Jake Swanepoel

• Lead the delivery and continuous improvement process of IT infrastructure services across our corporate estate. Ownership of critical areas including device lifecycle management, cloud systems, security tooling, network operations, and service reliability. Mentoring of junior team members to ensure IT services are secure, scalable, and aligned to business needs.
• Oversight of, provisioning and lifecycle management of corporate IT devices and software, ensuring policy compliance.
• Administer, configure, and troubleshoot core services including Microsoft 365, Azure AD, Exchange, Teams, and SharePoint.
• Ensured the reliability and security of cloud and on-premise environments including VMs, data centres, and business applications.
• Implementation and support of advanced IT security controls such as firewalls, DLP, vulnerability scanning, SIEM, and antivirus platforms.
• Act as primary contact for MDR/SOC service teams and support incident response, threat analysis, and reporting activities.
• Maintenance and improvement of identity, access, and endpoint management using tools like Intune, Group Policy and KACE.
• Planning and execution of patching and update strategies, backups, disaster recovery testing, and system performance tuning.
• Supported IT compliance with ISO27001 standards, contributing to internal audits and documentation.
• Mentorship and guidance of junior IT administrators, reviewing work and providing on-the-job coaching.
• Documentation of technical processes, contribution to project plans, and support the delivery of IT improvement initiatives.

This included the administration, deployment, and configuration of the following systems:

Admin By Request

• full implementation, configuration, and administration.

Mimecast

• configuration, administration.

Network/Wifi solutions:

• Aruba, Meraki, Ubiquity.

Service desk

• Freshervice Service Desk -Deployment, Administration, configuration.

Microsoft

• Azure, Intune, Exchange, 365, Teams, Windows Defender SOC, Sharepoint, Windows Clients and Servers.

Others:

• KACE SMA (deployment, configuration, and administration), Duo, Palo-Alto, HubSpot, Monday, Druva, SonicWall, Cybereason, Sophos, Quest Azure and Active Directory Migration.

• 2nd-3rd line Infrastructure and Helpdesk support
• Office 365 Administration on Global Admin level.
• Teams, Skype, SharePoint online deployment, configuration and administration.
• Sharegate Sharepoint Migration
• Azure AD, Azure Infrastructure Solutions.
• Active Directory Enterprise Admin level.
• Service Desk Management, SLA's, Asset Management, Incident, Service and Change Management.
• Oversight and implementation of a cloud-based ITAAS help desk solution that span five physical locations and several companies. These include eight business units which have a user base of around five hundred users with thirteen supporting agents.
• Demonstration of IT Projects to board level.
• Contract management, change, and release management and intercompany IT projects. Responsibilities included delivering helpdesk performance analytics and reporting to agents, managers and the SMT.
• Support, maintenance, backups, and upkeep of all production and development environments.
• Windows Server, Hyper-V, ( Some VMware, Vsphere)
• Support for HP SAN and other network storage products.
• Configuration and management of UPS network capabilities for all hardware located in server rooms (around 80 Physical servers Dell and HP and related SAN, DAS and UPS infrastructure).
• I looked after SQL maintenance plans and implemented and maintained Veeam backup for around 450 virtual machines spread across multiple hosts and storage facilities including cloud repositories.
• Experience with backup products such as Veeam, Symantec backup exec, DPM, Arcserve, and Acronis.
• Implementation of remote desktop infrastructure (RDS) for use by external contractors and staff working off-site. This included both remote application deployment and virtual desktops.
• Azure based Virtual machines, web applications and services, Storage Repositories, Azure AD administration.
• Administration of other environments and areas includes IIS, SCCM, Project Server, SharePoint, Gemini, SCVM, WSUS, DNS, DHCP, AD Group Policies etc.
• Software licence management and compliance, including Microsoft MSDN subscription and third-party agreements.
• Procurement of enterprise volumes of software and hardware (Servers, Laptops, PC's, Storage etc.) and maintaining good relationships with vendors whilst contending for and maintaining competitive margins. I also provided a recommendation on specifications and scope.
• IT budget management and reporting.
• Various other IT related projects and installations.

• I started out at K3 as a Hardware Support Engineer to specify and provide server hardware and windows clients to both customers and employees.
• This included the configuration of SANs and disks in tandem with SQL performance specifications.
• Deployments of operating systems to Laptops and other clients.
• Relationship management with suppliers to be able to provide well-supported, bespoke products.
• Advisory role on backup solutions and internally hosted platforms and solutions.

• Compunamix provided Small Business Server, financial software, and server and PC support to small and medium-sized local businesses.
• Management of the workshop, ensuring the quality of repairs and new builds of Servers, PC's and Laptops, and running the stock and supply of the business.
• Leading a small team of two technicians.
• The job role later changed to an onsite IT Consultant.
• IT management for several businesses including schools, a hospital, a restaurant, internet café, a pharmacy, a hotel.
• Responsibility for networks, point-of-sale systems, and general IT supplies.
• Provisioning of training to end-users, which included people at all levels of IT proficiency.

• Apprenticeship with CPS direct as a Printer Technician
• Training in Printing and Laser Theory at Microtek South-Africa.
• Accredited Hewlett Packard warranty centre.
• Servicing of both industrial and consumer printers.
• Working directly with both consumers and businesses.