John Cooper

Experience

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  Manchester Evening News

  Aug 1986 - Jan 1988

  Various junior roles
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  CO-OPERATIVE INSURANCE SOCIETY LIMITED

  Feb 1988 - Feb 2003

  Various Administrative and Team Management roles

  Team Manager for various teams within the Pensions review programme.Overseas Investments, International stock exchange back office accounts clerk.General Insurance Accounts clerk, including debt recovery reconciliation and year end accounts

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  Co-op Solutions

  Oct 2007 - Oct 2011

  Programme to introduce a strategic card platform. Working with 20+ projects / systems across geographically diverse sites. Liaising with the Systems Integrator to find the right balance between pace and rigour.Programme Budget £30m, of which c£5m of direct responsibilityLed the business analysis and implementation teams concurrently and subsequently the project management of 3 of the Programme’s projectsLiaised with suppliers to facilitate overall scope for the Card Management Programme Accountable for the new card numbering capability whilst maintaining legacy process and suppliers I managed the controlled handover of the projects to a colleague in order to support the Clearing Bank Migration Show less Introduction of an Industry initiative, to the bank and its Agencies. Automation the direct debit indemnity process ensuring customer funds returned to their bank accounts within 15 working days of a successful claim. Delivery of systems and processes to the payments teams, along with a customer communication campaign. Project Budget £1.2mLed the Industry scheme mandatory project to introduce automated direct debit indemnity claims, liaising with teams across the bank, IT, suppliers and the Industry Project team. Represented Co-operative Banking Group at Industry Steering forums driving scope and delivery timelineProactively prepared and distributed a planning and reporting tool to Industry which was adopted by all member banks supporting centralised progress reportingSuccessfully implemented changes for the Bank and its Agency Bank customers in line with the Industry implementation date Show less Various Change initiatives and roles (concurrently with other larger projects).Delivery workstream lead within a New Operating Model Programme delivering work management and workflow mechanisms across the insurance back office functions resulting in headcount reduction of c800 colleagues.Delivery workstream lead for multiple insurance transaction initiatives across General insurance and Life and Savings business.PMO for a Mortgage migration project – budget £3.4m.Held a central governance PMO role for the Executive Change office working across Inter bank and insurance projects and programmes. Show less Migration of critical clearing processes from London to Manchester, closure of the London and co-location of the Retail Banking teams in Manchester from five disparate sites to one location.Project Budget £1.7m, along with headcount reduction of London based colleaguesLed the closure of the London operation, migration of critical clearing processes, key settlement processes, operational risk mitigation and technology to Manchester along with co-location of the division Critical Bank of England settlement processing migrated across locations same working dayRecruited a team from Deloitte to prepare and quality assure all migrating processes and proceduresBenefits realised, headcount reduction of 57 fte, operational cost savings of co-location in Manchester along with removal of key person dependencies Show less

  • Project Manager - Card Management Programme

    Jan 2011 - Oct 2011

  • Project Manager - Direct Debit Indemnity Claim Automation

    Jan 2009 - Dec 2010

  • Project Manager - Various Change Initiatives

    Mar 2003 - Dec 2008

  • Project Manager - Payment Services Transformation

    Oct 2007 - Jul 2008
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  The Co-operative Bank plc

  Oct 2011 - Aug 2012

  Introduction of an Industry wide initiative to transfer current accounts from one provider to another, within 7 working days, ensuring all payment processing is unaffected during. Including redirection of customer’s payments to their new bank accounts for a guaranteed 13month period.Programme budget £18m, of which c£6m of direct responsibilityLed two workstreams and a separate dependant project, containing multiple delivery streams to deliver switching capability for Bacs and Visa payments schemes Supported the Programme manager to shape the programme structure, workstreams and recruit resources to successfully initiate the programmeInitiated and led the banks interaction at Industry level with the Payments Council central to ensure Co-operative Banking Group contributed to and influenced scope within industry timescales Deputised for the Programme Manager regularly, attending weekly industry Programme Manager forumsResponsible for the banks compliance, in support of the Industry Programme governance and audit processes and assurance visits Responsible for teams of up to 30 Show less Deliver the transfer of clearing activities from Britannia’s incumbent suppliers to Co-operative Bank’s own system ensuring services were unaffected throughout the change.Project Budget £3.7mAt the Sponsor’s request, brought in to recover a failing project, build a strong team ethos and common direction given just 10 weeks to meet a mandatory implementation date of 31st December 2011Migration of electronic payments away from Royal Bank of Scotland to Co-operative Banking GroupIntroduced a revised resource structure with clear roles and responsibilities Adopted a risk-based approach. Initiated a daily management and twice weekly senior stakeholder quorum to facilitate quick decision making Led the delivery, test and implementation stages of the project meeting the legislation requirements whilst delivering the business case and benefits c£300k p.a. savings Show less

  • Project Manager - 7 Day Account Switching

    Jan 2012 - Aug 2012

  • Project Manager - Clearing Bank Migration, D+1 Payment Services Regulation

    Oct 2011 - Jan 2012
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  F7 Consulting Ltd

  Sept 2012 - Oct 2012

  Director

  Project Manager experienced in Regulatory and Industry change.

