RUSSELL STATHER
Chief Technology Officer
DURBAN,KZN
Summary
Commercially focused, hands-on CTO with many years of experience across multiple sectors including customer acquisition, foreign exchange, banking, media, telecoms, financial services.
Highly proficient at a hands-on level in all modern development technologies, including .NET, Kubernetes, DevOps, Agile, API, IaC.
Participates in active development everyday, and provides in depth technical leadership to all team members
Proven leadership and delivery skills resulting in Ignition generating 25% annual growth in the past 2 years, and setting the business up for hyperscale growth in the international market in the up coming financial year.
At Caxton, innovation in the foreign exchange market gave the company up to 2% additional treasury revenue each day, over and above the trade margins.
Overview
34
34
years of professional experience
4
4
years of post-secondary education
Work History
Group CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
IGNITION GROUP
Durban, KZN
08.2016 - Current
- Operated at strategic level for all units of the group, including banking, telco, customer acquisition, insurance
- Ideated and delivered platform business models for payments and customer engagement that enabled Ignition to enter into joint venture with major international bank, delivering substantial revenues in year 1
- Spearheaded cloud transformation and cloud architecting resulting in uptimes in excess of 99% from baseline of less than 90%
- Managed move to fully outsourced IT operation raising desktop support SLAs from 80% to 95%, resulting in 5% reduction in cost per sale and 7% increase in sales revenue.
- Developed and implemented long-term strategic technological blueprint.
- Completed and submitted monthly and yearly reports to support executive decision making.
- Coordinated third-party vendors and client IT teams to seamlessly deliver effective solutions, including working with Microsoft to deliver Dapr.io microservice framework
- Laid out complete business continuity plan to maintain data protection in event of natural disaster or long-term outage.
IT DIRECTOR
CAXTON FX LTD
London, UK
01.2014 - 01.2016
- Recruited whole new technology team and developed new business platform from ground up to launch in 7 months, successfully launched in January 2015
- Platform is real time FX trading system, with multi-currency accounts for clients, netting engine to optimise spreads and a customer care/CRM system for call centre agents. Netting engine added extra treasury profit to all transactions.
- Utilised Hyperscale cloud technology to enable 24x7x365 operation to support close to 1M card holders travelling worldwide.
- Implemented scalability at low cost to support high turnover, low margin FX business
- Analyzed department and job-related functionality requirements to align technology priorities with business needs.
SOLUTION DIRECTOR
CSC
Aldershot, UK
01.2010 - 01.2011
- Led number of bid teams to successfully win multimillion-pound contracts for transformational outsourcing
- This included enterprise solution design for international frozen food company who wanted to outsource their IT function, and at same time replace their aging network infrastructure with new hybrid voice and data network incorporating unified comms
- Worked closely with CEO of Royal Mail to develop their innovation strategy. Developed concept of direct customer contact to up-sell premium parcel deliver by real time text messaging has since been implemented and has increased Royal Mail's market share of premium packet delivery market by 3%, which is valued at over £100M
- Modeled process flow of joinery factory, enabling identification of bottlenecks and inefficiencies, resulting in 14% more productive shop floor
ENTERPRISE ARCHITECT
NEWS INTERNATIONAL
01.2008 - 01.2010
- Delivered architecture for News International Pay Wall, which enabled paid for content on all News International web sites. This used innovative WAYF technique enabling cross domain participation in paywall features, providing estimated 15% reduction in effort for new website builds.
- Implemented automatic article tagging technology so that richer related content could be delivered to subscribers. This enabled 50% reduction in journalistic input for equal content.
- Solution was implementation of subscription and payment mechanism which provided for one time, monthly and recurring subscriptions at variety of levels. This versatility lowered SAC by 10% and reduced churn by estimated 15%
ARCHITECT
T-MOBILE
Hatfield, Hertfordshire
01.1997 - 01.2008
- Designed and delivered number of mission critical projects including e-topup infrastructure, interactive SMS capability and real time next best offer for call centre interactions
TECHNICAL LEAD
PI TECHNOLOGY
01.1995 - 01.1997
- Designed and delivered a real time engine simulator capable of working at speeds consistent with F1 engines
TECHNICAL LEAD
REUTERS
01.1991 - 01.1995
- Designed and delivered the software component of the world's first primary rate ISDN dealer boards
CONSULTANT
PA CONSULTING
01.1989 - 01.1991
- Worked with a number of high-profile client such as BAE systems to enable computerised manufacturing to streamline their business operations
SENIOR DEVELOPER
XEROX, PA CONSULTING
01.1985 - 01.1989
- Led a small team of engineers producing Windows software applications to enhance the features of Xerox desktop printers
Education
Ph.D. - Solid State Physics
University of Liverpool
Liverpool 07.1983 - 05.1985
Bachelor of Science - Physics And Electronics
University of Liverpool
Liverpool 10.1980 - 05.1983
Skills
Kubernetes and Containers
undefinedAdditional Information
Although currently based in Durban, South Africa, my family is in process of returning to the UK after being here for 6 years. This relocation is currently underway and therefore for all purposes I should be considered as resident in the UK.
Timeline
Group CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
IGNITION GROUP
08.2016 - Current
IT DIRECTOR
CAXTON FX LTD
01.2014 - 01.2016
SOLUTION DIRECTOR
CSC
01.2010 - 01.2011
ENTERPRISE ARCHITECT
NEWS INTERNATIONAL
01.2008 - 01.2010
ARCHITECT
T-MOBILE
01.1997 - 01.2008
TECHNICAL LEAD
PI TECHNOLOGY
01.1995 - 01.1997
TECHNICAL LEAD
REUTERS
01.1991 - 01.1995
CONSULTANT
PA CONSULTING
01.1989 - 01.1991
SENIOR DEVELOPER
XEROX, PA CONSULTING
01.1985 - 01.1989
Ph.D. - Solid State Physics
University of Liverpool
07.1983 - 05.1985
Bachelor of Science - Physics And Electronics
University of Liverpool
10.1980 - 05.1983
Similar Profiles
Shawn DuffShawn Duff
Senior Sales Associate at Ignition GroupSenior Sales Associate at Ignition Group
Nokuthula RayiyaNokuthula Rayiya
Sales Agent at Ignition Group - Head OfficeSales Agent at Ignition Group - Head Office
Ziyanda Mpilonhle DlaminiZiyanda Mpilonhle Dlamini
Sales Agent Representative at Ignition Group MTN RetentionSales Agent Representative at Ignition Group MTN Retention