finova

Lead Project Manager

TSB Bank

TSB, Lead Project Manager: Self Service hardware and software programme

•	Managing a 12 strong project team consisting of; Project Managers, Business Analysts and Testers in the end-to-end delivery of a £10m programme of 10 projects, including upgrading the Banks entire estate of ATM and IDM followed then migrating it from Window 7 to Windows 10 as well as preparing the Bank for signature changes e.g. the introduction of the Polymer £20 (Feb 2020) and £50 (June 2021) notes
•	Led on key daily activities, including; Planning workshops, preparing Business readiness and Release management, implementation management and the delivery of quality project collateral e.g. Steering materials which would suitable to inform and drive key decisions by Executive level stakeholders
•	Working with Project Support and Finance functions to ensure budgets were carefully managed from 5 different sources of funding from changes in different sources i.e. Scheme, Legal & Regulatory, IT maintenance and Strategic portfolios
•	Ensuring the Project team had a close-knit working relationship with the offshore IT (SABIS) and 3rd party partners such as; IBM, Diebold Nixdorf, NCR and Staffords to ensure the successful delivery; upgrades to the TSB ATM and IDM estate 
•	Utilized communication skills to influence a wide group of stakeholders up to Director level across the Bank to ensure the right decisions are made taking into account; cost, quality and pressing deadlines  
•	Achievement: Successfully delivered £10m across multiple projects over 2 years to Self Service which put TSB in the position of having a market leading foundation (software and hardware) enabling it to meet its strategic needs and opening the door to future innovation

Onboarding to the CHAPS scheme

•	Leading a Spanish IT team of 10 members and leading a UK based team of 2 Business analysts and 4 Testers in the delivery of a signature change for any financial institution in the U.K – enabling TSB to move circa £182b per year as a direct member of the CHAPS payment scheme with the Bank of England (BoE).
•	Planning and delivering £2.5m+ suite of changes into; Proteo4UK (IBM based) platform and its SWIFT & CHAPS engine, Accurate auto-reconciliation tool, Treasury apps; Collaterals, Derivatives and NAI. 
•	Against an aggressive deadline prescribed by the BoE, I developed and implemented an ambitious yet viable plan to ensure that essential payments functionality was built and tested prior to TSB going live with the CHAPS scheme.
•	Lead TSB wide initiatives – I hosted calls with 50+ participants and engaged with their Director level leadership to ensure impact assessments against 25 separate business applications were completed on time. This ensured TSB was able to accommodate BoE requirements when it came to CHAPS. extensions being called and the knock-on impact to TSB batch jobs dependent on CHAPS payments
•	I frequently presented problem statements on crucial risks and issues to TSB Exec to enable design and funding decisions to be made; striking the delicate balance between TSB’s risk appetite whilst still adhering to the BoE CHAPS scheme requirements.
•	Achievement: The strength of the system I developed and tested for TSB led to the Bank of England grading TSB’s onboarding as “Excellent” and said, “It was the fastest and smoothest in living memory”.

• Played an instrumental role in delivering the most ambitious and challenging financial programmes in Europe at the time; building a new banking platform for TSB facilitated by Sabadell bank and migrating all data from the old (Lloyds Banking Group) platform.
• Responsible for managing IT and Business teams in the delivery of the Collections & Recoveries project and 3rd party FICO product; Debt Manager 9 (DM9) system – used to manage customer Mortgage accounts as well as a range of other retail banking products. 
• DM9 required £14m+ of change covering 27 interfaces into the host (Proteo4UK) application, embedding 100 credit risk strategies and 600+ business processes, changes to the Placements Plus DCA app and ensuring C&R requirements were met in host systems including; customer data management, letter production, telephony management, MI reporting, retail and commercial banking product systems.
• My responsibilities on a daily basis were, not limited to; being the main point of contact for TSB Collections & Recoveries within the programme, presenting problem statements and justifications to TSB Exec, building and maintaining IT and Business delivery MS Project plans, leading a Testing team of 15 and an IT team of 12, leading on RAID management, designing schedule of events and leading on 5 Dress Rehearsal and Go live implementation events and point of escalation for post go-live incidents encountered.
• Coordinating delivery and escalation for 3rd parties; 4 representatives of Concentrix (Bangalore) covering a team of c.114, 7 FICO developers, 5 LBG Programme manager level members
• Regular exposure to Executive and Director level stakeholders, not limited to: leading Exec steering meetings, presenting change requests, addressing critical risks and issues
• Achievement: I successfully negotiated with LBG to save TSB an estimated £1.1m by having ownership of the ‘Placements Plus’ system transferred to TSB rather than it being decommissioned.

Vertical Delivery Manager (Senior Project Manager)

•	Worked on a Product based portfolio of change leading a team of 6 Project managers. Key point of contact into our I.T supplier; Lloyds Banking Group and a point of escalation into the Change and Business leadership. 
•	Senior Managers Regime (Nov ’15 – Mar ’16) – Brought in to stabilise and progress one of the biggest regulatory changes to impact Banking in the U.K in recent years.  Primary focus was developing training for 500 colleagues, communications, problem solving, and upgrades to a range of business training systems to meet the challenging regulatory requirements within a 5 month window.

I worked on a diverse range of projects from purely I.T. technical, Digital, ATM, Financial Products and to Regulatory changes with impacts on sales and service process across TSB. The role allows me to use a combination of planning, analysis and influencing stakeholders to deliver dependable and beneficial results across a developing bank. Notable achievements include:
•	Delivering 40+ projects of varying size within 2014 from ‘Small’ to Programme level, including iconic changes such as the New ISA (NISA) HMRC regulations which took effect in July this year across the UK.
•	Implementation manager for the ‘Horizon programme’ and multi-million pound I.T. initiative to migrate the hardware and infrastructure that sits behind all LBG and TSB core banking services
•	Project Manager for all changes impacting TSB’s ATM (cash machine) channel 
•	Successfully presenting business readiness strategies for a change which impacts TSB’s reputation, to Executives within TSB

Project Manager

Initially jointed the TSB Change team as a Business Analyst. My speciallity was managing multiple Lloyds Bank based changes which TSB would also receive. These changes predominantly sat within the Payments and Operational areas and formed an excellent foundation in analysing change, identifying its benefits and and ensuring that TSB were ready to receive the change in terms of Business readiness: technically, business processes, training, communications and customer engagement.

Business Analyst

Lloyds Banking Group

I worked on an ambitious I.T project testing numerous systems for Mortgages (UAT and End to end) used by Lloyds Banking Group. My role has helped me to demonstrate a well-rounded skill set and natural disposition to testing and project work, which meant I have been consistently assessed as being one of the top-performing analysts on the team. I was promoted after 10 weeks to independently manage two demanding projects within Payments and Mortgage Insurance.

Notable achievement:
- Since starting my role as a Business Test Analyst in June 2012, I have successfully completed 5 test projects, 3 of which I completed independently.  I delivered all 3 on time, meeting all requirements with a 100% pass rate.

Business Test Analyst

Dealt with complex litigation cases within Mortgages; Collections & Recoveries. High points include:
- Since joining LBG I have strived to become a valuable member of my team and one of the top performers in my department. 
- My work has included handling hundreds of complex litigation cases which require constant risk assessment, problem solving, excellent communication skills and organization on a day to day basis. I am the nominated expert for priority complaint cases. 
- In addition to my day to day work, I am the Colleague Engagement representative for approximately 90 colleagues, organizing charity and colleague recognition events on a month to month basis. 
- On numerous occasions I have assumed the role of manager for two teams, successfully managing a variety of characters and clearing record levels of work. 

Notable achievement:
- Using my own initiative and independent research I developed a strategy and training for 15 colleagues to tackle a backlog of over 1400 'deceased customer mortgage arrears' cases with an approximate value of £92 million. We completed the task in 3 months.

Litigation Assessor/Assistant Manager

A consummate Change professional with a wealth of experience in the banking industry, particularly in; Regulatory Change, Operations, Payments, Products and Data Migration. I have a well-rounded skill set which has allowed me to shape and drive the successful delivery of Programme-sized initiatives. I believe my excellent inter-personal skills coupled with my decade of experience have enabled me to flourish and succeed in the delivery of a diverse range of projects.

Taplio

Luke Espley's Linkedin Analytics

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Taplio

.css-1jgreyo{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39,43,72,1) 0%, rgba(33,47,183,1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Luke Espley's Linkedin Analytics

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?

Luke Espley's Linkedin Analytics