John Lee

An IT executive with a track record of transforming IT to strongly support the organization’s business goals. A seasoned leader, who can address strategic issues, while ensuring that the day-to-day operations of the IT systems that are supported are reliable.  Proven history of building strong teams that are focused on delivering IT solutions that are cost effective and meet operational needs.

Dye & Durham                                                                                                      Sept 2021 – Aug 2022

Global Director of IT

Responsible for all internal IT systems for Dye & Durham on 3 continents supporting a company with over 2000 employees. This included SAAS solutions such a Microsoft O365, Ringcentral, Salesforce, ERP and HRIT systems.

• Executed RFPs for service desk outsourcing, ITSM and PC standards which resulted in improved costs and improved capabilities
• Established a vendor management framework to manage solutions/services
• Managed personnel in Canada, Australia, UK and Ireland.
• Supporting developing the IT control framework, developed IT policies, cyber controls etc.
• Implemented first BCP program for the company
• Developed integration roadmap to support company with numerous acquisitions.

black & mcdonald                                                                                                 june 2014 – Apr 2021

Director of IT

Led all IT activities for an organization with 6500 employees in North America. Supported systems that support facilities management, construction and corporate functions. Manage team of infrastructure personnel, applications and project managers for an organization with over $1.6B in revenues in Canada, US and Bermuda.  Establish control framework for ITIL/Cobit and developed controls for NATO Secret Clearance Level II for clients and organization.

• Created an IT Strategy to support the business in light of new competitors and technologies – including roadmaps for collaboration, ERP, mobility and reporting analytics.
• Introduced business to key technologies such as IOT, Data Analytics, Robotics, virtual reality, mobile – this was made by engaging technology companies and developing prototypes for the business.
• Implemented the IT plan to rollout over 1000 mobile devices to field personnel to create time sheet, Health & Safety forms, checklist, POs and workorders across North America – integrated this mobile application to ERP to reduce paperwork.  Major transformation for the company from paper to electronic workflow – currently processing over 25K transactions daily through electronic channel.
• Supported mission critical business functions on a 24 by 7 basis for service, medical sites and government contracts. 
• Completed the upgrade and implementation of enterprise ERP Solution (Oracle JDE E1) ensuring that the system can support the business. Negotiated with the vendor to reduce support costs by over $1 M.
• Managed a portfolio of IT/Business projects in the areas of ERP, CRM, SharePoint, Call Centre, Networks and acquisitions
• Created cyber control environment to allow the company to be compliant with Government and Military contracts – including perimeter defense, cyber education, cyber response team and change IT processes to maintain compliance. Familiar with Privacy laws of Canada, US and municipal privacy directives.
• Implemented Black & McDonald’s transition to the cloud by ensuring compliance with processes, policies, business needs, data controls etc. are in place to support cloud solutions.  These include cloud solutions in the areas of HRIT (Cloud), Fleet Management (Cloud), Training (Cloud), CRM (Cloud), SharePoint (Cloud) and others. Establish the governance process to ensure that these systems can operate together and help manage the business changes required to support the system. First cloud solution was implemented in 2014 and since then over 9 cloud solutions have been implemented.

Consultant                                                                                                          Jan 2014 – June 2014 Supporting organizations such as PWC as a senior IT consultant.

SNC Lavalin O&M                                                                                             2010 – 2014

Vice President IT

Led all IT activities in the O&M division which included Facilities Management Groups, Transportation, Logistics and Defense. SNC Lavalin O&M managed a portfolio of over 250M square feet of office space. This included:  applications, desktop, help desk, distributed systems, telephony, IT governance and the data centre.  Managed a network with over 600 networked locations in North America, South America, Europe, Middle East and Asia with over 5000 users.

