Curriculum Vitae of Leighton James



Personal Details

Name: Leighton James (+44 (0)7958 725 447)

D.O.B.: 21 September 1976

Address: Ruislip, Middlesex (mail@)

Marital Status: Married with young family

Other Information: UK Nationality, Full & Clean Driving License, CRB & BPSS Checked, SC Pending

Skills Summary

I am a successful, versatile and well regarded CTO/Principal Architect, specialising in Microsoft platforms, VMware and data centre technologies. I have over 15 years experience working with various IT Consultancy and Managed Services organisations. In this time I have been responsible for comprehensive design and architecture services, performing migrations, technical delivery and 3rd/4th line remedial work. I have worked with clients in Financial Services, Public Relations, Insurance, Public Sector and many other industries (most recently Cloud Service Providers and System Integrators). My current role involves me providing thought leadership, strategic direction and proposition development for EMC’s premier partners in the UK – in addition to more usual Solution Development activity.

I have extensive experience interacting with C-level representatives – understanding their challenges and pitching compelling solutions. I specialise in Service-centric solutions, based on my previous experience of various platforms and technologies designed and implemented at a variety of organisations. In addition to first-rate pre-sales, design and documentation skills, I also have much experience mentoring and managing other consultants and engineers, and currently lead a high performance team of Pre-Sales Consultants.

Training & Qualifications

2012: EMC High Contributors’ Programme @ Cranfield Business School, TOGAF Certified Enterprise Architect (upgrade to version 9)

2011: Institute of Leadership and Management Training, EMC Consultative Selling Programme, EMC Cloud Architect

2010: PRINCE2 Practitioner (2009 edition), ISEB Intermediate Certificate in Enterprise & Solutions Architecture

2009: PRINCE2 Foundation, ITIL v3 Foundation Bridge Certificate, VCP (upgrade to vSphere 4)

2008: VMware Certified Professional (VCP), VMware Technical Sales Professional (VTSP)

2004-2007: TOGAF Certified Enterprise Architect, VMware Sales Professional (VSP), ITIL Foundation Certificate, Cisco Security Solutions and Design Specialist, Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE2003)

1999-2003: Cisco Certified Firewall Specialist (CFS), Cisco Certified Design Associate (CCNA), Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCDA), Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE Windows NT 4.0 Server)

Formal Education

1999: BSc Business Computer Systems: First Class Honours

1995: 3 A-Levels (Economics, Mathematics, Computer Science): Grades A-C

1993: 9 GCSEs: 4 Grade A’s, 3 Grade B’s, 2 Grade C’s

Career History

April 2011 – date: EMC (UK) (Global Leader in Cloud, Trust & Big Data)

Advisory Technology Consultant (CTO / Lead Pre-Sales Consultant / Principal Architect)

EMC is the Global leader in Cloud Solutions and Information Infrastructure (storage, security, analytics, document management, backup/recovery, etc). Through their ownership of VMware & RSA, their joint venture with Cisco (VCE/vBlock) and the capabilities provided via EMC Consulting - EMC is uniquely positioned to extend their leadership in Cloud, Trust and Big Data.

I work within the National Service Provider business area which is focussed on helping Service Providers of all shapes and sizes to capitalise on the potential of IT-as-a-Service. To that end, I work with CxO's to help them create service offerings which leverage EMC's broad portfolio of solutions including; Virtualisation (VMware), Security & Governance/Risk/Compliance (RSA), Data Centre Optimisation (IONIX, VCE/vBlock), Archiving, Backup/Recovery, Storage, Data Warehousing & Analytics, Enterprise Content Management (Documentum) and Consultancy & Advisory Services (EMC Consulting)

My role is to help Service Providers and System Integrators execute on their GTM strategy to differentiate within the Cloud and to help end customers execute on their strategy to move towards consuming IT-as-a-Service (e.g. Private Cloud, Public Cloud or Hybrid Cloud).

I was specifically deployed across a number of ‘emerging’ Service Providers which included Verizon, NTT, Orange Business Systems, ACS/Xerox, Rackspace, Attenda, SAVVIS, Claranet, Sungard and Skyscape Cloud Services. In this role, I interface across the Service Provider organisation including CEO/CTO, Sales Leadership, Product Management, Pre-Sales and Architecture groups. In this way, I was able to help Service Providers on both a Strategic basis (developing their Cloud Go-To-Market) and a Tactical basis (assisting in specific sell-with opportunities). More recently, I’ve extended my role across System Integrators such as ComputaCenter, Capita, Serco, Steria, Getronics and Northgate.

My performance was rewarded by being invited onto EMC’s High Contributor Programme for 2012. This programme is nomination based and selects the top performers across EMC UK&I to experience an MBA style programme at Cranfield Business School. I have also been selected to be involved in the EMC CTO Programme and to serve as a District Leader within the UK&I pre-sales community.

