James Poulter

ITVisory Services specialise in CIO-as-a-Service, interim CIO, and digital transformation consulting to organisations who recognise the need to change and transform.

Group Chief Information Officer across the AFGRI Group

Provided CTO and CIO advisory services to organisations recognising the need to drive change through people and dynamic working practices. Placement: AFGRI Pty Ltd (October 2016 to Feb 2017): Mentorship of CTO to drive positive change in the IT organisation leading to a step change improvement of customer experience and satisfaction. Drove improvements in communication and collaboration across the business and vendor community. Implemented improvement initiatives across the outsourced IT vendor community leading to improved performance and delivery by the IT function

Post-merger of the UK and African regions (which I delivered successfully ahead of plan), I took on the combined responsibilities of the combined RAU (Africa and UK) region. RAU IS supports over 5000 IT users, at 250 sites across 18 countries, supporting a regional business generating annualised revenues in excess of €2bn. Merger of the regions delivered headcount reductions, an improved span of control, productivity and standardisation benefits across the organisation. As an integral member of both the BOC UK Ltd and African Oxygen Ltd executive management teams I was responsible for all aspects of IT across the wider RAU region, from the definition of the IT strategy through to the successful execution of this strategy to meet local and global business requirements. I led the shift into digital and a bi-modal IT function - continuing to support and drive greater benefits from the extensive SAP ERP investment whilst deploying digital applications on the new salesforce.com platform to rapidly unlock business value, and provide enhanced customer and employee experience. I led a highly motivated team of over sixty IT professionals, supported through alliances with outsource partners, to manage the existing infrastructure, and deliver upon a large portfolio of new value add projects into the business. I am recognised as a high energy, focused and driven leader who meets and exceeds business expectations, having rapidly transformed the Africa and UK regions from underperforming IT functions into the leading regional IT function in the group. I was recognised as operating beyond the traditional boundaries of IT, and being a strong strategic leader with exceptional business acumen.

Member of the Afrox executive management team with responsibility for all IT aspects across Sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for defining and executing the long term IT strategy. Afrox ran an SAP template across four countries including South Africa, and a standardized AccPac ERP template across the other 12 countries in Africa. During this period I delivered network connectivity into Africa, and subsequently drove a strategy of centralisation, standardisation and simplification across this network. Significant benefits delivered through this strategy through centralisation and virtualisation of server hardware, pooling of software licences, reduction of IT support, improved IT governance and security, data protection, reduction in ERP server downtime, and real time visibility and reporting of sales performance throughout the month. Significant time was spent working with vendor partners to align their expansion into Africa with the Afrox vision for expansion. Within South Africa the focus remained on delivering enhanced value add from the SAP investment, enabling the successful offshoring of financial and HR transactional processing into a global shared service centre. Throughout this period significant improvements in IT security and governance were delivered, in response to the ever increasing cybersecurity threat. Reported into Afrox Audit and Risk committee in adherence to King III Chapter V recommendations for IT governance. Recognised as an highly proficient programme / project sponsor, with an excellent track record of project, and was instrumental in setting up, and driving, the business-wide Project Review Board, to approve and track progress of all strategic investment projects. Played a key role in the successful 2014 / 5 business turnaround and transformation of Afrox, leveraging technology to drive efficiency and productivity, enabling headcount reduction targets to be achieved and ultimately contributing to a significant improvement in profit margins.

Aug 2009 - Dec 2010 - Global IS Project Manager for the €25mn Region South America SAP Implementation Project. Responsible for the implementation of the Global Linde SAP Template into Brazil, as a forerunner to deployment across South America. Responsible for original business case definition, project team recruitment (internal onboarding, external employee recruitment, and external implementation consulting partner sourcing, interviewing and appointment). Acted as the interface point back to the global Linde Template project team in Munich during the build phase. Dec 2008 - Aug 2009: Global IS Project Manager seconded to African Oxygen Ltd, Johannesburg. Led the Afrox SAP upgrade project, upgrading from ERP 4.6c to ECC 6.0. Very successful project delivered to time and budget with zero business disruption

Lead internal consultant seconded from Group Head Office to drive the deployment of “BOCT” SAP template into the African regional division, locally known as African Oxygen Ltd. Overall project scope was a full SAP deployment of SAP ERP 4.6c, including the following modules (FI, CO (CCA, PCA, PA,OM), MM, WM, SD, BW) and multiple interfaces to external systems. My specific responsibilities included: Lead consultant role for order to cash (OTC) and the SD module design throughout entire project lifecycle; Consultant in advisory capacity into overall project management and delivery team; Lead planner for the OTC cutover phase, including micro cutover planning and risk management; Quality assurance review across overall project, including solution review and integrity testing; Knowledge transfer into the local IS team in order to leave a sustainable support model after the project. The project was successfully deployed across the four in scope countries on schedule in May 2008, following which a period of hypercare was undertaken to support the business through the significant change and to fast track the delivery of the business benefits. Phase 2, following on from the initial SAPHari deployment, saw the SAP template extended across three factory production sites, incorporating production processes including functionality from the PC, PP and QM SAP modules.

Responsible for process Improvement initiatives across all Fi-Co areas, including Procure to Pay, General Ledger and order to cash

Business Process Improvement Manager – Finance Processes (Jan 2004 – Dec 2005) Driving value to the organisation through the automation or elimination of non-value added tasks and processes within the finance business stream, following the successful deployment of the EdSAP template solution into the BOC Edwards European countries. During this period I led the Finance process stream in the EdSAP USA and EdSAP Cz SAP deployment projects, extending the scope of the template coverage into these countries. Concurrently managed finance project team resources based in Boston USA and UK in the dual pursuit of a timely deployment of the template. Following a successful deployment into the USA, I spent 2 months building an extensive business case evaluating the relative benefits of leveraging the global template deployment through the creation of a global shared service centre, including in depth analysis of near-shore and off-shore options. Accounting Systems Manager, EdSAP project (Dec 2001 – Jan 2004) Internal SAP functional expert, recruited onto the BOC Edwards SAP deployment project. Lead internal consultant responsible for FI and CO modules, in conjunction with the deployment partner, Anderson Consulting. The project was successfully deployed across UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Italy, encompassing the fully integrated SAP suite of modules.

Multiple roles during employment at Hays DX, as follows: - Project Accountant, SAP Implementation Project (2001) - Finance Manager, Working Capital (1999 - 2001) - Divisional Systems Accountant (1997 - 1999) Ownership and responsibility for the ongoing support and improvement of all financial systems, including bespoke billing systems, and Cedar financials. Moved into a business finance line management role for 12 months until SAP deployment kicked off, upon which was drafted back into the systems accounting role to perform a critical role in the deployment of the SAP FI-CO solution.

Joined IBM UK Ltd into the finance function as an Inventory Accountant (July 93 - Jan 95) before moving into a business process re-engineering role, focused on P2P processes, during the first IBM internal deployment of SAP. Overall deliverables included the implementation of EDI, OCR, and the design and implementation of a customised front end fast entry Accounts Payable application