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  Lloyds Banking Group

  Oct 2012 - Dec 2013

  Implementation Manager - Retail - Industry Account Switching Programme

  Introduction of the Industry wide initiative to switch accounts in 7 working days while guaranteeing future forwarding and redirection of payments for 13 month to all customer facing colleagues cross the Lloyds Banking Group Retail business. Liaising with the broader business areas and the Group programme teams to facilitate a seamless solution across the bank. Introduced multiple process and system changes across five independent brands. Responsible for Implementation Strategy and Control for the Retail solution impacting c30,000 colleagues Designed and drove a dress rehearsal to ensure the Group wide implementation events aligned Liaised closely with the broader Group team to ensure readiness criteria and Go / No Go decisions were alignedResponsibility to deliver the overall implementation strategy for Retail with ongoing stakeholder management Delivery of the key stakeholder communications to provide a controlled roadmap into the Industry PilotDevised the Command & Control infrastructure including the logistics of 24 by 7 working over 8 week period along with a controlled reduction in resource and project support through to business handoverEnsured a fully operational contingency site was available for 24 by 7 Command and Control Development and management of a detailed schedule of events for the implementation including c2500 activitiesDefined the reporting process, frequency and stakeholder commitment required throughout the implementationControlled approach including reporting, plans and resource requirements to ensure the business was supported throughout the implementation periodDuring the implementation acted as Incident Manager including a controlled business triage to effect a swift incident resolution Show less

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  F7CONSULTING LIMITED

  Jan 2014 - Sept 2014

  Director

  Project Manager experienced in Regulatory and Industry change.Setting up new business opportunities in property development, renovation and lettings

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  Lloyds Banking Group

  Oct 2014 - May 2020

  Strategic and tactical improvements of customer data on the banks most critical business system. Strategic Single Customer View programme for simplifying access across group systems to one master source of customer data. As part of the Transformation programme, delivered critical data quality improvements which were pre-requisites for the exploitation of AI, cloud & big data technologies, and the move to being a ‘digital bank’. Transitioned the project mid flight from waterfall to Agile whilst maintaining delivery focus.End to end project management responsibility with a backlog of c3000 JIRA tickets, utilising Agile methodology (JIRA/Confluence) to drive delivery of 840k customer data improvements, 5 system changes and 1.6m customer data profile changes. Established a culture of open team communications across project team, IT 3rd party and Product owner to maximise deliverables and encourage rapid lessons learned for future sprintsSuccessfully resolved long-standing legacy data issues (technical debt) from previous integrations and projects (code fixes, >8m legacy data quality fixes)Managed fortnightly Scrum ceremonies with Product Owner to prioritise deliverables, agreeing delivery plans and desired timelinesRisk management responsibility for up and downstream system impacts along with extensive stakeholder communications to protect BAU and reduce operational issues due to the volume of changes being implemented on a regular basisManaged outward communications of progress supporting the broader business customer data improvements programme, including benefits delivery Show less SDC – Strategic programme for simplifying the Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland (including Birmingham Midshires brand) savings range to ensure customers understand the products and services available to them along with the various rates and featuresOverall Programme impacts 65 sets of products c20m accounts. Budget: £19.85m (2013-2016 inclusive)Initially Responsible for developing a Programme implementation strategy and frameworkPrimarily responsible for developing the implementation framework and governance for Phase 3 of the Programme. This involved the consolidation planning of all Lloyds and Halifax Multichannel, Online and ISA savings products across two tranches impacting c13m accountsDetailed planning for customer mailings providing regulatory 2 months notice of variation issuing c20m lettersPlanning and control of 27 implementation events over 19 week period ensuring no variance in dates following mailings, including all Business Readiness and 15 Go / No Go meetings to provide relevant governance and stakeholder support for each customer impacting changeDesigned the Command & Control structure, plans, shift rota’s, team roles & responsibilities, implementation communications, training and reportingLatterly extended to support delivery and implementation of Phase 5 and Phase 6Led and successfully closed down the Programme (2013-2015) ensuring Accountable Executive sign-off for business handover and benefit realisation planPhase 6 (2016) leading the delivery of the Bank of Scotland (BoS) customer communications, all mailing activities with Marketing and future system driven customer letters related to changes in the maturities process. Also leading the consolidation events of BoS back-book products to the designated target product Show less

  • Senior Project Manager

    Nov 2016 - May 2020

  • Implementation Manager - Retail Products Savings Differentiation and Consolidation Programme

    Oct 2014 - Oct 2016
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  F7CONSULTING LIMITED

  Jun 2020 - now

  Senior Project Manager

  Planned sabbatical to focus on extensive home renovation project and my CPD obtaining Agile PM and Scrum Master qualifications. Additionally, care for family members following multiple COVID illnesses, including myself, and their after affects.

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  United Utilities

  Dec 2021 - now

  Senior Project Manager

  Developer Services digital innovations