George Kalia, Bsc. Eng., DASM, PMP

Experience

• 

  Comtec Group

  Dec 2004 - May 2005

  Service engineer

  Installed and commissioned of LMDS (Marconi systems), Installed and commissioned Point to Point systems (Harris), recovered and re-deployed point to point systems, prepared Engineering acceptance documents.

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  Huawei

  Jun 2005 - Oct 2008

  Monthly schedule preparation, tracking site construction progress and resolving issues arising to ensure monthly targets are met and on-schedule. Inducting new engineers and subcontractor teams to project work flow, quality standards, procedures, Safety Health and Environment, preparation of regional budget and control of expenditure by teams with the aim of working within set cost baselines, coordination of quality audits at the various network nodes. Preparation of project site surveys & designs, integration and swap plans, coordination of installation & commissioning, quality audits at the various network nodes for Node-B build and swap.

  • Project Manager - New build of Hybrid Green Power for Telecom sites

    Mar 2008 - Oct 2008

  • Quality Manager - New build of GSM networks

    Jun 2005 - Feb 2008
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  Alcatel-Lucent

  Nov 2008 - May 2009

  Project Management Officer

  o Preparation of overall project implementation plans and progress reporting internally and to the customer, tracking of project actual costs versus budget while raising flags where necessary, detailed contract management while ensuring new scope is documented and contract obligations are adhered to, preparation of subcontractor service orders, variation orders and approval their invoices for works completed, follow up on resource acquisition while challenging the team to work within set baselines, preparation of sales and order forecasts while working with the team to achieve quarterly targets. Show less

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  Alcatel-Lucent East Africa

  Jun 2009 - Dec 2011

  Project Manager - New build of MW, 2G, 3G, Optics nodes and associated Civil works

  -Preparing, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling and closing projects or subprojects according to contractual scope and commitment against project baselines. -Providing necessary operational support to sales teams for new opportunities and tenders to ensure new orders address customer requests and cover all operational costs.-Preparation of baseline project income statements and taking responsibility of project cost forecast with regards to services costs, hardware and software costs, local materials and contractors .-As the customer point of contact, ensuring that customer expectations are properly managed while balancing contractual obligations and business requirements.-Ensuring that project schedules are followed and taking necessary steps of triggering invoicing and booking sales once key milestones of customer acceptance are met.-Providing detailed project requirements to procurement teams for negotiations with partners while ensuring their sub contracts are within project budgets and are back to back with customer contracts. -Identification, anticipation of project risks, managing them, and provisioning of necessary contingencies while implementing the management plans accordingly.-Planning and communicating hardware demand figures to the supply chain and resource forecasting to the service delivery team for smooth operations once opportunities become orders. -Identification of technical needs necessary for improving network performance while giving customers value for their money.-Setting up and maintaining clear and effective internal and external communication within the customer and project teams while avoiding or resolving conflicts. Show less

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  Alcatel-Lucent

  Jan 2012 - Apr 2014

  Responsible as main interface between Customer, delivery teams GNOC, TSO, RESO - and GNEIC, Field Forces and all internal/external partners associated with Program Delivery & Service Assurance activities for overall Managed Services execution and communications.Develop and maintain a Managed Service Delivery Management Plan including change management, risk management, escalations, up scope process and drive action plans to fulfil deliverables.Ensure contractual commitments are met and maintained by monitoring Service Level Agreements.In liaison management, establish reviews to managed services and assess managed services financial indicators and performance milestones against baseline and identify opportunities for additional business.Follow up on revenues, payments and resolve billing disputes and defend claims with the customers.Serve as the single Service Assurance point of contact for the Customer and the delivery team.Own and manage incidents, service problems and change management end-to-end.Act as Outage Technical Manager during system outages and high impact issues. Drive Customer Satisfaction through the established survey mechanisms by providing services that are fully compliant with the SLA/KPI.Pro-actively support network performance, business opportunity identification as well as in the end-to-end lessons learned process.Ensure the set health & safety policies are followed. Show less Leader of several projects initiation, planning, execution, and control until closure: Take lead in delivery via empowerment of PMs and PMO office as required: Define and supervise project execution strategy, including delivery. In line with company process (guided by PMI), define Project Management Plans and project phase plans for the Projects.Ensure Project closing, report the full KPIs and milestones defined in the reporting tool. Ensure effective communication to customers, team and partners. Project finance: Provide the necessary Project financial Metrics i.e. earned effort to date, Estimated Cost to Complete, Estimated effort at Completion. Define and secure cash flow and Operating Working Capital/QTC improvement action plan. Define and structure the cost tracking methodology with Alcatel finance. Resource allocation strategies: Define resource forecast requirement plans. Ensure that allocated resources are compliant with project execution. Optimize staff utilization. Develop people and secure a lasting HR establishment in collaboration with Global PMO and local HR community.Customer satisfaction: Define customer relationship strategies Assure prime customer interfaces including Customer Executives during project execution.Mantaintain constant customer liaison to ensure smooth handling of Issues as they might arise. Risks management: Anticipate risks and evaluate related financial and customer satisfaction impacts. Ensure contingencies and reserves are adequately dimensioned and used as planned.New business: Act as the key customer interface to the customer for all project related business extension. Trigger new business opportunities. Contracts administration & execution: Lead contract administration i.e. order management, billing and payment. Structure and drive contract (claim management and change management) Show less

  • Customer Assurance Lead

    Aug 2013 - Apr 2014

  • Senior Projects Manager

    Jan 2012 - Jul 2013
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  Wananchi Group

  May 2014 - Nov 2019

  Head Of Project Management Office

  Programs life cycle management for corporate alignment, new markets entry and expansion on existing markets. Infrastructure build for fiber to home (FTTH), fiber to site (FTTS) and direct to home (DTH) satellite deployments. Systems and applications development for business automation.

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  Signum Engineering

  Dec 2019 - now

  Program Manager