February 2006 – April 2011: Attenda Limited (MS Gold Partner, VMware Global Services Partner Award 2010, Data Centre Europe Awards, Managed Services Provider 2007, 2008 & 2010)

Manager, Solution Architecture & Consulting / Principal Solution Architect (Lead Consultant / Technical Architect)

Attenda are recognised throughout the Managed Services sector as a leader in the field – specifically targeted at Business Critical solutions. Their propositions range from the management of key Critical Applications (e.g. SAP, Exchange, Transactional websites) to entire Server Room Outsource solutions – whilst having a further specialism in Software as a Service and Cloud based solutions.

As a Principal Architect with Attenda I hold overall responsibility for the pre-sales engagement with clients and the subsequent design and architecture of an appropriate solution. I am frequently engaged in a wide variety of solutions involving multiple technology platforms (Microsoft, Sun, RedHat), datacentre network design (Content Switching, n-tier security, PCI compliance) and varying server count (2 – 1000 servers).

I am often extensively involved throughout the pre-sales process, especially responding to RFP’s, writing proposals, conducting workshops, delivering presentations, producing diagrams and generating a pricing model. I am a solution authority within Attenda for Microsoft, VMware and Citrix technologies, and am highly regarded by everyone that I work with.

I am increasingly involved in Server Consolidation projects, as well as Transition and Transformation programmes – especially involving virtualisation technologies (e.g. VMware, 3Par, Cisco and so on).

Within the first six months of employment with Attenda I won a “Top Performer Award” and was recognised for a leading contribution in winning the “Deal of the Year” for two years running. Within just two years, I was promoted twice, the second time to Principal Architect & Department manager, with operational responsibility for the performance of the Solution Architecture and Consulting function. Within this current role, my time is split such that one third of my time is spent on Management responsibility and two-thirds is spent on typically complex and high value client-facing assignments.

December 2004 – February 2006: Business Systems Group PLC (MS Gold Partner, Citrix Silver Partner, HP Enterprise Partner)

Senior Technical Consultant (Lead Consultant / Technical Architect)

As a Senior Technical Consultant in the Design/Deploy division, I have led and participated in a wide range of projects for various enterprise clients (50 – 500 users). I have often been extensively involved in the pre-sales process especially proposal writing. In addition to project-based assignments, I have also assisted the Operations division, acting as a subject-matter expert and final point of escalation. In this capacity, I have assisted many clients in recovering their systems from various failures. I have become a technical authority at BSG, and frequently receive commendations from both internal and external clients.

Within months of employment with BSG, I won a company award for positive customer commendations.

Some of the experiences gained at BSG include:

• Exchange: Often as the Lead Consultant or Technical Architect, I have helped clients of various sizes migrate away from Exchange 5.5 Server and GroupWise systems to Exchange Server 2003 solutions. I have also been involved in consolidation projects and mobility projects using Exchange ActiveSync.

• Citrix: Design and Implementation of various sized Citrix installations – often as the Lead Consultant – including one of the first Presentation Server 4.0 deployments in the UK. Executed various proof-of-concept exercises to help clients determine the feasibility of delivering their applications via Citrix. Design and implementation of Citrix within a consolidation project – centralising Active Directory and Exchange servers. Experience of Citrix Access Gateway (SSL VPN) and Password Manager (Single Sign On).

• Active Directory: I have extensive experience with the design, implementation and support of Active Directory. I have designed and implemented multi-site, multi-domain Active Directory models, and have experience of Group Policies, Delegation of Control, replication, DNS, DHCP, and so on.

• BSG operate their own Managed Data Centre, and so I have had the opportunity of designing, deploying and supporting hosted/managed services – especially management and monitoring solutions.

March 2003 – December 2004: Micropoint Systems (MS & Cisco Partner)

Senior Systems Consultant

As a Senior Systems Consultant, I was responsible for most of the key clients and projects. In many cases, I actively participated in pre-sales and design activities. Having won the project, I was often the lead consultant, responsible for mentoring and supervising junior consultants and engineers. At Micropoint, as well as Microsoft technologies, I had opportunity to be involved in Cisco and Security technologies also.

March 1995 – March 2003: Whitehall Systems (Microsoft & Cisco Partner)

Various Roles: Systems Engineer to Managing Consultant

I worked with Whitehall Systems for 8 years, and was able to develop from a field engineer through to their most senior Consultant. Given the various roles that I enjoyed with Whitehall, I have gained a lot diverse skills and experience, including leading a team of 7 engineers. Being a small company, Whitehall required a very can-do and all-hands-to-the-pump attitude. My experiences with Whitehall have contributed in me becoming such a versatile and knowledgeable IT Professional.

On top of the skills and experiences which were further developed in more recent roles, I gained experience of the following technologies; Netware 3.12, GroupWise, Backup Exec, ArcServe/BrightStor, Avaya IPOffice (Voice over IP), ASP Web Development, Access Accounts, Symantec Firewall, Lotus Notes.

Microsoft Exchange SQL SharePoint LCS Live Communication Server Cisco PIX ASA VPN IPSEC Windows 2003 XP IIS DNS AD Active Directory DNS DHCP IP RIS Scripted Automated R2 SP1 SP2 Netbackup NetApp FAS EVA MSA HP Citrix Presentation Server PS4 CAG Access Gateway Password Manager SG Secure Gateway

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