Rob Craig

Working on a new start up venture.

Overall responsibility for U.K. sales strategy and demand team. Specific goal of stabilising and growing the UK business performance in readiness for PE acquisition. Rebuilt sales and marketing teams, redefined GTM and acct strategies, doubled uk annual revenues, whilst preserving the unique and socially progressive values of the business

Sopra Steria (global accounts) working across established and targeted key global accounts, strategic group sectors and alliances. Reporting directly to Comex, Group Board.

Overall responsibility for the English Division of Sopra Group Limited. Major achievements included. Business: Delivered 5 consequetive years of YoY continuous organic top and bottom line growth. Delivery: Worked closely with Sopra's newly established Indian offshore facility to actively build the UK's first and ultimately largest, offshore services engagements. Drove division and key account offshore activity from from zero to 50% of operational business in a 4 year period. Introduced agile capabilities and practitioners into Sopra UK, developing several key engagements (telecoms, distribution, retail and finance) in scrum/lean based solution development. Quadrupled Divisional 'Managed service' engagements from <10% to >45%, whilst preserving high value UK proximity services. Sales: Championed large scale managed services; securing the UK's largest annualised test engagement, delivering significant client cost benefit and the UK's largest multi year, £mm, xshore/offshore development programme. Global Accounts: Worked closely with group (France) to support early UK adoption of strategic global and transnational accounts focussed on the Telecoms, Energy and Aeronautical sectors. Operational: Preserved and further enhanced (post UK acquisition) a Practice culture focussed on high end, high value, business services (Architectural, Data/BI, Testing..). Recruited or appointed relevant new Practice leaders. Offers: Worked with Practice leaders and senior sales to define and develop new offers in each practice, seeking increased focus on outcomes and high levels of business value. Staff Development and engagement: Worked with practice leads to revise the Operational structure to provide more participative staff communities, information exchanges and employee participation whilst improving line management structures to better support effective career mentoring and personal development.

Overall responsibility for the English Business and all associated functions

Established and took overall responsibility for Sopra Groups first Financial services focussed City Office. Recruited sales team and initial key production staff to focus on the FS market. Established and grew a highly profitable business in an extremely short period. Within 12 months had secured engagements with many top tier FS companies, providing sector specific services including settlement/clearing solutions, swapclear/repobond support, Murex deployment and configuration, large scale resource augmentation, managed fixed price solutions.... Took concurrent responsibility for the re-organisation and recovery of two other UK Business Units and their turnaround. Developed a good understanding of PS, Media and Retail sectors, initiatives and business challenges. Established accredited 'trailblazer' status to support specific local government initiatives (child care, social services solutions) enabling government endorsement/funding and the deployment of leading edge solutions. Successfully integrated two acquired companies into the regional business. Actively worked in partnership with two newly appointed heads of ERP (SAP and Oracle) to help build critical mass and drive services into key regional clients and target sectors. Secured several engagements in Media and pan European Retail sectors. Successfully led several large (multi £m) bids against top European SI's and consulting companies. Carried all responsibility for P&L, sales and operations

Established a sales strategy and supporting marketing/telemarketing function. Developed and deployed a key account strategy. Led new business and account initiatives. Consistently broke new ground in terms of secured new services and their scale. Managed overall sales team performance. Managed overall operational performance and acted as a primary sponsor for key project engagements.