Orhan William Ertughrul
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Phone: +44 (0)1242 820258 Mobile: +44 (0)754 521 5298 Email: orhan@camicus.com |
An experienced product and business strategy professional with 15 years of experience in high tech markets. A proven innovator and analyst with the ability to find and implement solutions to complex business problems. Comfortable communicating with both technical and marketing professionals from project to C-level. Also a capable people manager with experience of running internationally distributed teams. A knowledgeable technologist who can rapidly learn new concepts, systems and ideas. Ideally suited to senior roles in product management, business strategy and consulting.
Core Competencies
| – Product Management – Technology Vision – Product Innovation – Business Analysis – Capable Presenter – Programme Management |
– Strategic Business Planning – Financial Modeling – Customer Care Systems – SCRUM Competent – Business Process Development – Market Analysis |
Professional Experience
Comstor 2013 – Present
Data Centre Product Manager EMEA
Comstor (www.comstor.com) is part of the Westcon Group and is the largest distributor of Cisco products worldwide.
The Data Centre group was formed in 2011 to distribute the new Cisco Data Centre product lines, primarily servers with some high speed storage. This had grown to a $70M business by 2013 and the group was looking to engage with other vendors complimentary to Cisco. On-boarding and growing this business was seen to be an entrepreneurial role and required a broad skill set. I joined the company in 2013 in the Data Centre Product Manager EMEA role to on-board, maintain and grow these affinity vendors. Effectively I am the champion for these vendors within the organisation. The role involves supporting a widely distributed team with training, promotions, pricing, system issues, events and a multitude of other requests. The role also includes working with senior management and the vendor to help define channel strategy for the vendor. I have one person working for me in a “Sales Specialist” role.
Key Achievements
- Gained a rapid understanding of the channel having had no previous experience
- On-boarded X-IO as a Comstor vendor and developed a plan for escalated growth resulting in the vendor agreeing to provide five funded heads
- Helped drive significant triple digit growth of Panduit within Comstor 2013-2014
- Developed a framework for on-boarding new vendors within Comstor
- Developed standardized documentation such as the Vendor Operations Guide that defines all aspects of vendor operation within Comstor EMEA
- Proposed and helped develop the X-POD converged computing solution combining X-IO, Cisco, Panduit and VMWare products in an integrated stack for VDI implementations
- Held P&L responsibility for over $10M of affinity vendor revenue for FY 2015 (March 2014 – February 2015)
Enjenta 2010 – Present
Co-Founder and Director
Enjenta (www.helpworlds.com) is a start-up company delivering enterprise and SMB social media software for customer service in the form of the Jemini and Helpworlds products.
The company was formed in October 2010 along with a colleague. Our software development was completed in December of 2012. Enjenta employs four people directly and utilizes both in-house and offshore software development resources. We work with distributed teams of suppliers to source web development, legal resources, marketing, tele-sales, accounting and PR. The company has moved to a web-sales model with the release of Helpworlds late May 2013 and no longer requires an executive management team .
Key Achievements
- Developed the Enjenta brand including all marketing and sales collateral
- Thought leader for product development creating the idea for Jemini and directing the development team
- Developed a complete sales process from lead generation through to contract drafting and billing
- Delivered integrated CRM, billing and marketing systems for the company
- Managed sales and external partner relationships
- Managed pilot implementations including one at a major northern telecommunications company who have over 1 M Subscribers
- Managed an externally sourced tele-sales team of three people
- Was responsible for fund-raising with external organisations including developing pitches, business plans and financial models. We raised over £ 150 K.
SupportSoft/Consona 2007 – 2010
Principle Consultant – (Business and Operational Analysis)
Consona (www.consona.com) acquired the enterprise division of SupportSoft in 2009. SupportSoft was one of the industry leaders in the field of automated support solutions. The company had both a consumer (www.support.com) and an enterprise business (www.supportsoft.com). It boasted around 60 M end-points for its software and served some of the largest companies in the world. I had a global consulting role working with customers to assess SupportSoft product performance financially and operationally.
In this role I reported directly to the VP of International Sales, I consulted for some of the largest consumer facing organisations in Western Europe, North America and the Middle East. These have included: Bank of America, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, UPC, Belgacom, Telia Sonera, Qwest, Car Phone Warehouse, O2, BT, KPN and Sunrise.
Key Achievements
- Developed a methodology for assessing the financial performance of SupportSoft Software Deployments that is now used as standard by customers
- Developed standard documentation for detailed operational analysis of software performance
- Altered the perception of performance of the SupportSoft products within many of our customers using business analysis techniques. This lead to maintenance of accounts and growth of revenue
- Consulted internally on product development especially with respect to ROI models and pricing recommendations
- Assisted in a pre-sales role to show the benefit of our products to prospective customers. Was involved in over 2M euros of gained contracts
- Organised the annual European customer conference for 40+ delegates and produced the executive presentations
United Pan-European Communications 2004 – 2006
Director of Customer Service Products
UPC (a subsidiary of Liberty Global Inc.) is the largest Pan-European cable provider delivering multi-play communications products to 12 M subscribers across 11 countries in Europe (www.lgi.com/upc_broadband.html). This role reported to the EVP of Marketing Operations. I had sole responsibility for the development and implementation of UPC’s self-care strategy. This included defining new web service options, migrating and expanding the Quickfix™ automated support project from chello to UPC and developing new call centre tools. In addition I was also responsible for creating the budget proposals for Marketing Operations, and took the lead in defining future web strategy. I continued to speak at international conferences on the subject of online customer service.
