• 23 years experience in the ICT field
• Thorough understanding of Internet and Open Source technologies.
• Wide business experience covering various business industries in South Africa.
• I understand Information Technology and how to apply it to today’s demanding business environment.
• My philosophy is to use technology to enhance business productivity.
• Technology should be used to gain competitive edge in business.
• My ultimate role is to find out what business need and then find solutions to meet that need.

• Strategic Management
• Departmental Financial Management
• Project Management
• Change Management
• Managing full development project life cycle from Inception to Hand-over
• Budget management and negotiation
• Cost management
• Team management and motivation
• Resource and Project Organisation planning
• Project administration (from timekeeping through to invoicing)
• Facilitation of workshops
• Compilation of project documentation e.g. Project Definition Report
• Compilation of project schedules
• Chairing of Project Working Group Meetings and Steering Committee Meetings
• Report back to Management and Board on project progress
• Client Relationship Management
• Test and Software Quality control

• PM for various development projects at De Beers.
  • Development of a Debtors system from business requirement phase, functional analysis, development, system testing, user testing and ultimately to implementation.
  • Production Statistical Systems that was developed using Client Server methodologies using Visual Basic on the client side and AS/400 with DB2 on the server side.
  • Realtime data interface using C++ for the automation of diamond weighing.
• PM for the De Beers year 2000 project.
• PM for BodyIQ project at Astrolabe
  • Functional analysis and JAD sessions held with various role-players to define function requirement and specifications.
  • Overall system architecture from a technical as well as software was designed.
  • Database schemas was designed and implemented.
  • Client/Server application was developed in Visual Basic that interfaced with SQL Server and other Visual Basic client over the Internet.
• PM for the testing project of the Fundamo backend systems
  • Managed a team of testers in the testing of Fundamo backend financial system developed in Java.
  • Developed testing frameworks according to UML methodologies.
• PM for Virtual News Engine system at Independent Online
  • This project covered the full SDLC life cycle
  • Resources included were from outside vendors, other independent divisions from across South Africa and in-house developers and designers.
  • Interfaces were built to legacy systems on UNIX machines using web services.
  • Application was rolled out in phases covering regions and news paper titles.
  • Training was provided during the rollout phase.
• Formal qualification in Project Management as part of my Honours in Business Administration.
• Experience in the use of Microsoft Project as a Project Management tool.

Thorough business knowledge in the following environments:

• Financial Services
• Financial Systems
• Mining
• Online Media and Printed media
• Sports and sports related environments

Does have good knowledge of General Business Management.

Thorough technical knowledge of the following technologies

• Open Source:
  • Operating Systems: Linux & FreeBSD
  • RDMS: MySQL & PostGres
  • Internet: Apache
  • Development: PHP
  • Various other products for DNS servers, mail servers etc.
• Microsoft:
  • Operating Systems: From DOS through to Windows XP
  • RDMS: SQL Server
  • Mail: Exchange Server
  • Internet: IIS
  • Microsoft Transaction Server, Microsoft Message Queue
  • Various desktop like Office, Visio, Project etc
  • Development: VB, ASP, VBScript including understanding of .NET (Web Services).
• IBM
  • Hardware: AS/400, IBM 9375
  • Operating Systems: OS/400, VM
  • RDMS: DB/400, DB/2
  • Development: Cobol, RPG
• Architecture and Methodologies:
  • Networking concepts and technologies
  • Internet technologies like IMAP, POP, SMTP, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS and SSL
  • SDLC development process
  • UML – Unified Modelling Language
  • Testing and the creation of Test plans and Testing scenarios
• Other:
  • RDMS: Oracle and to a limited extend Sybase
  • Development: C++
  • Various desktop like Adobe Acrobat and other utilities.
  • Dreamweaver, HTML, Javascript for Internet development
  • XML, Web Services and other data interchange technologies.

• Owner of own company called Henriska Technology (http://www.henriska.co.za/)
• Specializing in Internet and Open Source consulting.
• Clients and customers are Small to Medium size enterprises
• Member of the Cape chapter of the Internet Society.

