About

Hi, I'm Tom. I am a Technology Consultant. I draw upon my experience in change management and business analysis to deliver effective IT projects.

Having worked across a number of industries, I focus on being curious about the challenges of each organisation I work for and being an effective intermediary between IT and the business.

Posing in Rome

Career

Whilst at university, I got my first proper job as a first-line support assistant in my university help desk. Whilst working there I got talking to a Programme Manager from the IT department who told tales of the challenges and trials of sitting between IT and the business. Something about his career resonated with me and I decided to looks for jobs in that space (thanks Bruce if you're reading this!).

That led me to look for a job in IT consulting after graduating; what better space to sit than directly where clients have IT problems that need to be solved to improve business outcomes.

I have worked on projects such as:

  • IT Programme for an organisational redesign directly impacting 30,000 staff and 30+ systems (including mission-critical)
  • Microsoft Teams & Modern SharePoint design & deployment to a 10,000 person organisation
  • 5000 user smartphone deployment
  • Business change for a number of projects and programmes, including for an agile in-house bespoke application with several hundred users
  • 50+ endpoint enterprise Video Conferencing deployment
  • Authoring various business cases for network infrastructure upgrades, hardware deployments, and cloud migrations

Hobbies

Some of my main hobbies are:

  • Learning German. I am learning through a combination of lessons via Zoom, textbook study, and using apps like Anki to perform spaced repetition.
  • Riding my road bike. I have a Specialized Allez which I have upgraded to Shimano 105 and DT Swiss wheelset. It now feels more like a super bike than an entry-level roadie! In Winter 2020 I picked up a Wahoo Turbo Trainer so now do structured training inside on Zwift, using Trainer Road
  • Pretending to be a racing driver on iRacing. From the moment I got my first gaming console (a PS1 as a child), I have enjoyed racing games. I used to avidly enjoy every Gran Turismo game. Over the pandemic, with a lot more time at home, I put together a gaming PC. I am now getting into iRacing.

Continuous Learning

I have always been curious, and try to be constantly learning, whether that's always having a book on the go or studying for a professional qualification.

At University I studied Geography and Management. Shortly after graduating, I passed the Udacity Into to Programming Degree, gaining a foundational understanding of HTML, CSS, and Python. Whilst almost all of my day to day professional activities go no deeper than the GUI, I find an understanding of back end and front end development immensely valuable.

I try to study at least one professional qualification each half. In 2021 I am focused on project management techniques. Over the summer I am learning PRINCE2 - a robust project management methodology that sits behind many large complex programmes.

Throughout 2022 some of the concepts I have focused on are:

  • Content & Growth marketing
  • Personal Knowledge Management (I studied Tiago Forte's Build a Second Brain)
  • Microsoft 365 - particularly PowerBI and Microsoft Teams Administration

In the past I have studied:

  • BCS Certificate in Requirements Engineering
  • BCS Certificate in Systems Modelling Techniques with UML
  • BCS Certificate in Business Analysis Practice
  • BCS Certificate in Commercial Awareness
  • ITIL Foundation

Around the web

You’ll find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.