Sandra Hutchison

• Initially employed as Executive consultant to advise on business strategy to get the business ready for acquisition.
• Worked closely with Customers in the UK, US, Dubai and New Zealand to maintain optimum levels of communication to effectively and efficiently complete projects. Managed in excess of 6 projects in parallel ranging from 2 million pounds to 15 000 pounds.
• Used coordination and planning skills to achieve results in the BAU/SLA team to ensure ongoing management of customer service
• Managed team of 15 employees, overseeing hiring, training, and professional growth of employees.
• Delivered exceptional level of service to each customer by actively building relationships and managing issues
• Used critical thinking to break down problems, evaluate solutions and make decisions.
• Ongoing management of people and processed to achieve efficiencies.
• Managed budgets for projects and resource planning within project and BAU.

• Pulse Programme – designed and managed the implementation of a company wide restructure programme to manage the operating model, people, processes, systems, change management and culture to achieve financial and efficiency targets in the BCX Group with the aim of reducing headcount by 1000 and costs by R100 million.
• Key stakeholders were the BCX Exco with key focus for the CEO, Head of Supply Chain and HR Director.
• Group Logistics project – objective to consolidate 5 supply chains across the Group to achieve a saving of R50 million over 3 years.
• This included Real Estate, Transportation, Systems, Processes, Change Management, Inventory Management.
• Project Management of various projects in the Logistics/Supply Chain/HR space within BCX using both agile and waterfall methods.
• End to end management of projects using BCX and PMBOK methodology including budgeting, resource management and planning, change management and stakeholder management.

As COO

• Drives process optimisation across internal, external and third party practices.
• Sources supporting technologies for systems optimisation | Spearheads modernisation of legacy systems.
• Assumes full accountability for efficient and profitable Facilities Management and Real Estate.
• Accountability for Real Estate in SA (13 branches).
• Designs and enforces change management and process re-engineering initiatives.
• Maintains responsibility over data custodianship, data warehouse and related business Intelligence activities.
• Spearheads all business-critical projects and programmes.
• Process mapping programme embarked on to determine and implement best practice.
• As CIO:

- Reduced Budget (R95 million / 12% of Revenue in 2013) to Metric of 4% on RTC: Achieved to date: team of 44 with five Direct Reports (R53 million / 5% of Revenue on RTC).

- Developed strategy and implemented consolidation project to reduce number of line-of-business applications in-country: 3-Year plan has been achieved with 8 systems removed from application estate.

- Off shored key services to Poland in line with EMEA strategy. - - Headcount and cost reductions achieved in R42 million saving.

- Executive management responsibility for delivering the IT and business projects key to the above strategy

- Transformed a dysfunctional team into a high performance team meeting objectives

• To achieve strategic goals of the business, innovating whilst warranting best-practice infrastructure and differentiated client solutions as key to ongoing success.
• Reduced the budget by R42 million rand over 5 years.
• Developed and designed the digital strategy for Aon SA.
• Orchestrates convergence with Global and EMEA applications and opportunities.
• Part of the EMEA IT Leadership team.
• Drives innovation, efficiencies and cost savings for Infrastructure and line of business systems to optimise productivity and profitability, including Cloud and virtualisation services.
• Implemented local infrastructure strategy leading the globe in Aon.
• Directs architecture of application estate to facilitate faster and more agile delivery of systems and solutions with faster time to market.
• Consolidated 8 applications in 3 years.
• Assures industry-leading security standards in adherence to global architectural requirements.
• Enforces quality of service delivery across all areas of the business | Right-sizes IT in line with expectations.
• Designs and implements a regional servicing hub/ model for SA and SSA with DR, Data Centre and Backup.
• Manages team of contractors and staff down to maximum efficiency levels | Manages Vendors and SLAs.
• Leads infrastructure and application development strategy, consolidation and implementation for the region as well as continuous improvement.
• Fulfils Internal Audit and Compliance requirements locally and globally | Enforces Aon Global Security Standards and processes | Employs COBIT5 framework for partial Governance requirements.
• Leads talent agenda to assure retention and attraction of the right team, training and development.

• Seconded to Sydney office to spearhead “Changing for Success” programme as Programme Manager.
• Redesigned Programme structure, implementation, modus operandi and reporting structure.
• Also headed up four of the eight Sub-Projects around functional areas of the business.
• Instituted major Change Initiatives –including focus groups and management interventions.
• Collaborated with local Executive Leadership Team to set expectations and guide behaviour.
• Diligently tracked benefits, headcount reduction and maintenance for reporting purposes.
• Brainstormed and implemented solutions to key business challenges and issues.
• Implemented Change in a newly structured Matrix Organisation.
• Led end-to-end IT projects to implement systemic changes and ensure smooth integration.