This role involved significant senior management exposure. Ideas, plans and deployments were discussed (both formally and informally) on a regular basis at VP/MD level with both corporate and country organizations.
Key Achievements
- Built a capable product team to help design and deliver self-care systems
- Developed and had approved the self-care strategy and business plan
- Created and had approved the annual budgets (2004 – 2006) , for both my department and all of marketing operations , which were in excess of 8 M euros
- Worked with research organisations (Forester, McKinsey, Jupiter) and specialist web development companies to develop a web-strategy for UPC 2004 and onwards
- Developed and delivered the Quickfix™ and Service Verify program for The Netherlands, Hungary and Switzerland
- Created a high internal demand with country affiliates for the self-care/assisted-care products
- Created and had approved the knowledge management system and business plan for the Netherlands call centres
Chello Broadband N.V 2000 – 2004
Director of Product Development
Chello was a leading European provider of broadband internet access via cable that was subsumed into UPC (the parent company) in 2008. As part of this position, I had sole responsibility for defining and managing a multi-million euro departmental development budget. I successfully built, managed and mentored the product development team consisting of four Technical Product Development Managers who were responsible for defining products and managing their implementations within Chello.
Key Achievements
- Personally responsible for the functional design of Chello quickfix™ an online automated support tool. Invited to speak at the Support Soft Conference in San Francisco on the subject of “Chello quickfix™ development and delivery
- Defined the first tiered broadband product portfolio in Europe
- Product managed the launch of the Chello Broadband Internet products in Hungary and Poland and developed generic process for launching products in new markets
- Developed a good technical knowledge of the operation of HFC and tree and branch COAX cable systems for the delivery of Internet services
- Determined product mix predictions and product strategy for corporate business plans
- Compiled e-support strategy for Chello that subsequently turned into the Chello quickfix™ product
- Achieved promotion in 2001 to Director (initially employed as Senior Product Manager)
Rogue Wave Software 1998 – 2000
European Technical Support Manager
RogueWave was one of the pioneers of C++ class libraries providing C++ solutions to companies as diverse as Credit Suisse First Boston and NASA (www.roguewave.com). I was initially employed here in 1998 as an Application Engineer where I was responsible for supporting sales staff by giving both pre- and post-sales support to customers. In 1999, I achieved promotion to European Technical Support Manager through a plan I developed for centralising support resources in Amsterdam.
Key Achievements
- Developed a strategy for centralising support services for Rogue Wave in Europe which was subsequently accepted by the US based management team
- Built, managed and mentored the European technical team consisting of eight engineers and additional support staff
- Developed the support process for Europe and escalation process to the US for critical issues that could not be resolved by the European team
- Heavily involved in helping to develop company wide support strategies
- Responsible for building the technical infrastructure at Rogue Wave UK
- Responsible for managing the ISO 9000 standardisation of the UK operation
- Achieved promotion to European Technical Support Manager (originally employed as Application Engineer)
Previous Experience
Eastern Mediterranean University 1991 – 1993
Associate Professor
Eastern Mediterranean University is the largest of the Universities in Northern Cyprus (ww3.emu.edu.tr/default.asp). My key duty whilst here was to develop and teach the Software Engineering and C Programming courses whilst being responsible for the development of network infrastructure for the Computing School and fostering international cooperation with other institutions.
Key Achievements
- Developed the curriculum for the Software Engineering and C programming courses
- Lectured for two years in Software Engineering and C programming
- Rebuilt the network and hardware infrastructure of the computing school, including securing the donation and transport of a multi-processor UNIX based mini-computer from Newcastle University
Qualifications and Accreditations
1993 – 1998 Cambridge University, St. Edmund’s College
– Ph.D. (D.Phil) Molecular Biology – Thesis Title “Structural Studies of Trimethylamine Dehydrogenase by Protein Engineering”.
1990 – 1991 Newcastle University
– MSc. Computer Science
1989 – 1990 Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (London University)
– MSc/DIC Biotechnology (Associate of the RoyalCollege of Science- ARCS)
1986 – 1989 City of London Polytechnic
– BSc. Biological Sciences
Key Computer Skills
Operating Systems: Windows 7, Unix, Mac OS.
Networks and Hardware Architecture: Familiar with a range of server and networking architectures. Able to draft architecture diagrams and plan hardware deployments. Good understanding of HFC architecture, basic understanding of ADSL and SDSL architecture.
Other: Competent with a wide range of office software. Familiar with a number of programming languages including C, C++ and Java. Can read HTML and use HTML editors such as Dreamweaver, some familiarity with iOS development.
Other Information
Other Skills
Completed the foundation level for an MA in Archaeology at Leicester University
Language skills include: English (Mother tongue), French (beginner-intermediate), and German (beginner).
Licensed Private Pilot
Qualified Scuba Diver (Advanced and Wreck Diving)
Keen climber (Up to 6A+)
Publications
Ertughrul, O., (2011), “Social Support: The Emperor Has No Clothes – When the Board Doesn’t see Your Value.”, The Social Customer
Ertughrul, O., (2011), “Embracing Community: Becoming Your Customer’s Trusted Adviser.”, Social Media Today
Ertughrul, O., (2011), “5 Reasons Why Support Forums Need to Move on.”, Call Centre Helper
References
See recommendations on LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/in/orhanertughrul
Full references available on request.
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