Jun 2025 – Present · 11 mos · Remote · Remote

• Inform the ongoing approach to innovation, adoption, scaling and regulation of AI to encourage collaboration between AI creators for the benefit of UK SME business growth.

Jun 2024 – Jan 2026 · 1 yr 7 mos · Leeds, England, United Kingdom · Hybrid

• Designed and implemented the CreateFuture AI strategy, reporting to the exec and board
• on implementation progress. Established and led the CreateFuture AI transformation consultancy capability, managing revenue and budget.
• Defined and executed company-wide AI literacy strategy, aligned to board objectives; 95% uptake and 80% tool adoption within 3 months. The programme had excellent feedback and met targets ahead of schedule.
• Worked with my team to design an AI upskilling and certification programme for fee-earning and internal roles, including the creation of a GitHub Copilot upskilling framework, training
• in-house and client engineers.
• Authored white papers and primary research analysis on AI in software engineering and
• enterprise AI adoption. These papers had a positive market impact, leading to multiple new
• client conversations and consultancy work.
• Became the go-to person to engage with potential and existing clients on the topic of
• strategic AI implementation.

Jan 2022 – Jun 2024 · 2 yrs 5 mos · Leeds, England, United Kingdom

• Grew and led the Engineering, Product, BA, QA and Architecture teams from 80 to 300+ people, creating new capabilities and helping xDesign build a Cloud and DevOps presence. Responsible for the technology strategy for the organisation as well as being a member of the exec and the board. During this phase, xDesign grew from around 100 people to 500 people, cementing xDesign from a boutique agency to one of the premiere mid-sized consultancies in the UK.

Jul 2019 – Jan 2022 · 2 yrs 6 mos · Leeds, Manchester, Halifax

• Chief for Technology and part of the People and Tech Evolution team, looking towards the future of tech impact, upskilling at scale and agile delivery in a remote working world.
• Helped shape and build engineering and architecture, taking a sustainable, community-centric view on technology. Worked in pre-sales and client engagements to bring the latest tech to life using pragmatic architecture, designed to be scalable, secure and future-proof.
• Co-created the Rapid Agile Delivery Framework to accelerate small project deployments
• Founded and strategically led the internal cybersecurity committee; uplifted the
• organisation’s security posture.
• Worked with multiple stakeholders to design and establish a Data Engineering practice.
• Co-founded and ran advanced Code First Girls classes to improve diversity in tech during
• COVID, leading to high employment success

Jul 2018 – Jun 2019 · 11 mos · Glasgow, United Kingdom

• Providing Technical Architecture and Leadership for a government Digital Transformation programme. Working in a cloud-first environment using open-source technologies.

Sep 2017 – Jun 2018 · 9 mos · Leeds, United Kingdom

• Working with the client, as part of their Open Banking API initiative, to provide education and best-practice in the field of RESTful APIs. This included assisting the programme to move to a managed, specification-first way of working and review of existing artefacts.

Sep 2015 – Sep 2017 · 2 yrs · Manchester

• BJSS were tasked with helping shape a new digital delivery arm for the client, this included forming their ways of working (from analysis, through to operations) and helping clarify their values and culture. Jeff was one of two people on this consultancy team, providing both technical and non-technical (mainly Agile based) content.
• After this piece was delivered, two small cells were formed to commence Platform and API construction. Jeff was engaged to be the Technical Architect for these cells, working with several other suppliers and incumbent staff members in a "bimodal" development environment.

Jun 2013 – Oct 2015 · 2 yrs 4 mos · Leeds

• BJSS were engaged to provide a clean-sheet, free, open-source architecture to entirely replace a national healthcare system. The aim of this was to remove vendor lock-in, provide access to any new IPR and allow for an agile turnaround of new features. This included being involved in the architecture and design of all stages of the project. This ranged from initial architectural spikes, through to implementation, infrastructure sizing and design, operational/management design, long-term growth planning and future vision for exciting new features. As part of this I participated in client workshops, expos and even provided a talk at EHI Live on the BJSS open-source tool-chain.

May 2012 – May 2013 · 1 yr · Leeds, United Kingdom

• In this position I had to work closely with the client designing and implementing a critical SAML2 based SSO solution in C# .NET to bring two disparate banking platforms together to provide a seamless customer journey. This also involved managing a team of permanent and contract staff over various disciplines and providing Agile consultancy to the incumbent project managers. As part of this I took responsibility for shaping and running the standups, evangelising the usage of a burndown chart and kanban boards.

Mar 2011 – Apr 2012 · 1 yr 1 mo · Leeds/London

• In this role, I acted as Technical Manager for a quickly growing team (c. 40 people), Technical and Functional architect for an individual workstream and provided support for the Chief Architect of the entire Organization (often presenting findings directly to the CTO). This was a highly challenging role, working in a very large enterprise development environment utilizing cutting edge technology and working to challenging timescales.

Sep 2010 – Feb 2011 · 5 mos · London

• I was drafted in to assist with/troubleshoot the architecture of a cross platform (J2ME, Android, Apple) Spread Betting application. In my time there I managed to completely transform the struggling areas and set the product back on track. I provided cross-discipline advice to the various teams and involved myself in helping troubleshoot other areas of the business.

Apr 2010 – Oct 2010 · 6 mos · Leeds

• The client required their admissions website to be designed and rebuilt from scratch using a refreshed technology stack. I performed the role of Technical Team Lead, providing design, estimation, team leadership and worked closely with the Project Manager to shape the delivery of the piece to extremely challenging timescales.

Apr 2008 – Apr 2010 · 2 yrs · Leeds

• I undertook a consultancy / senior developer role, mentoring the client in the areas of Agile and .NET development as well as developing new systems including a high-performance LSE feed handler and designing a new portlet style site to replace their existing dealing platform.

May 2007 – Apr 2008 · 11 mos · Leeds/London

• As part of the bank’s “MiFID” compliance efforts, I led a team in designing, developing and supporting a “Best Execution” exchange to route customer orders to the most appropriate execution venue.
• This new exchange was inserted into the existing architecture to allow trades to be automatically routed to the most appropriate venue based on the data presented in the consolidated market data feed. Due to performance requirements, this was implemented as a extensively multi-threaded system.
• This involved working closely with the client to refine requirements and meet challenging legislative deadlines.

Oct 2006 – Jan 2007 · 3 mos · Leeds/London

• I led a team evaluating products and technologies (such as Apache Tuscany, Tibco ActiveMatrix, MuleESB and Amberpoint) to deliver the next generation of messaging and middleware architecture across the globe in what was, at the time, one of the most ambitious architectural efforts in the world.
• Through a series of rapid and agile project iterations I developed a number of prototypes to assess potential architecture options using Java and web services in a SOA idiom.

Oct 2004 – Feb 2005 · 4 mos · Leeds

• This project was to develop a high-profile public website that allowed individuals to take out loans based on multiple micro-loans offered by multiple other users of the site. This development required the team to deliver to tight deadlines with changing requirements, and the on-going support of a highly available public web site. This involved developing a C# .NET implementation of CRADLE, an early ORM predating many of the ones used today.

Aug 2003 – Mar 2004 · 7 mos · London/Chicago

• I worked as a cross-tier developer, including both J2EE on the server side an extremely rich JavaScript based web client. Alongside this, I was responsible for performance monitoring, release generation and coordination of regression testing before handover to the client.
• As a side role, I was seconded to the testing team for a period to assess their testing and defect management practices. The outcome of this was a set of guidelines to improve the technical and system testing process and a sustainable defect management process.

Jun 2000 – Nov 2002 · 2 yrs 5 mos · Cheltenham

• BJSS were drafted in to redesign and implement a partially finished Pensions Solution. This involved total immersion with the client, working on analysis, design, implementation and testing. The team consistently delivered quality deliverables to the business despite extremely challenging deadlines.
• During this time, I became an SME for several parts of this enterprise system and also acted as defect manager, leading a team of six developers.

Jun 1999 – Jun 2019 · 20 yrs

• Financial Software Services.

Jun 1999 – Jun 2000 · 1 yr · Leeds/New York

• I was entrusted with the ongoing maintenance and enhancement of a C++ based financial transaction routing system. This was based on the Tandem Nonstop Kernel, routing SWIFT messages to several international banks in a timely fashion. The Highly Available nature of this system combined with robust messaging standards, small footprint and speed made it ahead of its time in the market.

Jun 1997 – Sep 1998 · 1 yr 3 mos · Leeds

• I worked in this position as my work-placement year of my university course. During this time I worked as part of a team developing product based HR Solutions in C++ using MFC. Several of my modules (such as a rich GUI based SQL query builder) remained in usage in the product for many years.

Jun 1996 – Jun 1997 · 1 yr · Leeds

• On a part-time basis, I provided consultancy to an up-and-coming cable channel. This involved rewriting their channel on screen graphics and decoding layer to improve performance and reliability.