AHMED ALADL
PERSONAL DETAILS
Nationality
: British
Post Code
: London, WC2H 7AS
Driving License : Full UK
E-mail
Mobile
Other
Linkedin
:
:
:
:
ahmed.aladl@gmail.com
07475 940940
020 7766 5209
http://uk.linkedin.com/ahmedaladl/en
EDUCATION & QUALIFICATIONS
1995 BSc Computer Systems – Networking Specialty
2010 VMware Certified Professional on vSphere 4
2010 CompTIA Security+ Certified
CompTIA, UK
2009 Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5 Certified Associate System Admin
2009 PRINCE2 Registered Practitioner
2008 ITIL Foundation v3
2007 Windows Server 2003 Certified Professional
City University, USA
VMware, UK
IBM, UK
APM Group, UK
APM Group, UK
Learning Tree, UK
PROFILE
An IT Director with a successful background in B2B and B2C, technical support, 3rd party vendor
management with extensive experience in supporting a 24/7 high demand environment, commercial
& corporate sectors, application design, development and testing. Commercially aware, with broad
experience operating in a multi-culture atmosphere having worked for world-class multinational
organisations. Strategic approach to successful IT leadership, engaging with business stakeholders at
up to CxO level, delivering ‘cost appropriate’ IT solutions and business process change via emerging
technology solutions. Managed teams of up to 18 IT professionals. PRINCE2 Practitioner, ITIL V3
qualified & ISACA Member, with experience of the introduction of best practice frameworks and
methods.
Experience of business change management, business transformation, managed OpEx & CapEx up to
£3.5M, infrastructure design and delivery, strategies, technology roadmaps, VMware virtualisation,
desktop upgrades, definition of core standards, project delivery, IT upgrades & systems migration.
Seeks contract / interim work being immediately available for both interviews and starts for any
locations within the UK.
MANAGEMENT SKILLS
Methodologies:
PRINCE2, ITIL V3 Best Practice, Cobit 5, SOX , PCI-DSS Compliance
Management skills:
Full Project Lifecycle, Systems Delivery, Budget Management, Cost
Savings, Performance Management, Staff Development, Coaching,
Mentoring, Stakeholder Management, Supplier Management, Commercial
Management, Technical Management,, Solutions Implementation, P&L
Management
Project Experience:
Development and Test, Infrastructure Deployment, Business Change,
Technology Refresh
Strategy:
Business Case Preparation, Business Benefits, Benefits Realisation,
Business Transformation, IT Strategy, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Project /
Program Governance, Project / Program Scoping and Phasing, Relationship
Management, Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuity, SLAs
development and contracting, IT Security Policies Processes and Protocols,
IT Centralised & Shared Services
Tools:
MS Project, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS SharePoint,
Hospitality Packages, Property Management Systems (PMS) Opera, Call
Accounting Systems TMS & Tiger, Point of Sale (POS) Micros 9700 /
3700, MS Server OS, MS Desktop OS MS Active Directory, MS SQL,
Exchange 2010, BlackBerry Servers, Citrix Servers & Clients, NetApp,
IBM Lotus Notes v8.5, VMware, Astaro Firewall, Corente Firewall, Avaya
and Nortel VOIP System
REFERENCES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST; RECOMMENDATIONS AVAILABLE VIA LINKEDIN
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AHMED ALADL
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Aug 2012 – Jul 2014
Generator Hostels, UK
Generator Hostels was a hospitality company, which aimed to position itself as the “Luxury” hostels
chain, with the highest level of services offered to the guests.
Group IT Director
Responsible for the development of IT strategy and the creation of IT department structure including
staffing, infrastructure, applications, SLAs & support, providing business-critical IT within an
international fast expanding hospitality company. Managed a team of 10 IT professionals, a Service
Delivery Manager, Project Manager, 2 Network Engineers, help desk manager, 3 1st & 2nd level IT
support and 2 PMS supports.
Responsibilities:
 Top-level participation and advisory in board meetings & owners representative meetings
 Created, defined, executed a five-year IT strategy and roadmaps, aligning the IT functions
with core business needs to help the business achieve desired business goals.
 Budgetary management responsibilities for the IT function, managing both OPEX & CAPEX
budgets of £3.5M
 Developed and implemented IT core standards complying with Cobit 5, PCI, and SOX in
addition to the formation of an IT department structure. Both had high emphases on resource
and crisis management in a 24/7 operation.
 Created a disaster recovery plan for each of the systems, with emphasis on the mission critical
systems that have the highest guest impact coupled with SLAs to ensure minimal downtime.
 Developed and implemented business continuity plans to ensure minimal disturbance to the
business taking into account the 24/7 operation and the multi-site environment throughout
Europe
 Recruitment, appraisal, training, development and coaching of key business support staff &
IT personnel.
 Implemented a helpdesk system based on ITIL V3 framework and renegotiated the SLAs to
improve the support provided by 3rd parties increasing guest satisfaction and reducing cost by
30%. Implemented a VoIP telephony system using Avaya that saved the company 45% of
communication cost
 Managed new hostel openings and refurbishment projects, implemented the IT systems for
the new openings of Barcelona & Berlin Mitte. Managed the IT system implementation for
the refurbishment projects for both London & Venice while the hostels were operational.
 Designed and implemented an internet booking engine allowing the company to have direct
booking and reduce the reliance on OTAs hence reducing the commission paid
 Developed and deployed a new website to reflect the rebranding of the company
Achievements:
 Effectively developed and implemented a companywide guest internet platform increasing
guest satisfaction by 45% in the first 6 months of operation
 Migrated the IT legacy system to a cloud based system, which reduced the IT footprint at
each site reducing support cost by 40%.
