Simon Kalechstein

Responsible for customer experience from implementation delivery to customer success and support globally. Member of Zafin's Senior Leadership Team.

Responsible for implementation delivery and customer success for Zafin's Transformation & Modernization clients. Zafin received the Best-in-Class Partner Award from BIAN for our team's work.

Engagement lead / delivery executive responsible for transformational program delivery at multiple financial services clients in Canada and the United States. Enterprise Strategy Practice Leader, providing management consulting services in digital strategy, IT strategy, operations strategy, M&A, and business model transformation to Canadian clients.

Shaped, launched and executed multiple transformation programs for North American banks.

Led engagement to deliver an omni-channel transformation program at a Canadian bank. Established nearshore practices and scaled adoption of distributed Agile. With a Canadian client, led engagement which collaboratively designed and built a new microservices-based, cloud-first digital platform.

As Strategy Leader for IBM’s Consulting business in Canada, drove key initiatives, with focus on clients, offerings, enablement and practice development.

For a major bank’s Caribbean operations, led planning and implementation of a new Retail operating model, which enabled frontline teams to increase time with clients and centralized common functions into new shared services units. Senior Executive stakeholder feedback: “No challenge is too great for Simon. His thought leadership and contribution has been invaluable. He is a very strong communicator and facilitator, and has an ease moving from concept to reality. He can easily rally the team and generously offers credit to others for a job well done. He manages up, down and sideways skillfully. Simon is very much a catalyst in making things happen.”

Responsible for IBM delivery on a large, multi-year transformation program in the insurance industry, which implemented a new policy platform and associated processes. With strong delivery and productive relationships with client stakeholders and vendor partners, this multi-year initiative was rated as satisfaction ‘Exceeded’ by the client.

For an offshore bank, drove strategy for multi-year IT transformation, including development of strategic and tactical roadmaps to deliver to the program’s business case drivers. For a domestic payments processor, led several quality assurance processes during a program to replace legacy card payment, billing and point of sale applications. For a U.S. wealth management firm, developed a strategy to retain assets under management in an increasingly competitive market. For a domestic financial institution, assessed maturity of the enterprise architecture and supporting processes. For a domestic financial institution, co-led design and implementation of an enterprise IT capacity planning process. For an agricultural products firm, designed an IT operating model to support the shift from a cost recovery model to a service offering model. For a government jurisdiction, co-authored a business architecture to deliver the financial management strategy.

Grew IBM’s footprint in IT services and consulting across North America, by shaping programs with clients and mobilizing teams behind new engagements.

Co-authored a study on regional innovation and productivity, which recommended performance metrics on technology transfer, quantifying the economic impact of research centers as input to public policy decisions.

Assessed impact of newly-released federal privacy legislation on personal information in corporate settings. Educated CIO and senior managers on international implications, and advised on the appointment of a Chief Privacy Officer for IBM Canada.