Gareth Slaven

Lead cloud strategy, architecture, and operations across enterprise and public-sector

projects

Drive innovation through AI, automation, and scalable infrastructure across Azure and AWS

Align cloud investments with business outcomes, regulatory requirements, and growth goals

Mentor and scale cross-functional DevOps and engineering teams to support complex

transformation programs

• Leading infrastructure design projects from conception to delivery, ensuring that solutions meet business requirements, industry best practices, and compliance standards.
• Collaborating with clients, vendors, and internal teams to gather requirements, identify pain points, and propose effective solutions that leverage cloud-based technologies (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform).
• Conducting architecture assessments and identifying opportunities to optimize infrastructure performance, security, and cost-effectiveness using industry tools.
• Creating and maintaining architecture diagrams and documentation, ensuring alignment with industry standards and Lemongrass methodologies.
• Providing technical guidance and mentoring to junior architects and engineers.
• Worked on numerous Digital transformations to help clients optimise performance, security, and cost-effectiveness while meeting business requirements and compliance standards.

• Designed and implemented robust, secure, and cost-effective cloud architectures using AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, depending on client needs.
• Led cloud migration and modernization projects, ensuring minimal disruption to client operations and maximizing benefits such as scalability, agility, and innovation.
• Conducted comprehensive assessments of existing cloud environments to identify opportunities for optimizing performance, security, and cost efficiency by analyzing and evaluating the current state of cloud infrastructure, identifying areas for improvement, and developing actionable recommendations to enhance the overall cloud strategy.
• Developed and maintained detailed cloud architecture diagrams, documentation, and governance policies that adhered to industry standards such as TOGAF and ITIL, as well as Databarracks' own methodologies. This included keeping up-to-date records of cloud configurations, security controls, and compliance requirements to ensure seamless operations and regulatory compliance.
• Worked on numerous sales helping with RFI's, RFP's and RFO's.

• Providing strategic and technical leadership as a trusted advisor to clients across the public and private sectors, helping them develop cloud strategies that align with their business goals, improve agility, and reduce costs.
• Designing and implementing complex cloud architectures using AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, leveraging advanced features such as serverless computing, microservices, and containerization to optimize performance, resilience, and scalability.
• Managing multiple DevOps teams using agile methodologies, promoting a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and automation. This includes providing technical guidance and mentoring to team members, establishing best practices and standards, and overseeing project delivery and quality assurance.
• Conducting robust gap analyses of potential cyber security risks and developing mitigation solutions, ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001.
• Building and maintaining strong and proactive client relationships, fostering a culture of trust, collaboration, and innovation. This includes working closely with clients to understand their needs, proactively addressing issues and concerns, and providing thought leadership and value-added services.
• Developing and executing cloud consulting and sales strategies to grow the business, expand market share, and increase retention rates. This includes identifying new opportunities for cloud innovation and transformation, developing proposals and pitches, and building relationships with key stakeholders.
• Worked on numerous Digital transformations to help clients optimise performance, security, and cost-effectiveness while meeting business requirements and compliance standards.

• Fulfilled a large-scale contract with Walmart, with focus on servicing their ecommerce site with over 5,000,000 weekly users.
• Designed, developed and delivered a major data migration from Windows (IIS, MSSQL) to Linux, using P2V.
• Supported the development of the site through the build of HA Hybrid Cloud with XenServer, Azure and Rackspace. Here, I utilised skills within CentOS, MySQL, Apache and PHP.

• Attracted emergency consultancy clients based on my strong reputation and track record, often through referrals from satisfied past and current clients who sought my support in crisis situations.
• Resolved potentially catastrophic issues for clients, such as when an international university accidentally deleted user data with no backups, by working quickly and creatively to restore lost data and prevent future incidents.
• Assisted a major bank throughout a live hack, where I used my technical expertise to detect and stop the hack, minimizing the impact on the bank's operations and reputation.
• Collaborated with IT teams to identify vulnerabilities and risks, develop mitigation strategies, and implement industry-standard security measures to protect critical assets and data.
• Built strong relationships with clients and IT leaders, earning their trust and confidence through my professionalism, responsiveness, and expertise.

• Serviced the client on an ongoing basis for a period of 10 years, building strong relationships with leaders that led to repeat business.
• Led various projects that transformed initial single-server environments into scalable cloud-based hybrid solutions using VMware.
• Handled the separation of application and database servers across five virtual machines, ensuring cyber security and reducing the risk of data loss.
• Adapted to sector-specific requirements, performing healthcare penetration tests, and working with IPS's to perform hacking projects that helped improve the client's security posture.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to identify and implement best practices in IT infrastructure and security, ensuring high availability and scalability of critical systems.

• Played an instrumental role in the infrastructure design of the AA website, which boasted a massive user base of at least 1,000,000 per month, by leveraging my deep knowledge of industry best practices and emerging technologies.
• Contributed my high-level cyber security and sustainability expertise to inform both the short and long-term planning and roadmap of the product, ensuring that it was aligned with the AA's strategic goals.
• Successfully delivered a range of new features and capabilities to the website, including e-commerce functionality, membership management, and geographical mapping for AA members, while adhering to strict quality and performance standards.
• Translated the website and its content into mobile and tablet formats, using my influential voice to guide the back-end architectural design and ensure a seamless user experience across all devices.
• Led the back-end integration into CRM systems, collaborating closely with internal content teams to ensure that the website's functionality met the needs of both customers and stakeholders.

• Transformed an unstable Windows environment that serviced 10,000,000 customers in Southern Africa at a well-known utilities company.
• Overhauled current practices and introduced a cloud-based Citrix XenServer, requiring much negotiation with Management teams.
• Managed on-going support and led mass IT change programmes with the introduction of Dell Servers, SAN, Fortinet firewalls, CentOS, Apache, PHP (with bytecode caching), MySQL, Load Balancers and a custom CMS.
• Directed risk mitigation measures through the implementation of redundant virtual machines for crisis/system failure situations.
• Supported the firm through a period of mass power-failure in the region, migrating website systems to external data centres to ensure no customer disruption during blackouts/power shortages.