Key skills

· Project management, including planning, scheduling, budgeting, outsourcing and resource allocation.

· People management, including recruitment, training and development of teams in the UK and France.

· Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, good at building relationships and motivating people.

· Strong organisational and problem-solving abilities, attention to detail and sound judgment.

Achievements

· Completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Computing for Commerce & Industry while working full time.

· Achieved a Pass with Merit for the Project Management course, accredited by the Association for Project Management (APM) and equivalent to the ISEB Certificate in Project Management.

· At Expedia, I developed a strong partnership with a key supplier, promoting co-operation and quality. I re-negotiated the contract to reduce costs by 10%.

· I managed an outsourcing budget of $3 million, creating annual forecasts, monitoring expenditure and successfully remaining within budget.

· While at Psion, I reduced the time to market for mobile computer products sold in Europe by 3 months. I streamlined outsourcing procedures, implemented state of the art translation tools and improved quality assurance methods.

Career history

2001 - 2006Expedia Inc, London

Localisation Manager, Expedia and Hotels.com

· Managed the adaptation for overseas markets ('localisation') of the Expedia and Hotels.com travel websites.

· Project managed and successfully delivered foreign-language versions of new Expedia technology and web content across international websites (14 languages, 3 brands).

· Recruited, managed and developed a team of 11 people, based in London and Paris. Introduced a test strategy, including the hiring of a test team.

· Developed strong working relationships with cross-functional teams in the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan.

· Defined business and technical requirements for product development projects, including a business case for a new content management system.

· Designed and implemented workflow processes for an in-house content system, enabling high volumes of content to be handled.

· Provided best practice advice on customer experience of translated websites. Contributed to product specifications to help create fully local sites.

1996 - 2001Psion plc, London

Localisationand User Documentation Manager

· Managed the delivery of the localised versions of several mobile computer products and software, including the Psion Revo, Revo plus and Series 5mx.

· Planned and managed multiple projects and resources to meet tight deadlines. Introduced new processes for quality assurance and project management.

· Created a team from scratch. Recruited, trained and coached a highly motivated and skilled team of 7 people.

LocalisationProject Manager (until Sep 98)

· Managed multiple projects to localise mobile computing software. Created plans and schedules, compiled language glossaries, prepared localisation kits and managed the end-to-end translation process.

· Debugged, built and tested localised software releases, ensuring linguistic and functional quality. Created software build instructions and detailed test plans. Oversaw localisation of Marcoms materials, packaging and documentation.

1992 - 1996 National ComputingCentre, Manchester

OSI Testing Specialist

· Conducted protocol conformance testing of OSI software products for an accredited test laboratory.

· Completed numerous successful testing projects for customers at leading technology companies in the USA and Europe. Represented the NCC at international meetings.

Education and training

1999 - 2005 Open University, Milton Keynes

(Part-time) Postgraduate Diploma in Computing for Commerce & Industry

Software Engineering, Project Management, User Interface Design & Evaluation, Relational Database Systems, Architectures of Computing Systems, Quality: Delivering Excellence.

1988 - 1992 University of Salford, Salford

BA (Hons) Modern Languages - French and German (2:1)

With year working abroad and 'Information Technology' subsidiary

1986 - 1988 Brockenhurst College, Brockenhurst, Hampshire

3 'A' Levels: French (A), German (A), Maths, Pure & Statistics (A)

1981 - 1986 Twynham Comprehensive School, Christchurch, Dorset

10 'O' Levels: 7 at grade A, 3 at grade B

Work-related training: Project management; Management development programme; Leadership; Time management; Managing action; Managing change.

Computer skills: MS Office XP (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), MS Project, MS Visio, MS Visual Studio, Paint Shop Pro, Adobe PageMaker, Araxis Merge, Perforce, Trados, MS Query Analyzer, basic SQL.