• Built a new IT organization that aligned with the growth strategies of the business and resulted in significant cost savings while proactively supporting the business. Savings were in excess of $1.5M a year.  IT Personnel located in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Qatar
• Instituted a program of customer service enhancements that improved customer satisfaction by end users significantly – created a proactive relationship management process to various business units to ensure that IT issues are addressed, and communication is effective. Develop Service Level Agreements with the business which were measured and published on the corporate intranet.
• Support the Oracle JDE E1 ERP system for a $2B in revenue division.
• Responsible for all IT policies to support compliant to SSAE 16 compliance and compliance to key customers such as Bank of Montreal, Department of Defense, Canadian Government, etc.
• Responsible for all cyber controls and infrastructure to protect the enterprise electronically.
• Budget control on IT spend in excess of $30M – ensure financial controls are in place with creation of proper signing authorization process.
• Manage the implementation of a new property management system that was 3 years late and put together the team that completed the project – this included business changes required to operate the system.
• Secret Clearance Level II (NATO) – created IT policy and controls for cyber security threat, instituted regular penetration testing and developed changes to IT processes to reflect need for increased controls.

AVIVA CANADA                                                                                               2006 – 2010

CIO General Insurance North America - Senior Vice President IT

Led all IT activities in Aviva’s North American General Insurance business. The IT group had an employee population of over 320 full time personnel and a budget in excess of $80M a year. This included applications, desktop, help desk, distributed systems, telephony, mainframe, IT governance and the data centre.  Aviva Canada had over 3800 employees and over 2M policy holders.

• Built a new a new IT management team that supported the business demands with new governance processes. This includes new methodologies, ITIL/COBIT frameworks and processes that improved the overall transparency of IT to the business and reliability of IT systems.  This included the development of Service Level Agreements with all major lines of businesses with relationship managers.
• Introduced SDLC and Project Methodologies into IT group – including IT processes for Change Management, Problem Management, Vendor Management, etc.
• Built out formal architecture group which created a road map for all key systems and integrations between systems were managed.  This included network, systems, applications, hardware and data architecture.  This team drove the development and update of the IT strategy for Aviva Canada and that strategy was rolled up to the corporate one managed by Group IT in London.
• Supported the operations of the Claims Group at Aviva Canada and developed key systems to support the process of handling claims and develop efficiencies for the business.
• Managed the IT elements for all key corporate projects which consisted of over $250M in spend and ensure that this portfolio of projects was completed successfully.  Resulted in a dramatic increase in revenues to the company.  This included:
  • Amalgamation of CGI policy management system into PMS (Internal Policy Management) system – This system was used by one division and this moved all divisions to a common PMS system company wide.
  • Developed for Commercial Lines a dedicated Portal for their unique client requirements.
  • Updated the Broker Portal to provide web services to the broker channel and address key issues from the previous portal with input from the business and the brokers (External).  This included a new interface between the PMS and the Portal.
  • Replace statement pagination system with upgraded tool that allows the business to inset content into the statement stream easier.
  • Upgraded the Rating System at Aviva with the business to ensure that new tool and changes are effective and supports the business.
  • Supported the implementation of Aviva Autograph (Pay as You Go) Program
  • Supported the Common Pricing Project which updated and improved the pricing data base (Actuarial Database) for commercial and personal lines – this resulted in the company being able to reduce risk.
  • Personal Lines Re Engineering – Support all of the application changes required to improve the efficiencies of Underwriting Group.
  • Updated IT controls to address cyber threats, fraud prevention, third parties controls to protect the organization
• Outsourced the IT infrastructure to provide savings to the business in excess of $5M annually.

PITNEY BOWES CANADA                                                                                2001 – 2006

Vice President and CIO

Reported to the President of the Canadian company with a matrix reporting line to the Global CIO and the head of the Canadian leasing company.  Responsible for all IT activities for the Canadian subsidiary of Pitney Bowes. This included application support, desktop, helpdesk, telephony, systems and data centre.   

• Implemented major systems for the business that included: SAP implementation for Canada (FI, OTC, Supply chain), Define and initiate plan for the introduction of CRM into the Pitney Bowes Call Centre with Siebel CRM, Davox IVR and an Avaya call switch. 
• Stabilized IT infrastructure by upgrading all workstations, routers, servers and phone switches. This improved the overall reliability of systems and ensure that the business had reliable systems to support the client base.
• Created the disaster recovery plan for Postage by Phone which is acknowledged as one of the 10 most critical systems in Canada. 
• Ensured that all IT processes are compliant with Sarbanes Oxley – developed processes and controls to ensure compliance – includes SDLC and Project Management process
• Built new Tier 3 data centre for Pitney Bowes which support an organization with close to $450M in revenues a year in Canada – with the primary site in Toronto and back site in Calgary with live updates.
• Chief Privacy Officer for Pitney Bowes Canada – instituted program of education and best practices for cyber and information controls

FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CANADA LIMITED                                                    1994 – 2001

Vice President, Head of eBusiness Division of Canada (2000 - 2001)

Mandated to define an eBusiness strategy for the Canadian operations and motivate the entire organization to become e enabled as part of a worldwide strategy for ecommerce.   

