Nick Richards36 Huntlands Road, Halesowen, West Midlands, B63 4LZ

● Tel: +44 (0)7703 325 225 ● Email: nick.richards@msn.com

Personal SummaryA dedicated, hardworking professional with over 20 years of IT experience working in all aspects of the project development life-cycle.

Possessing excellent management skills and having the ability to work with minimum supervision whilst leading a team of twelve or more. Having a proven ability to lead by example, consistently hit targets, improve best practices, organise time efficiently and prioritise workloads in order of importance.

Proven decision making and problem solving skills whilst being capable of motivating and leading others in a team environment, with the ability to build rapport and trust quickly with work colleagues.

Strong communication skills, both verbal and written, whilst recognising the need to adapt style to suit any audience.

Career HistoryService Management AnalystDeutsche BankOctober 2015 – Present In my current role I am responsible for supporting and monitoring the applications used

by the business for trading to ensure a stable production platform. I am part of a first line support team for applications in the production environment. This

involves identifying and responding to events impacting production applications, including technical resolution and management communication.

I participate in coordinating weekend releases for production applications and in disaster recovery planning and testing.

To collaborate with partners in the infrastructure teams (networks, UNIX, Wintel) and application developers in order to swiftly resolve queries and issues as they arise.

Actively maintain and contribute to the application knowledgebase.

Nick Richards+44 (0)7703 325 225

nick.richards@msn.com

Development Team ManagerRR DonnelleyOctober 2013 – October 2015 In my role as Development Team Manager I managed twelve full-time team members

plus additional contract resources when required. I was responsible for scheduling workloads and ensuring delivery dates were met in a timely manner, as well as handling calls/queries relating to on-going and future changes to applications running on both Linux servers as well as mainframe systems. The role required timely responses and a degree of flexibility to ensure that urgent issues were resolved both in and out of normal hours.

I held regular meetings with team members to appraise their progress and address any training requirements that they may need. A key attribute of mine is the ability to identify where team members need guidance and/or help, and I took enjoyment and satisfaction from assisting with their development.

I was first line support for development/test Linux servers and second line support for live Linux servers, supporting Sefas Remake applications, Korn shell scripts and file transfer protocols. I maintained the folder structure on the development Linux server. This included the installation of new/updated Remake applications in order for them to be part of the end-to-end process, copying files according to handover documentation and updating the permissions for relevant access.

I have managed challenging projects, which at times included coordinating multiple teams. This involved internal and external teams working together to achieve a required outcome under tight timescales, sometimes working out of normal hours.

As Development Team Manager I was escalation point for live issues and used my initiative to identify and detail the root cause of the problem. As part of the resolution I would then document my recommendations to rectify the current issue as well as providing a permanent solution for future processing.

I was responsible for identifying skills shortages, interviewing and recruiting contract resource to fulfil project delivery to time and budget.

Application Analyst DeveloperRR DonnelleyJuly 2008 – October 2013 I was part of a team that migrated all Sefas Remake applications from a Unix to a Linux

server. This included rewriting all Korn shell scripts to reflect a new folder structure that I had been involved in designing, which improved efficiency and was more manageable going forward. This role provided me with experience in Unix/Linux shell scripting and required me to provide business critical application support as well as providing out of hours cover.

I designed and built end-to-end applications to receive customer data, in varying formats, which are then processed through generic code to generate Management Information reporting and create output that is sent to print on high speed production printers. This involved using Windows desktop software, Z/OS mainframe JCL, Unix/Linux server processing, shell scripting and file transfers using various methods.

Nick Richards+44 (0)7703 325 225

nick.richards@msn.com

Senior Analyst ProgrammerLittlewoods Shop Direct Group LtdJuly 1999 – November 2007 I worked on a data migration project (6.5 million customers migrated, 100GB data file) as

part of a team, to migrate legacy data from Shop Direct core systems to Littlewoods Oracle platform. The project was implemented in numerous phases and I was Lead Developer for two of these phases. This entailed writing specifications for a team of developers, checking testing, arranging staged implementations of changes and providing post-implementation support.

The data migration project also involved creating new, and updating existing, SQL applications on the target platform to receive data feeds from the source environment. These SQL applications were designed to integrate the data into the Littlewoods databases.

My strong communication skills assisted me in liaising with the third-party company PayPoint, to design and create a system to allow customers to use PayPoint outlets instead of The Post Office to process their payments. FTP jobs to transmit the files to the mainframe and reformat jobs were created and scheduled. I worked closely with contract resource and project managers to ensure the project ran to time and budget.

Senior Analyst ProgrammerGUS Home Shopping LtdFebruary 1998 – July 1999 I was selected as Lead Developer to design, develop, test and implement an online

accounting reporting application written in COBOL/DB2. This replaced an existing paper based reporting methodology. I provided a single source of the data, which gave users across the business, including directors, the functionality to drill down on summarised figures dependent on their specific needs. This project required working with DBA.

I was nominated to support a mainframe based system to communicate files between field based Customer Recruitment Operative’s PDA devices and Experian Credit Checking Agency. The process facilitated the use of electronic customer recruitment to gather potential customer details, which were validated by a Visual Basic application before being transmitted to Experian.

Analyst ProgrammerGUS Home Shopping LtdJuly 1996 – February 1998 During this role I was involved in setting up and maintaining a remittance processing

system. This system utilised Banctec payment processing machines to scan cheques and payment slips, transmit them to the mainframe via Connect Direct for in-house processing before delivering them to clients.

I maintained and supported legacy batch systems, on-site and via out-of-hours phone support. I ensured that tasks were prioritised according to urgency whilst liaising with various departments and escalating, where required, to ensure minimal downtime. Batch systems processed over £1.0 million of payments per night.

Nick Richards+44 (0)7703 325 225

nick.richards@msn.com

Training & SkillsTeam leadershipDiscipline and grievanceManaging performance in peopleAbsence managementKorn shell scriptingUNIXSQLTSO/ISPFJCLCOBOLAssemblerStreamweaverREXXHP ExstreamSefas Remake

QualificationsBSc (Hons) Maths & Statistics with Computing 2:23 A-Levels (Maths, Computer Studies, Economics)8 GCSEs including Maths and English

Personal InformationDate of birth 27/04/1972Driving licence Full, cleanInterests Sport; football, rugby, golf, squash, gym

CinemaHolidaysEating out

ReferencesAvailable on request

Nick Richards+44 (0)7703 325 225

nick.richards@msn.com