Jan 2001 - Feb 2003
Technical Director
Independent Online

Independent Online operated its ICT server infrastructure on Open Source philosophies. The main benefits were:

• Reduced Cost of ownership
• No licence fees
• Availability of source code so that products can be optimized to suit IOL requirements.
• Reduced hardware costs due to lower hardware requirements.

Independent News and Media Group IT Steering Committee member

• Advices Independent News and Media Board and CEO on ICT strategic projects and issues.

Management of Technical division within Independent Online.

• Daily operations with and annual budget of about R3 million in operating budget and about R1 million of capital expenditure.
• 12 Staff members including Project Managers, developers, designers and system administrators.

• Departmental Responsibilities

• Operation of South African biggest media web portal.
• Development of new Internet Related Projects
• Mail Servers within Independent Online

Technologies Used

• FreeBSD as Operating System
• MySQL as RDBMS
• Apache as Internet Hosting Platform
• PHP as development language
• Windows based desktop system.

Key Performance

• IOL improved from and average media portal to biggest in South Africa with about 15 million page views and 1 million unique users per month.
• Manage major projects to successful implementation.
• Re-design of IOL media portal.
• Virtual News engine for Individual newspaper sites.
• Conversion of Independent News and Media from Internet Solutions as an ISP to UUNET as an ISP. This included the re-negotiation of existing ISP contracts.

Mar 2000 - Dec 2000
Consultant
Fundamo – Subsidiary of Sanlam

Appointed as Independent Consultant

• Design, develop and implementation of WML server which acted as interface between Fundamo backend functionality and cellphone via the Cellphone networks. Architecture used:
  • Linux as operating system.
  • MySQL as RDMS
  • PHP as development language
  • XML as data transfer language
• Release Management and Quality Assurance: Managed the overall testing and release program of the Fundamo systems --- used Rational Rose testing methodologies. This included the QA of the Fundamo web portal as developed by a third party.

Nov 1998 - Feb 2000
Systems Consultant
Astrolabe Technology Group

Provided solutions using Database, Internet and e-Commerce technologies using Microsoft technologies to integrate Document Management and Workflow products.

Designed, developed and implemented an Intranet for Astralabe’s Cape Town office.

Database and Internet development responsibility on the BodyIQ project. BodyIQ is a health monitoring systems from Sport Science Institute that was outsourced to Astrolabe.

Products used:

• MS SQL Server
• MS Internet Information Server (IIS)
• Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS)
• Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ)
• Microsoft Exchange
• Visual Basic as development tool together with ASP, ASP.NET and Javascript.

Jan 1988 - Oct 1998
Development and Project Manager
De Beers Namaqualand Mines

Appointed as Support Specialist for all desktop hardware and software.

De Beers migrated from IBM 9370 technology to AS/400’s. I was appointed to oversee the operation of the AS/400’s which included the development of software solutions on the AS/400.

Promoted to Development Manager responsible for a team of developers using Cobol, RPG on the AS/400 and Visual Basic on PC.

Major projects during my stay at De Beers:

• Real time diamond weighing systems developed in C++
• Conversion of IBM 9375 to AS/400
• Project Manager for converting from Novell to Windows NT – include moving to Microsoft Exchange for email and SQL Server as a RDMS.
• Develop an Intranet using Microsoft Technologies.
• Project Manager for Y2K project.

Experience during this period:

• IBM AS/400
• Microsoft BackOffice platform: Windows NT. Exchange, SQL Server, IIS
• Project Management
• Development Management

Mar 1980 - Dec 1987
Various Positions
Old Mutual

Started at Old Mutual Branch office in an administrative function and later transferred to Old Mutual Head office where I started my career in the ICT field.

Developed software solutions for Actuarial problems using a language called APL.

Progressed up to Department Head level in department that provided software solutions for Individual Life products.

Experience during this period:

• IBM Mainframes
• Various Microsoft products
• Development languages: C, C++ and APL

• Playing Golf
• Reading
  • mostly non-fictional like Autobiographies
  • finacial magazines
  • sports magazines
• Financial Markets
  • stock market investments
  • FOREX market investments
• Maintain a South African amateur photographic website
  • http://www.safoto.co.za/
• Staying abreast of current technology trends
  • subscribing to Internet newsletters
  • reading industry magazines and newspapers