James Bell

As Lead Technical Program Manager at Appriss Retail, I guided strategic initiatives and spearheaded the development and execution of technology and product roadmaps in collaboration with top executives. I recently introduced a governance framework to enhance the visibility and effectiveness of the Technical Program Management function. My efforts in migrating a major product to the Azure Cloud significantly boosted service levels. Additionally, I managed the application security scanning process, aimed at reducing security flaws and integrating DevSecOps practices across development teams.

• Azure Cloud Migration: Spearheaded a 9-month global initiative to transition a key product from on-premises to Azure Cloud, enhancing service resiliency and security while achieving a 40% increase in performance.

• Application Security Oversight: Owned the application security scanning process, collaborating closely with application owners and the Director of Information Security to reduce flaws, vulnerabilities, and licensing errors by 25%.

• Legacy Technology Upgrade: Led a multi-team effort, collaborating directly with customers (including Nike, Kohls, Walmart and Sainsburys), to design and replace outdated systems with advanced real-time processing ETL technologies, improving fraud investigation accuracy by 15% and necessitating proactive problem-solving due to previous documentation gaps.

• Governance Framework Implementation: Developed and documented a comprehensive governance structure for the Technical Program Management function, improving visibility and operational control.

• Strategic Leadership and Collaboration: Aligned technology initiatives with corporate strategies alongside C-suite executives, ensuring resource optimization and consistent feature delivery.

As a Senior IT Project / Program Manager at Appriss Retail, I played a pivotal role in steering complex, high-value technology initiatives and leading a diverse team of junior project managers and business analysts. My focus was on enhancing program outcomes through effective system designs, governance and cross-functional team collaboration.

• Leadership in High-Value Initiatives: Managed a portfolio of 25-30 projects annually, including multi-million-pound initiatives with budgets up to £5m, emphasizing proactive problem-solving and strategic oversight.

• Unified Global Systems: Orchestrated a series of global initiatives for Shell that unified mobile payments and loyalty schemes across multiple markets and geographic regions, resulting in a 50% reduction in incidents and an 18-fold increase in throughput performance.

• Advancement of IT Governance: Acted as the interim Delivery Manager, enhancing IT governance and delivery processes across a software engineering team that developed in-house software products using DevOps and Agile methodologies.

• Technical and Stakeholder Communication: Facilitated seamless stakeholder communication (both technical and business) and complex trade-offs, ensuring project deliverables met strategic business goals.

• Mentorship and Team Development: Fostered team development and provided mentorship, building a high-performance culture among junior project managers and business analysts.

In this role, I worked closely with in-house and clients' IT and Product Teams, to deliver real-time integrated solutions to existing software components. I ensured the systems and platforms designed and delivered were the best they could be.

I was responsible for managing multiple external high-profile projects up to £1m, for industry leaders in the Petroleum and Energy sector (Shell), and the Retail sector. Projects were across the entire integration landscape, from site-based point-of-sale (POS) systems to key head office financial, reconciliation and reward systems, across multiple countries, continents and time zones.