Ron Kalian

Current

Head of Development (permanent. Previously - contract, 2 extensions, 1 promotion) at Satellite Information Services

Past

Development Director at Electronic Arts
Quality and Business Process Manager at Mobile Innovation Ltd
Professional services manager at Intuwave

Engineering manager - media & graphics at Symbian
Development Manager at Purple Voice Ltd
Program Manager at VocalTec
Software Engineer at Comverse

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4 more...

Education

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School
University of Wales - Swansea University College

Recommended

4 people have recommended Ron

Connections

138 connections

Industry

Computer Software

Ron Kalian’s Summary

A technology sector management specialist with extensive experience of all aspects of technology business management and consultancy management including product management, project and programme management, business process management, software development management and line management for innovative, leading edge technology companies (including blue chip and market leaders) in the mobile, games, broadcasting, satellite, and betting sectors.

Can work at all levels from project management to CTO/CIO.

- Great at organisational trouble-shooting (including communications problems). Hits the ground running, making a difference rapidly.

- Pragmatic, minimalist and efficient. Keeps things simple and working effectively.

- Visionary and motivational leader. Adapts personal management and leadership style to circumstances.

- Strong knowledge and awareness of a wide variety of management and technology areas.

- Attention to both high level view and low level detail. Ability to switch between both as required.

- Quick learner. Excellent with large amounts of information. Gets to the bottom of complex situations quickly. Good at converting ambiguity into certainty.

- Project and programme management to ensure predictable and efficient delivery.

- Setting up new projects and teams and turning around troubled ones ; Strong recruitment, team building and organisational design skills.

Ron Kalian’s Specialties:

- IT governance and alignment between IT and business strategy

- 'projects and processes' and how it all fits together. Most companies would grind to a halt if they implemented process to the letter. The trick is : implement (the right) subset. 'Good process prevents chaos without creating bureaucracy'.

- open source (OSS) projects : strategic considerations, when to use OSS (and which variant to use), when to go OSS with proprietary software, etc.

Ron Kalian’s Experience

Head of Development (permanent. Previously - contract, 2 extensions, 1 promotion)

Satellite Information Services

(Broadcast Media industry)

April 2007 — Present (2 years 4 months)

Head of Satellite Information Services' (SiS) software development department (reporting to SiS COO). Management of 5 teams at London and Milton Keynes delivering QA ; real time sports betting data feeds ; betting, broadcast and satellite communications software products ; resource booking systems ; internal IT systems and integration with 3rd party IT systems.
Development Director

Electronic Arts

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; US:ERTS; Computer Software industry)

May 2005 — March 2007 (1 year 11 months)

Line, project and resource management of 24 developers, project managers and architects in the asset infrastructure and physics teams of EATech; participation in product management of RenderWare physics. RenderWare is a middleware product for games development over PC, game consoles and mobile devices. It is an internal product used by Electronic Arts' games studios.
Quality and Business Process Manager

Mobile Innovation Ltd

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

December 2002 — April 2005 (2 years 5 months)

Overall responsibility for quality and processes in Mobile Innovation (reporting to CEO). Management of a company wide quality programme to bring the company up to compliance with ISO 9001 and relevant parts of CMMI level 3.
Professional services manager

Intuwave

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Software industry)

2002 — 2002 (less than a year)

Creation of Intuwave's professional services dept. Management of several maintenance projects for live Nokia phones, including the Nokia 9210 ('communicator') connectivity software.
Engineering manager - media & graphics

Symbian

(Privately Held; 501-1000 employees; Computer Software industry)

2000 — 2002 (2 years)

Line management, project management and architecture work for media & graphics components of the Symbian OS (aka 'EPOC'). The most significant project has been the creation of the MMF (MultiMedia Framework) which replaced the MediaServer with 3 smaller and more efficient servers. Also undertaken extensive recruitment of developers and project managers.
Development Manager

Purple Voice Ltd

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Software industry)

September 1998 — March 2000 (1 year 7 months)

Joined as the 4th employee of Purple, I started the software development dept. Having taken over existing software, I recruited and managed the development team. We worked together to release the first release of Purple's product (voice over IP for trading floors), and started work on the second release. I had overall responsibility for product architecture, and tech leadership for the company.
Program Manager

VocalTec

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; US:VOC; Computer Software industry)

January 1996 — September 1998 (2 years 9 months)

Managed (hands on) projects in voice over IP servers and conferencing standards (H.323, SIP).
Software Engineer

Comverse

(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; US:CMVT; Computer Software industry)

May 1993 — October 1995 (2 years 6 months)

I worked for 2 years in the INfinity 3 project team. The project converted Comverse's existing 'single box' voice mail product to a distributed scalable voice mail solution. I was responsible for voice paths in the project. The project was very successful and helped position Comverse as the only vendor of high-end large scale voice mail solutions. As a result they established a dominant lead position in this market, and their sales rocketed to $1bn a year.

Ron Kalian’s Education

University of Warwick - Warwick Business School

MBA , 2002 — 2007

Distant learning MBA in parallel with full time work. Graduated July 2007.

Dissertation : "a selection methodology for project collaboration approach and software reuse approach for generic technology projects at Electronic Arts".

Awarded 74% (distinction) for dissertation.
University of Wales - Swansea University College

BSc (Hons) , Computer Science , 1987 — 1990

Graduated with 1st class honours