
Senior Project Director & PMO Expert
Egypt

Senior Project Director & PMO Expert
Egypt
A charismatic leader with over 12 years experience in strategic Project, Program & Portfolio Management in fast paced and international environments and a successful track record of team building, post-merger integrations, high-tech projects (software, network) and quality improvement projects and always giving the extra mile to achieve objectives and results, extremely passionate about driving organizations towards excellence, bringing shareholder value and enterprise effectiveness, promoting change and improving processes.
Certified PMP from PMI • 150+ Global & Transformational Projects in IT, IS, Telco, Web & eBusiness (100M€+ budget) • Expertise in Communication Management, Change Management, Stakeholder Management • Clear understanding of strategic drivers & how to align Programs with strategic pillars • Third party management & Stakeholder management (including Executive Management)
(Leisure, Travel & Tourism industry)
July 2008 — Present (1 year 5 months)
• Setup the framework for the PMO , Change Management, Risk Management, Knowledge Management and Software Development
• Defined the IT Strategy, managing external consultants to conduct interviews with division heads to identify all business needs for IT services, aiming for ISO 20000 and ISO 27000 certifications at launch
• Built the transformation roadmap and the portfolio of IT projects (107 Projects across 8 lines of business, representing 11000 days worth of Project Management effort)
• Recruited a team of professionals in a challenging environment and within very aggressive timelines (9 talents hires within the first 3 months)
• Initiated a Center of Excellence in Project and Program Management across all entities by coaching & mentoring other PM personal
• Member of the Dubailand Business Excellence Council applying the EFQM model for Quality Management (Leadership and People committees)
(Telecommunications industry)
June 2007 — June 2008 (1 year 1 month)
• Set up the PMO framework (governance, methodology, tools & templates) aligned with PMBOK
• Demonstrated clear improvements through deployment of proper Project Management methodology
• Led culture switch through Project Management best practices advocacy
• Recruited and developed a team of certified Program Management professionals
• Developed a Project Management Training Plan with HR for Senior Management & Interoute staff
• Selected & implemented an Enterprise Project Management software solution (Daptiv)
• Coached & Mentored Senior Project Managers across the group through their PMP certification
• Played an instrumental role in identifying and recovering troubled projects
• Managed strategic projects (8 post-M&A integrations; Business Excellence & Quality Improvement)
(Telecommunications industry)
September 2006 — June 2007 (10 months)
• Senior member of the Change Advisory Board
• Managed 25 staff across Europe (remote and local, direct and matrix)
• Standardized and engineered the Service Management processes across 17 countries
• Enabled the measurement of customer satisfaction and raised satisfaction to the target set by the board
• Chaired the Service Management Review Committee (managing the Top Tier customers list)
• Responsible for SLA management for Top Tier customers (50M€+ annual revenue portfolio) and 2nd line Management Escalation
(Privately Held; Telecommunications industry)
January 2006 — August 2006 (8 months)
• Promoted to manage the customer relationship of all Switzerland key accounts (2M€+ annual revenue portfolio)
• Responsible for the project management of strategic customer service implementations (hosting; collocation and managed services).
• Installed a climate of trust & confidence with key customers through creation and implementation of adequate and dedicated communication management plans
• Managed the pilot project for a prototype managed security product for a large banking customer
• Managed a large disaster recovery project for an international banking customer under BASEL2 constraints
• Managed a large collocation (100 sq.m.) project for an international manufacturing customer
• Supported the Bid Management team to win a large international MPLS network deal (12M€)
(Privately Held; Telecommunications industry)
September 2005 — January 2006 (5 months)
• Joined PSINet Europe before the merge with Interoute
• Responsible for project management of International customer services implementations
• Responsible for resource planning & third parties management
• Deputy Facility Manager for a 6'000 sq.m. Tier IV data centre
• Reengineered the Project Management and Customer Operations processes for the post-M&A integration
• Collected and documented all data centre policies and procedures for the post-M&A integration
• Recovered and managed a troubled complex VPN project between Europe and South America
(Information Technology and Services industry)
January 2003 — August 2005 (2 years 8 months)
• "Brains for hire" helping companies to achieve their IT vision by developing and implementing new service solutions, ranging from technological audits to Project Management & Recovery
• Founded the company and recruited two engineers to support business operations
• Responsible for the strategy definition and P&L
• Managed a hosting provider data centre migration project (500km distance) without service interruption
• Organized and participated to several conferences on social networking and web 2.0
• Became intuitu personae consultant for the Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Strasbourg, France
• Sold the business to a partner company and managed the integration of the companies
(Public Company; COLT; Telecommunications industry)
June 2000 — August 2003 (3 years 3 months)
• Joined the start-up R&D unit of this pan-European telecommunications provider to build their next generation IP services
• Responsible for all aspects of software development and user experience
• Managed the software development project of the "IPortal" application for customers, resellers and partners
• Created a unique GUI for the application, enabling non internet-savvy users to take full advantage of the features of the application
• Developed the technical and user documentations (French, English and German) and trained 270 staff to use and explain the application
(Internet industry)
May 1997 — May 2000 (3 years 1 month)
• Founder one of the first Web Agencies in North-Eastern France
• Responsible for the strategy definition and P&L, development and project management of web applications using HTML, JavaScript, VRML, Perl and MySQL
• Identified a radical change in Strategy (subcontracting for bigger companies) and established a stable relationship with the customer base to sustain the business in a challenging environment
• Created, developed an brought online more than 100 web applications (with budgets up to 1M€)
• Taught web development at the Strasbourg Design School (MJM) and business computing at the Strasbourg Graduate School of Management (IECS)
PMP , Project Management , 2007 — 2007
Certified PMP since May 2007.
Master , Management , 2004 — 2005
Master's degree in management, marketing & international business, majored in e-business.
University Diploma , e-business , 1998 — 1999
First university degree in the field of e-business in France.
Workshop , VRML , 1998 — 1998
My VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) project : http://www.casagrande.la/archives/vrml98/stonehenge.wrl
Associate , Musicology , 1994 — 1996
Associate , English , 1992 — 1993
American & English Litterature & Civilisation
Project & Program management, web 2.0, blogging, networking, management, process engineering, golf, books, nice cars, martial arts, cuban cigars, heroic-fantasy
PMI (PMO SIG; Troubled Project SIG), CEO Bloggers Club, IWA, Euro-NECO, OMAC, Bujinkan Niten Dojo, SdB+PM, Gantthead, Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, IECS Network
• Intuitu Personae Consultant for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Strasbourg.
• Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem