Michel Operto
IT Service Management Deputy, Orange Business Services, author of DantotsuPM.com
Programme and Project Director, Project Management, PMO
Certified Project Management Professional by Project Management Institute since 1998
Extensive experience gained within large international corporations in most dimensions of information technology projects: applications development, large scale IT applications deployment, project management, PMO, IT portfolio prioritization, IT Strategy and organization, IT governance, including people management and significant budget responsibilities.
I started in software development and moved to the management of large enterprise applications integration projects for Customer Support Services (Support CRM) and Financial/Procurement Systems (ERP). To broaden my experience, I moved to IT operational roles, including supervision of a large voice and data network at Nortel Networks before coming back to the IT project management area. I lead several large international IT initiatives, introducing new technology and applications in large and geographically distributed organizations (50,000+ employees). Most recent experience includes large projects audit, IT reorganization in a large group, Programme PMO in the United Kingdom for 16 months for a global ERP deployment, and establishing and running a portfolio of IT transformation projects.
Key work habits include a very rigorous approach to planning, attention to detail in resolving issues, hard working, a self motivated approach and making use of my soft inter-personal skills in the overall day-to-day transverse management of project resources. These habits have been particularly successful in the complex global and international challenges I enjoyed.
1089 contactsSince 2002 Orange Business Services (former Equant & FT/SCE France)
Information Technology Services - IT transformation Lead
Since fall 2009, I developed and I'm running a portfolio of improvement projects to enhance the services that our internal IT provides to its internal users. Projects such as seeking CMMI Level 2 certification, change management processes standardization using ITIL principles, adoption of Agile development best practices, root cause analysis deepening...
Before that, from December 2007, I worked on IT Transformation at France Telecom level. Running an IT diagnosis study (360° type interviews) for Orange Business Services internal IT to identify key areas of pain and propose tactical and strategic IT Improvement initiatives. Subsequently, I established the portfolio of IT Transformation projects mentioned above to address the identified issues and put in place a Continuous Improvement approach.
Prior assignments included an IT audit of our largest application reengineering initiative in 2007 and several business impacting troubled projects in 2008 and 2010. Working in a dual reporting/matrix mode to both Orange Business Services CIO and to France Telecom Global Group IT Central Operations Officer.
Project Office and IT Strategy, Nov 2003-Nov 2007
Reporting to the CIO. Prioritization of our company wide portfolio of IT projects. Ensure IT alignment to business objectives of the company with our senior business partners. Programme Management and Reporting for our most critical projects (IT Steering committee). Overall IT Budget control (€ 160M), large programmes (Sarbanes-Oxley, IT Relocation to India and Cairo to benefit from low cost resources and improve our effectiveness), roll out standard processes, renegotiating outsourcing and supplier contracts.
Program Management Office, New Finance & Procurement systems, UK, 2002-2003
Responsibilities included establishing and running the PMO for the global reengineering of the financial systems and processes of Equant Worldwide organizations: methods, risk management, project plans, issues management, escalations, along with budget and expenses control. This enabled effective management of a combined team of 75 resources at peak times (30 internal, 20 Oracle, 25 contractors) to define, integrate and deploy Oracle Financials and eProcurement 11i in our largest countries. Program budget was $24.9M over 16 months. We completed on schedule, with more functionality than initially committed (reporting and data consolidation) and substantially under budget ($1.6M) thanks to tight controls and optimization of the internal and external resources mix. Reporting to the business programme VP in Finance and to the CIO.
2000 - 20022000-2002 Nortel Networks Sophia Antipolis, France
Infrastructure Program Management, Senior Manager for Europe, Nov 2000-April 2002
Lead the European IT Infrastructure Program Management team of Nortel Networks. With 15 international project managers, we ran all information technology aspects of more that 60 concurrent infrastructure programs in 20 countries. Projects varied in size and nature from a few days customer events (like GSM congress, CeBIT…) to new facilities set up in Paris (2000+ employees) or assessment of the impact on IT of divestiture and acquisition of businesses.
Network Operations Center Europe, Senior Manager, April-October 2000
Established a 30 persons operation to monitor the internal data and voice network in 100 countries, with over 20 service providers for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. For Europe: $25M data network, $24M voice network and $3M in network operations. Consolidated the Network Monitoring tools between Europe and North America. Unified the escalation process and root cause analysis on critical failures. Outsourced this operational unit with no negative impact on network availability. Managed the human aspect of the outsourcing with our UK based team.
1991 - 2000Global IT Program Manager, Worldwide Customer Support Services Division (1995-2000) www.ncr.com
Established a team of 60 information technology and business resources distributed around the globe to develop and implement new systems and processes for the customer support services division: Financial results rapid consolidation, dispatch of support engineers, intranet shopping for surplus parts, financial reporting on the intranet. Set up an internet development team for rapid prototyping of solutions to meet our business needs using the Web, ASP and XML technologies. $2M annual budget direct responsibility and $20M capital investment in both hardware and software. Drove the deployment of the solutions to more that 16,000 employees in all major countries, including Japan, USA, Canada, Australia and most European countries.
Information Technology Systems Manager for Europe (1991-1995)
Supervised IT systems acquisition, integration, development and support for the European Customer Support Services division (Customer Support/CRM). Lead a team of 15 resources distributed across Europe. Managed a $5M annual budget direct responsibility, + $7M investment in software purchase and $4M in computer equipment. 2000 employees in 10 European countries used the solution. Lead regional and local project teams and spent extensive time on site at these locations (Germany, UK, USA, Canada, Netherlands, Poland, Japan…).
1986 - 1991Software Development Project Leader
Developed a call management and data center Monitoring system, leading a team of 5 developers. The systems were deployed in our European countries.
1985 - 1986Software development Engineer
Developed an expert system for the French Navy.