Stephen is an MBA qualified senior management professional with an extensive network of contacts and a deep understanding of information management and technology. A former county council Chief Information Officer (CIO), he is politically adept and highly experienced at developing strategy and delivering organizational change. He has senior management experience at board level in both the public and private sector and has brokered and delivered successful partnerships with District, Unitary, County and private sector. As a high profile CIO and respected leader, he has given presentations at national and international conferences both in the UK and abroad, including as an expert speaker at the 2008 Labour party conference. He also judged the 2007 LGC national e-government customer service awards as well as representing the Society of IT Management at the Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM).
His clear focus on business priorities combined with people skills and direct experience of leading transformation and change in large, complex and diverse organisations give him a firm grasp of the essential elements that are critical for developing successful strategies and bringing vision to reality. Particular strengths are:
- Transformation, business and strategy planning & organizational change
- Cost reduction, budget management & performance benchmarking
- Aligning ICT with business priorities - Business case development, governance and benefits realisation
- Resourcing - organizational design, IIP, motivation, job evaluation, coaching, mentoring, succession planning.
- Innovation, quality improvement, efficiency and green IT.
Career:
- 2005 to 2009 Vice President and Non-Executive Director, SOCITM Limited
- 1998 to 2009 CIO, Cheshire County Council
- 1997 to 1998 Head of ICT Operations, Cheshire County Council
- 1995 to 1997 Business Development Manager, Cheshire C.C.
- 1993 to 1995 Programme Manager, Cheshire County Council
- 1990 to 1993 Business Analyst & Solutions Architect,
- 1988 to 1990 Self employed network consultant.
- 1984 to 1988 Private sector business development
- 1981 to 1984 Public sector Project Management
Examples of Previous assignments:
- Research for IT member services organisation to develop members value proposition and identify new service opportunities.
- Advice to Multi-National IT Services Company on developing their product value proposition for Local Government.
- Advice to software start up company on developing a Public Sector sales strategy.
- Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for "Transforming Cheshire" project.
- £18m ICT investment consisting of 200+ projects and 350,000 hours of ICT development activity. Categories: Information Management, electronic procurement (including workflow), Flexible & mobile working, component based architecture, shared services, VOIP & customer access.
- Project Director for Oracle ERP system. £15m corporate project providing Oracle financials, payroll, HR, self-service, procurement.
- Lead for Best Value review of ICT services including Fundamental review of ICT service delivery and base budget review.
- Project Director for new build, purpose built £3.5m Data Centre utilising Green technologies (from initial vision to operational service delivery).
- Contracts review and consolidation/procurement of outsourced supply.
- Benchmarking and market testing of ICT service.
- Negotiation and Implementation of a County Wide VOIP WAN serving 1 County Council, 6 District councils, Schools, Police, Fire and 3rd sector (Charities) serving 600+ locations. Value c. £12m
- Instigated and led regional shared services project to join up public sector websites through common portal.
- Provided innovative public broadband service to businesses and community in an area where there was no commercial service.