Raymond
S. MacDonald (personal website)
ray@raymacdonald.com
Career
Profile
A
leader with proven I.T. expertise developed through diversified management with
increasing levels of responsibility and promotions; encompassing international management, negotiation,
planning & architecture, project management, sales, customer service, and
consulting. Expertise includes
the development, execution, and management required for comprehensive
reorganization of infrastructure and technical services supporting business
enterprise globalization and profitable corporate growth.
Career
History
MMC (Marsh
& McLennan Companies) 2000
– 2003
A Fortune 500 professional
services company with revenues exceeding $10 billion. 59,000 employees provide
analysis, advice and transactional capabilities to clients in over 100
countries.
Assistant Vice-President, Global Technology
Architecture – Marsh Inc.
August 2002 – August 2003. Reported to the Managing
Director of Global Technology Services,
Promoted
from the MMC – Mercer HR Consulting operations to provide expertise in global
I.T. consolidation strategies, analysis of current Marsh global operations, and
analysis of I.T. for mergers and acquisitions:
Provided
guidance on future infrastructure technologies.
Built
relationships globally with regional architecture teams.
Made
recommendations on cost saving strategies.
Provided
planning, recommendations, carrier negotiation, and high-level architecture
guidance to consolidate global networks.
Project realized reoccurring cost savings of 30% (to approx. 5M€/year from 7M€) while gaining
significant increases in bandwidth and reliability in the EMEA region; combining
the network infrastructures of the Mercer and Marsh operating companies, and
recommended resiliency best practices to North America.
Analyzed
and recommended global requirements to improve the globalization of Marsh’s
centralized ERP implementation. Included
localizations (multi-lingual, multi-currency etc.), and single-instance best
practices.
Managing Technology Architect – Mercer HR Consulting
July 2000 – August 2002. Reported to the Senior
Director of Global Planning & Architecture,
Provided
expertise as one of three core team members for the areas of global data centres and networks consolidation. Strategic recommendations for long-haul
carrier relationships and data centre consolidations to support MMC Shared
Services for the 11 operating companies.
Improved
cost savings through MMC consolidated negotiations with key vendors. Also improved terms and conditions leveraging
economies-of-scale.
Served
on the Global Software Development Standards Advisory Board to ensure Mercer’s efforts
were effective using appropriate technologies and methods to provide sharing,
ease-of-support, longevity, high-availability, global execution, and secure
access for developing applications.
Developed
closer relationships with key vendors (through vendor management), which has
improved planning & architecture for global enterprise needs by acquiring
longer term technology development plans and key vendor’s executive visions.
Recruited
and hired exceptional Sr. Technical Architect staff, for front-office and
back-office functions. Achieved timely
and high-quality execution of strategic goals.
Enabled regular promotions and high motivation of staff.
Led
global teams to establish business driven technology architecture standards
achieving effective global vendor pricing agreements, advantageous terms &
conditions, and simplified global technical support requirements.
Developed
roadmaps of Microsoft and Oracle products and licensing. Planned an effective cost approach
considering support, implementation, licensing, upgrade scheduling, and
provided change impact analysis.
Project
managed the evaluation and selection of centralized Systems Management tools to
reduce operational costs, to provide proactive capabilities, and enable
effective support of the complex Mercer technical environment. Ensured integration with helpdesk and its
associated workflow.
MOBSHOP INC. 2000
MobShop was an Internet Start-up and the leader in aggregate purchasing
(group buying). Had offices in 5
countries with 170 employees. Toronto
was the R&D centre and San Francisco the business headquarters.
Director, Global I.T. + Canadian HR
Reported to the
Vice-President of Technology and CTO,
Established I.T. related policies and
procedures to increase corporate security, data reliability, and service
availability.
Established HR functions. Created staff performance review
procedures. Added staff development
(such as formal training plans and budgets) to attract and retain key talent.
Negotiated Oracle 11i ERP (core financials)
pricing and services ensuring international requirements (multi-currency and
multi-lingual) as part of the ERP management team. Planned, acquired, and implemented hardware
and software meeting the requirements of an accelerated schedule (90-day
implementation). Ensured appropriate
support levels and staff assignments from Oracle USA and Oracle Canada
professional services.
Reduced network service costs (voice and
data) by 40% and increased quality of service.
Quickly implemented a global, centrally
managed network in Canada, USA, Germany, UK.
AIR CANADA INC. 1999
– 2000
A Canadian $6.5 billion corporation in
FY1999 with a fleet of 158 aircraft. Air
Canada became the 11th largest airline in the world with
approximately 40,000 employees after the takeover of Canadian Airlines.
Project Manager (extended contract)
Reported to the
Airline Operations Sr. Director of I.T. in
Top-Down and Bottom-Up simultaneous approach
required due to tight deadlines. Managed
Project Charter and Scope creation while providing specifications to the “brick
& mortar” groups for AC’s requirements for data centre, cabling, and
stations, including redundancies and “zero downtime” technology infrastructure
requirements.
