From January 1985 to December 1987 I worked as a Principal Consultant at Synapse in the UK. As well as hands-on software development for a range of clients, At Synapse I became increasingly involved in pre-sales, project management, customer support and general technical and management consulting.
Worked with the managing director to start-up a new application development division for the leading independent provider of systems programming services for IBM mainframes. This role involved a lot of customer and prospect visits, with sales presentations and general business development. I also presented the application division at a number of company-wide meetings.
Managed 4 people on project for the Equity & Law insurance company to develop a replacement Broker Funds management application within a tight timescale of six months. This project was based on-site within the end-user department, so I had daily contact with both the end-users and senior management. This project took place under the radar of the IT department, so some political skills also came into play.
Consulted on a range of development projects for M&G Investments, The Salvation Army, Harrods, Desoutter, Cullinet, Hitachi and TRW. Again, these projects were a mixture of pre-sales, post-sales, hands-on development and technical consulting.