 Implemented a point of sales system (POS) that is centrally managed, the system helped the
Food & Beverage director to better manage and reduce waste by 5% for the first year and 2%
year on year afterwards.
Skills snapshot: Full Project Lifecycle, Stakeholder Management, Supplier Management, Disaster
Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity, IT Centralised & Shared Services, Business Case
Preparation, Business Benefits, MS Project, PRINCE2, ITIL V3 Best Practice, Cobit 5, SOX,
Citrix Servers & Clients, Avaya and Nortel VOIP System
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AHMED ALADL
Aug 2002 – Oct 2011
Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, UK
Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, is a hotel management company operating luxury hotels and resorts
exclusively worldwide.
IT Director
Responsible for strategic IT leadership, including systems, infrastructure, applications, SLAs & support,
providing business-critical IT within an international ultra-luxury, five-star hotel management
company. Managed a team of 15 consisting of 3 network engineers, a help desk manager 10 IT support
technicians and a project manager.
Responsibilities:
 Oversaw support for mission-critical systems in a 24/7 operation, using detailed planning and
cross departmental coordination to maintain the highest system availability during scheduled
maintenance and crises.
 Developed and continuously tested robust Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans.
 Focused on driving business value and agility through adoption of enhanced IT solutions and
architecture to better manage IT resources aiming to control cost while improving service
both for the guest and staff
 Defined and executed IT strategies and infrastructure roadmaps, aligning IT with core
business needs
 Managed & presented all capital and operational budgets of £2.5M to the board and the
owners representatives with a comprehensive case study, ROI, P&L, and a clear benefits to
the business
 Top-level participation and advisory role in IT EMEA regional meetings, board meetings &
owners’ representative meetings
 Helped in the development of IT core standards for the worldwide group complying with PCI,
SOX and local requirements standards., including definition of strategy detailed Disaster
Recovery and Continuity Plans
 Led designed and implemented servers and network infrastructure for new hotels in the
Middle-East (Sharm El-Sheik, Alexandria, Amman, Riyadh and Doha) to meet both the Four
Seasons standards and the local markets
 Delivered a full technology refresh across the business, including 3500+ desktop
replacements & upgrades; detailed planning and coordination between all departments to
ensure minimal disturbance to the operation and impact on the guest satisfaction
 Recruitment, appraisal, training, development and coaching of key business support staff &
IT personnel
 Proposed a virtualisation platform in 2008 to manage the increased budget cuts from the
hotels owners. The proposed platform utilising VMWare was piloted and tested in one hotel.
After presenting a business case & ROI to the owners of 6 different hotels in Europe put in
charge of implementing virtualisation in these 6 hotels (Budapest, Geneva, Lisbon, London
Park Lane, Paris, Prague)
Selected key projects worked on:
1. PCI-DDS compliance
 PCI- DDS compliance originally planned to take 3 years, however the company went over
this deadline. This covered 25 sites spread geographically throughout Europe and the Middle
East
 PCI processes are very meticulous in handling and storing of credit card details so buy in
from the operations team and all staff was essential. What is more, individual country laws
and standards needed to be taken into account when implementing the PCI standards. These
were successfully met and so were the expectations of multi-cultural backgrounds and the
way that individuals worked
 Achieved PCI compliance for the 25 hotels operating in the EMEA region. Managed a team
of 5 including a front office manager, a chief accountant, HR administrator and two systems
engineers.
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AHMED ALADL
2. Proprietary Management System
 Four Seasons required a big data migration and integrity checks, which needed to be done
whilst the hotel was still operating business as usual.
 Upgraded the PMS (Proprietary Management System) from a DOS-based database (Fidelio)
to a Windows system (Opera), this was an 18 month project
 This included the setup of test environment to conduct data migration and test the
functionality of the system, training the staff to use the new system, all of this whilst the hotel
is operational and with minimal guest disturbance
 The results were then reviewed and confirmed, then a detailed project plan was developed for
the actual system migration
 More than 300, 000 guest profiles, and 5M records had to be migrated to the new software
system
 All hotel staff were then trained on the new systems
Achievements:



Championed virtualisation of the server infrastructure for Four Seasons improving IT
flexibility and reducing initial setup cost by 60%, and the running cost by 25%.
Achieved PCI compliance for the 25 hotels in under 12 months not only stopping Four
Seasons from getting a further fine but also saved on credit card commissions on average
reducing this by 25- 30%
Successfully delivered the data migration with minimal downtime and all records being
moved across without being lost.
Skills snapshot: Full Project Lifecycle, Stakeholder Management, Supplier Management,
Commercial Management, Issue Resolution, Risk Management, Business Change, Technology
Refresh, Business Case Preparation, Business Benefits, Project / Programme Governance, Project /
Programme Scoping and Phasing, MS Project, Hospitality Packages, Property Management Systems
(PMS) Opera, Call Accounting Systems TMS & Tiger, Point of Sale (POS) Micros 9700/3700, ,
SOX , PCI-DSS Compliance, VMware, Astaro Firewall, Corente Firewall, Avaya and Nortel VOIP
System
EARLY CAREER HISTORY
Sep 2001 - Nov 2002
Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Egypt
Assistant IT Manager
Feb 2001 - Aug 2001
Akabawi & Co. (IS Audit), Egypt
Information Systems Auditor
Mar 1998 - Jan 2001
Zarrouk & Khaled Co/Ernst & Young, Bahrain/Egypt, IT Coordinator / Junior
IS Auditor
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