Project teams of 30+ globally)

• Led the Digital and New Product Development Technical Delivery for Virgin Media Business, accountable for their systems integration internally and externally hosted cloud systems. Following extensive market research and an optimised customer journey developed a new VMB e-purchase site launched with fully integrated support.
• Digital: Ecommerce online sales Journey on Adobe Experience Manager incorporating Cloud Apps with integration to Middleware and Sales Force platforms. UI/UX design to improve customer journey developed.
• NPD: Voice, applying Ofcom regulations and Smart Geographical networks

Three                                                                            Aug 2014 to May 2015                               

Project Manager, 3UK & O2 (ROI) System Integration Programme 

Project Summary (Budgets to £1m, Project teams of 10+)

• Led the provisioning of new ‘Hybrid’ tills for ex-O2 stores – new software builds, IT Infrastructure and Franchise environments to support the Brand Migration of O2 to Three in ROI – 1.5m new accounts migrated
• System integration of Three and O2 ROI supply chains for Retail and Online, provided testing environment for integration
• Established the network connectivity between the Three and O2 stacks for all business impacting service flows for new stores, new MPLS provisioning, closed circuits requiring NAT at both ends to secure the network between Three & O2
• System integration of Loyalty Services in ROI for Three rewards and O2 Priority moments, provided 3UK services to new loyalty service ‘3Plus’ in ROI
• Migrated all ex-O2 email and messaging services to Three, AD provisioning with assignment of new policies within organisation units  

AVIS Europe                                                                              Jan 2014 to Aug 2014                             

Project Manager / Programme Manager (Commercial and Revenue team)

Project/Program Summary (Budgets £2m to £3m, Project teams of 10+)

• Rental Profitability Programme - PM for new projects:
  • Scenario tool built to measure profitability across all markets
  • Fleet cost data feeds changed to improve forecasts
  • Profitability model adapted to manage Seasonality changes
  • Reporting improvements for analysts and finance using IBM/Cognos tools
• Revenue Management Programme - PM for new projects:
  • Improved pricing model to estimate volume of demand to Turndown 
  • New pricing management tool to take feeds directly from competitors
  • Integrated revenue forecasts to improve yield management
  • Optimized demand and supply model at car group level

BlackBerry (Previously - Research In Motion)                           Oct 2008 to Jan 2014                               

Senior Project Manager / Programme Manager 

Project/Programme Summary (Budgets £1m to £10m, Project teams of 20+ globally)

• Built and commissioned Primary EMEA BlackBerry DC, (£10m budget).
  • Managed mechanical/engineering build of Data Centre and IT/Network/Application delivery of the DC to Operations transition
  • New Server/Storage/Media environments built
  • New MPLS circuits provisioned - primary and secondary circuits including data, internet and voice including new network management environments (WAN/Backbone/Backup/Internet/Server/Security)
  • Application layer migration of Services to DC including AD, MS Exchange, Network storage, Print Services and BB Services
• CAPEX and OPEX cost savings Programme, led the evaluation of existing IT and Network infrastructure in an effort to reduce this IT footprint. Migration in EMEA of MPLS circuits from BT to Verizon and AT&T, significant cost saving

Merrill Lynch (Acquisition of EntergyKoch Trading Ltd)            Oct’ 2004 to Aug’ 2008

Project Manager / Project Management Team Lead

Project/Programme Summary (Budgets £1m to £3m, Project teams to 20+ globally)

• Integrated the EntergyKoch Trading DC to the Merrill Lynch DC in the acquisition of EntergyKoch Trading, all services migrated including trader lines with no business impact. 
• Migrated Mortgages PLC DC to Merrill Lynch DC, acquisition driven project. 
• Outsourced GRID computing to Co-Lo provider – HP, IT Transformation programme
• 2007 US DST time change. Managed the EMEA roll out to 17000+ hosts.
• Technologies refresh Programme, replaced non-supported platforms 

Leadership

• Infrastructure Project team lead for Merrill Lynch, managed quarterly performance reviews and development plans; controls work stack and budgets. Report status and performance of projects and programmes    

EntergyKoch Trading Ltd                                                             Mar 2001 to Oct 2004 

Data Centre Supervisor / Infrastructure Project Manager 

Projects and Leadership, commodities trading

• Established Business Continuity model, build and commission of DR site
• Led the Operations management of the Entergy-Koch Trading DC
• Led the Level 1-3 EntergyKoch Trading support team 

Royal Bank of Scotland (Acquisition of NatWest Bank)           May 1992 to Mar 2001

Senior Systems Retail Technician, MVS Operations Systems Analyst (1992-2001) 

Key RBS roles: 

• IT Administration, Support and Operations Management (24x7).                     

• 2012 - Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Certification to 2021
• 2008 - Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification to 2021
• 1991 - University College London (UCL) - Mathematics BSC (Honours)
• 1988 - Woolwich Polytechnic School - 3 A-Levels. Mathematics, Physics & Chemistry
• 1986 - Woolwich Polytechnic School - 9 O Levels