Project managed the new FIDS design,
specification, data compatibility, and acquisition to support the merger of
flight operations with Canadian Airlines; provided for the refurbishment and
passenger processing modifications to the Terminal 1 & 2 facilities
implementing a new “way finding” process.
Oracle Corporation
1992 – 1999
A Fortune 500 company and the world’s 2nd
largest software business supplying enterprise information solutions. Annual revenues of $9.1US billion in 145
countries with 43,000 employees in 1999.
Principal Network Architect
November 1997 – July 1999.
Reported to the Vice-President of Global Networks,
Designed and executed leading-edge key
strategies to consolidate 65 data centres to 3. Required new thinking and planning with
emerging technologies to cut costs and improve services to support network
centric computing.
Saved $3M/yr (35% reduction) and increased
performance 4-fold for trans-Atlantic data network services.
Evaluated emerging technologies and aligned
with corporate strategies.
Identified new technology opportunities
through business area modeling.
Validated and Approved R.O.I. and/or T.C.O.
for network projects for global network operations at weekly project review
meetings and for project plan submissions (telecommunications global spend of
$300million/yr).
Ensured
an effective global networks department by active participation on the
Management Committee defining strategic goals, regional and global re-charge
models, network automation targets, and staffing models & workflow. “1999 Best-in-Class” enterprise
telecommunications department as audited by KPMG.
Drove Global Teamwork to gain effective
world-wide productivity by reducing redundant efforts, utilizing expertise
throughout the enterprise, and by ensuring that planning & architecture
became proactive considering international needs and/or restrictions.
Senior Manager, Americas Networks and Telecommunications
August 1996 – March 1998.
Reported to Sr. Director – Americas & AsiaPac Network Services,
Designed, implemented, and managed 2
Trans-border (USA/Canada) teams to increase internal customer
satisfaction. Mentored and developed the
teams’ managers.
Active member of the Global Networks
Management Committee. (founding member
of management team)
Sold new technology visions to global
executives to earn timely project approvals.
Supported Mergers & Acquisitions by
evaluating and managing integration of new I.T. operations (i.e. DataLogix, RDB7).
Included selection of staff, management, and technologies. Relocated and designed data centres for very large development groups (i.e. more than
2,000 dev. upon takeover of Digital’s RDB7 product group).
Reduced the USA data network spend by 10% while
doubling performance in 1996/97.
Increased staffs’ job satisfaction and
retention through imaginative training, meeting events, team recognition
programs. Reduced Annual Attrition from
a poor 45% to an outstanding 10%.
Successfully instituted and managed projects
for Y2K to ensure hardware and software met requirements.
Manager, Canadian Systems and Networks
June 1993 – February 1997.
Reported to the Director - I.T. Planning, Mississauga, Ontario. Managed technical, planning, and support
staff for data centre operations, helpdesk, and telecommunications.
Global CIO invited member of the design team
creating the successful $38.5Mus Global Networks Division to ensure cost
savings and enterprise consistent services and security (January, July 1996).
Delivered feature-rich voice, video, and
data facilities with short R.O.I.
Empowered a sales force of 700 for
full-featured mobility by creating and delivering Sales Force Automation
ensuring all logistical, technical, end-user training, and support requirements.
Negotiated 37% savings for network hardware
& software purchases. Negotiated
national Frame Relay network.
Senior UNIX Systems Administrator
March 1992 – May 1993. Reported to M.I.S. Director,
Successfully
relocated and consolidated 2 data centres
and offices into 1 new campus location.
Introduced centralized network management
with HP OpenView in 1993 to provide proactive
support.
Previous
Positions
Systems
Consultant, MACDONALD
CONSULTING
|
1990 – 1992
|
JONAS & ERICKSON
SOFTWARE Technology INC.
|
1989
– 1990
|
|
Systems Specialist,
Marketing (1990) |
|
|
UNIX Technical Analyst,
Customer Support (1989 – 1990) |
|
|
Senior Marketing
Representative, Intertan Canada Ltd. |
1987
– 1989 |
|
Contract Programmer & UNIX
Systems Administrator |
1985 – 1987 |
Education
& Selected Training
Business (Marketing Major) – Sheridan
Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning,
1998 – Comprehensive Project Management – University of Toronto, Engineering Department
1996 – The Oracle Manager Program (included courses in Targeted Selection, Leading Change, Staff Performance, Leading Teams, Finance, and Strategic Management)
1994 – Managing Information Technology Effectively, University of Western Ontario & CIPS.
1993 – Sales
& Marketing Specialist Certification – Sheridan College,
1993 – Oracle Master Certification
1990 – Unisys UNIX Advanced Level II Certification
1988 – Xerox PSS (and other sales training)
2002, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1997 – Oracle OpenWorld Conferences
2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997 – Pacific Telecommunications Council Conferences (PTC member)