Carl Smith, Program & Project Management, Product | Software Development | Operations

About

16+ year's leading complex cross-functional Product, Technology & Operations programs/ projects, as well as building & leading Program & Project Management functions; predominantly within Financial Services industry, with ability to quickly adapt to new industries.

Experience

Swag Golf

Dec 2022 – May 2024

Remote

Freelance Technical Project Manager

- Led design, development & launch of e-commerce mobile app with budget of ~$1.5m; introducing additional revenue streams (through direct drop-based sales and subscriptions), reducing cost of sales by 50%, and enabling business intelligence data collection (through peer-to-peer resale channel). - Assumed responsibility for product management & process definition. - Rolled out standardized SDLC, agile project management & release management, across 15-person global development team; enabling efficient and high quality delivery.

Aurora Payments

Feb 2022 – Feb 2023

Remote

Freelance Director, Program & Project Management

- Headed up cross-functional Project & Product Management team; delivering strategic Product & Technology programs (payments, payment gateway, risk, CRM, M&A), with annual budget of ~$4m; resulting in improved time to revenue, improved UX, and reduced costs. - Spearheaded establishment of acquisition integration framework/ processes and oversaw integration of 2 acquired software businesses. - Facilitated definition of Product & Technology roadmap; working with executive leadership to better align program delivery with strategic goals. - Implemented product delivery & PMO frameworks/ processes; resulting in improved program oversight and decision making.

Aurora Payments

Feb 2021 – Feb 2022

Remote

Freelance Technical Program Manager

- Led design, development & launch of proprietary agent commission (residuals) application; integrating processes from multiple business units and reducing back office processing time (and costs) by 75%, in addition to improving calculation accuracy, and agent payout experience. - Managed development & launch of proprietary payments CRM application, and led ongoing feature development, including business intelligence, process automation and 3rd party integrations; enabling improved operational efficiency, data management, and UX. - Established improved Agile & SDLC processes: resulting in improved sprint velocity (~ +25%), and quality.

Sabbatical

Oct 2018 – Jul 2020

Travel

Backpacked across 14 countries in South & Central America on shoestring budget; learning Spanish, volunteering, and attaining PADI Dive Master certification along the way.

Mastercard

Jul 2017 – Oct 2018

Edinburgh/ London

Freelance Transformation Program Manager

Established & led multi-platform sunset program for Payment Gateway Services division, including: - Commercial sunset & technical decommission of non-strategic payment platforms; resulting in cost savings of €8m annually. - Software engineering & product delivery; delivering go-forward-platform payment features and operating model changes; enabling retention/ migration of clients in line with commercial strategy. - Oversaw integration of go forward clients to go-forward payment gateway business; resulting in revenue retention of €10m annually. - Roll out of improved program management process, governance, and reporting; enabling improved cross-functional collaboration and delivery.

Barclays Plc.

Nov 2016 – Jul 2017

London

Freelance Senior Project Manager

Project managed delivery of Corporate Financial Crime KYC application; enabling remediation of 40,000 case backlog, including: - Agile development of KYC application and workflows. - Implementation of target operating model; including process mapping, reporting and user training. - Corporate client support and communications.

Royal Bank of Scotland, Plc.

May 2015 – Dec 2016

Edinburgh

Freelance Implementation Manager

Led Financial Crime implementation team, enabling regulatory split of Retail & Corporate Banking divisions, including: - Technical implementation planning and reporting across multiple platforms; deployment schedules, business assurance, incident management, communications, and post-implementation support. - Roll out of framework and reporting for operational readiness assessments; providing effective decision making mechanisms for senior management.

Align Technology BV

Oct 2013 – Apr 2015

Amsterdam

Program Manager

Drove Invisalign EMEA & APAC commercial program across Product, Marketing, Technology & Operations teams with annual budget of ~$5m, including: - Bi-annual software & medical device feature releases and localization; enabling increased sales and improved UX. - Implementation of new client on-boarding application and workflows, reducing onboarding time by ~40%. - Completion of research phase of project delivering General Practitioner product solution. - Establishment of continuous improvement program, delivering incremental operational changes; contributing to NPS increase of ~25 points. - Created EMEA & APAC product roadmap and quarterly review process; enabling improved product prioritization.

RBS NV

Nov 2009 – Oct 2013

Amsterdam/ New York

Business Change Manager

Lead Technology & Operations Project Manager for Global Transaction Services division as part of strategic business transformation programs, including: - Americas Merger/ Integration program; development of payments & reconciliations applications, operating model changes, data migration, and platform decommission; enabling reduction in global risk exposure and increased operational synergies. - Banking & Payments Sunset program; operating model changes, customer data migration and payment platform decommission; contributing to reduction in global Technology & Operations costs of ~15%. - Regulatory change, operational readiness planning; including IBAN, Swift & FATCA changes. - Implementation of lean/ continuous improvement program; resulting in improved operational processes, and cost savings of ~€2m per year.

RBS Plc.

Oct 2008 – Nov 2009

Edinburgh/ Amsterdam

Business Analyst

Various roles as part of Global Technology Graduate Program, including: - Payments Implementation Lead; part of team responsible for payment incident management as part of ABN Amro global Banking & Payments platform integration program; managing multi-million Euro incidents to deliver quickest resolution with minimal business impact. - Risk Projects Lead; delivering technical and business process changes to achieve a reduction in payments technology risk portfolio of ~30% within a 6-month period.

Education

University of Warwick

Law & Business Studies, 1st Class (Hons)

Carl Smith

Program & Project Management, Product | Software Development | Operations

Skills

Languages