Simon Foster

Current

General Manager at Technologis Australia

Past

GM Service Delivery / Services Director at BlueFreeway / BlueCentral
Technical Services Manager at Citect (now Schneider Electric)
Technical Director, Asia Pacific at Workshare Technology

Technical Director, Europe at Identify Software (now BMC Software)
Director, European Advertising Technology Services at Lycos Europe
Technical Director, Benelux, Scandinavia & Southern Europe, at Mercury Interactive (now HP)
VP, Technical Services EMEA & AsiaPac at DoubleClick
Manager, Services and Support EMEA at NetGravity (later DoubleClick)
Systems Engineer and Webmaster at Telewest

see less...

6 more...

Education

University of New South Wales

Recommended

12 people have recommended Simon

Connections

360 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Simon Foster’s Summary

Seasoned technology and services manager acknowledged for capacity to devise simple solutions to complex problems and strike the balance between the needs of customers, the capability of the business to deliver on promises, and the available resources needed to implement the vision. Multifaceted background steering change, managing projects, scaling infrastructure, and building loyal, service-oriented technical teams has been honed to a high professional level through engagements with start-ups and multinationals. Vast level of experience spans senior management assignments conducting due diligence evaluations, through pre-sales, management consulting, change management, professional services, training, and more.

Simon Foster’s Specialties:

IT Services Management
Technical Support Management
Professional Services Management
Multi-site, Multi-Cultural Team Management
Complex Problem Resolution
Policy & Procedure Development
Team Management/Direction
Project Management
Technical Pre-Sales

Simon Foster’s Experience

General Manager

Technologis Australia

(Information Technology and Services industry)

April 2009 — Present (4 months)

Technologis enables SME IT service providers, digital agencies/web designers and ISVs to offer expert level support and maintenance services to their customers.
GM Service Delivery / Services Director

BlueFreeway / BlueCentral

(Public Company; Marketing and Advertising industry)

July 2007 — June 2009 (2 years)

BlueCentral is a hosting and business infrastructure provider, delivering domain names, shared web hosting, dedicated hosting, Colocation solutions and data centre facilities. BlueCentral is a portfolio company of BlueFreeway, a leading group of digital and interactive marketing and communications companies.

Responsible for Customer Services and Technical Support, Data Centre Operations and BlueFreeway Group IT servicing a customer base comprising a mixture of government and enterprise such as Prime TV, NSW Board of Studies and IKEA, as well as SMEs and consumers.

* Implemented services best practices including periodic and event customer satisfaction surveys, Project and Ticket QA processes
* Implemented improved support infrastructure including knowledge management, ticketing and call centre telephony / IVR
* Reinvigorated network operations team into skills based specialists, stabilised network infrastructure involving renegotiation of data centre and bandwidth agreements.
* Sought industry accreditations including Microsoft Gold Partner and SCP Standards
* Achieved consistent improvement across KPIs, such as call abandon rate and customer satisfaction
* Executive level customer escalations
* Managed Group IT in a shared services model with separate P&L
* Implemented accounts receivable processes including introduction of debt collection agenices
Technical Services Manager

Citect (now Schneider Electric)

(Public Company; CTL; Computer Software industry)

August 2006 — July 2007 (1 year)

Leading Industrial Automation and Management Systems Software Vendor developing leading products such as SCADA and AMPLA.

Responsible for escalation and resolution of support issues as manager of level 3/4 support & maintenance development team. Visited customers globally to manage complex problem resolution.

Designed and operated support infrastructure, systems and processes to SCP Standards
Technical Director, Asia Pacific

Workshare Technology

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

March 2005 — April 2006 (1 year 2 months)

Specialists in developing 'inside out' security software for the professional services, financial services and government markets.

Recruited to provide the region's first local technical
leadership, and restore flagging customer confidence with
lack of timeliness and quality surrounding support and
account management. Immediate imperative was to establish
contact with customer base and stress stability and long-
term commitment.

Managed pre- and post-sales support and consulting services to corporate customers. Instrumental in
snaring lucrative sales from prospective
customers by resolving pre-sales issues.
Technical Director, Europe

Identify Software (now BMC Software)

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

July 2004 — March 2005 (9 months)

Software vendor-specialising in application problem resolution for software vendors and financial services.

Third employee to join this [then] business start-up in
Europe, drawing upon US-based infrastructure. Within just
a few months, the business boasted VIP customers across
Europe including HBOS, JP Morgan, Unaxis, Siemens, and
the UK government's Inland Revenue Department.
Director, European Advertising Technology Services

Lycos Europe

(Public Company; TRLY; Internet industry)

January 2003 — June 2004 (1 year 6 months)

Employed to turn around a team failing to deliver
reliable adserving systems that accounted for 80% of the
company's revenues. Initially employed on a 3-month
contract performing hands-on coding work, the engagement
was later extended to consult on ad systems development
and operational structure-leading to an offer to manage
the team.
Technical Director, Benelux, Scandinavia & Southern Europe,

Mercury Interactive (now HP)

(Public Company; MERQ; Computer Software industry)

2002 — 2002 (less than a year)

Responsible for 35 pre- and post-sales technical resources across Benelux, Scandinavia and Southern Europe.
VP, Technical Services EMEA & AsiaPac

DoubleClick

(Public Company; DCLK; Internet industry)

November 1999 — November 2001 (2 years 1 month)

Managed team of 80 staff responsible for pre- and post-sales consulting, training and technical support across Europe and Asia Pacific
Manager, Services and Support EMEA

NetGravity (later DoubleClick)

(Internet industry)

November 1997 — October 1999 (2 years)

Managed Support and Consulting team in Europe for the first commercial online ad serving company
Systems Engineer and Webmaster

Telewest

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; TWSTY; Telecommunications industry)

February 1996 — October 1997 (1 year 9 months)