• Implemented the first mobile wireless application for a Canadian Mutual Fund company.
• Formed an industry consortium with other mutual fund companies that founded the Fundcom.org aggregation portal for the Canadian fund industry - this provided an integrated access point for mutual fund transactions that dramatically improved the productivity of Fidelity Investments and its clients.
• Responsible for the creation of a companywide portal for employees that won a silver award in internet design

Vice President Information Services and CIO (1994 - 2000)

Responsible for Canadian IT, that includes development, projects, networks, computer operations and desktop services. Department consisted of 140 professionals with an annual budget in excess of $35M annually. Member of the Executive Committee. 

• Managed major system issues and implemented a remediation plan that improved both the stability of the system and customer satisfaction.
• Created an IT strategic plan that led to key system changes allowing Fidelity Canada to move from 59th in sales to 1st in sales within Canada. Company assets grew from $1B in assets to over $35B during this period.
• Implemented regular IT Steering Committee with governance over all IT spend and direction – assured that financial controls were in place and that processes could be auditable.
• Managed all applications in Canada and supported all functions including Portfolio Managers – managed the support of the primary Transfer Agent System and built messaging to interface to finance, HR, Fund Accounting, Sales (CRM) and customer servicing systems.
• Implemented the first disaster recovery plan for a mutual fund company in Canada.
• Chairman of Investment Fund Industry of Canada’s Y2K sub-committee
• Selected as the second-best organization in Canada to work for by the ROB and achieved 1st quartile results in Gallup Survey.
• Part of Worldwide IT forum which directed IT spend for Fidelity Investments worldwide – spend in excess of $800M (annually)
• Built ITIL based processes which includes a Software Development Lifecycle and Project Management Process – Implemented the Change Review Board (CRB) that ensure that system changes did not have a deleterious impact on the business with ITIL processes such as Change Control, Problem Management, Vendor Management, Incident Management, Release etc.
• Accountable for the capacity planning to ensure that all IT resources such as network, hardware, software, disk etc. had enough capacity to accommodate the growth of the business.
• Implemented Information Security Risk Process and acted as the Information Security Risk Officer develop IT policies and training programs to reflect areas such as information security risk.

SCOTIAMCLEOD INC.                                                                                      1989 – 1994

Vice President IT

Accountable for all systems development for the front office operations. The areas of business that were supported included the Fixed Income Research Group, Bond Desk, Equity Desk, Equity Research and Retail operations. 

• Assumed leadership of company’s bond data base project that was behind schedule. Refocused the team and the project completed on time and gained high level visibility within the organization.  The bond database was one of the most critical systems at the bank.
• Implemented a major portfolio management system in one year and collected over $2B in assets for the retail brokerage business.
• Supported Bonds Trading, Back-office systems, Research Systems, Analytical tools, Research tools, pricing systems and research data bases. Built interfaces for all systems and transformed data from ADP (Back Office) to front end trading and research systems.
• Maintained and provided all of the key reporting required to manage the controls to support a Capital Markets and Retail Brokerage operation – include regulatory reporting and KYC.
• Selected and implemented the first Software Development LifeCycle process for ScotiaMcLeod.

University of Toronto                                                                                      

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science 

Prime Computer 

Sales Training Course 

Ontario Securities Commission

Officers/Directors Course – CSC Course

MICA

The Dynamics of Changes         

Center for Creative Leadership - Eckerd College, St Petersburg Florida 

Leadership Development Program 

Pitney Bowes 

Executive Training - LEAD – Pitney Bowes corporate wide management training program

Aviva

Seven Summits Training - Aviva corporate wide executive training program