Lawrence Thomas

I

Interim Director of Product Program Management - AI, Analytics & Data domain H&M Group

Apr 2023 - Jan 2024 (10 months)

Focus included the refinement and execution of the Data Mesh implementation. Tasks included management of 12 AI and data focused program managers, who were, in turn, responsible for more than 400 people (data engineers/scientists, machine learning engineers, etc) as well as ensuring the planning and implementation of the Data Mesh strategy within their programs. Results included the Data Mesh implementation within the Customer domain from data governance to data marketplace tool development to data product development.

I

Interim Head of Program Management Office team - AI, Analytics & Data domain, H&M Group

Aug 2021 - Jan 2024 (2 years 6 months)

Focus was the setup of a program management office (PMO) that ensured the tracking of product delivery of AI and data products. Tasks included facilitating quarterly program planning, portfolio development and management, capturing delivery status and performance data. Results included establishment of a portfolio management lifecycle from insights into the costs vs value potential of deliveries.

I

Innovation Store Initiative - H&M Group

Dec 2020 - Aug 2021 (9 months)

Focus was the setup of a cutting edge COS store in Beverly Hill, CA, USA that showcased the latest and best technology from innovative startups that would improve the shopping experience for customers. Tasks included identifying interesting tech startups, contacting and negotiating their participation into our initiative and helping with the installation of their technology into the COS Beverly Hills store. Results included developing a strategy for identifying cutting edge technologies in the marketplace and incorporating them quickly into H&M stores.

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Omni Store Sales Model – H&M Group

Dec 2020 - Aug 2021 (9 months)

Focus was to create a forecasting tool that would support the decision making in store openings (minimizing cannibalization effects) and closings (maximizing sales transfer effects) operations within the Expansion department. Tasks included analysis of historical data on store openings and closings in Germany, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France and Denmark from 2005-2022, create predictive models that would allow for assessing store openings/closings and designing the tool for using these predictive models via a design sprint with participants from various parts of the expansions process. Results include predictive models that forecasted store opening/closings, blueprints for the tool including graphical interface and data model

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Predict Demand – Weekday/H&M Brand (Business/Technical Analyst)

Dec 2020 - Aug 2021 (9 months)

Focus was on development of a fashion trend forecasting tool based directly on customer and prospects’ behavioral data. Tasks included analyzing customer and prospect search and social media data in order to determine the best approach to capturing fashion trends and using the results to generate articles into the market as soon as possible. Results included proving that social media buzz provided the best view of fashion trend through experiments performed with the Chattermill social media listening tool as well as showing faster time to market hot fashion products as well as a 40% increase in sales for those products.

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Customer Loyalty: Agile Coach / Management Consultant

Jun 2020 - Dec 2020 (7 months)

Focus on getting six loyalty program-related teams to use the Agile way of working in order to improve their operational efficiency. Tasks included mapping business processes/ architectures (production and customer), business case development, development of impact analysis tools, introducing the Agile way of working via workshops, coaching teams to use the ceremonies and techniques as well as developing PowerBI tools for the impact of teams’ deliveries on business processes. Results included the improved understanding of business needs, improved delivery efficiencies and visibility of value impact from deliveries

B

Business Technology Unit: Management Consultant

Jun 2019 - Jun 2020 (1 year 1 month)

Focus included providing analysis and recommendations on the use of the Agile way of working across the entire H&M technical organization. Tasks include analysis of current organizational delivery processes, providing recommendations on improvements and ensuring their alignment with the JIRA system. Results included contributions to the way of working playbook from which the entire Function should base their delivery processes

A

AI Function: Agile Coach / Management Consultant

Jun 2019 - Jun 2020 (1 year 1 month)

Focus on getting six AI development teams to use the Agile way of working in order to improve their operational efficiency. Tasks included mapping business processes/ architectures (production and customer), technical architectures and delivery processes, introducing the Agile way of working via workshops, coaching teams to use the ceremonies and techniques as well as developing JIRA/PowerBI tools for tracking team performance in order to pinpoint areas for improvement. Results included the entire unit’s delivery process synchronized and delivery of a platform from which delivery and performance measures could be used to improve the Functions delivery operations.

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MUREX Orchestration Layer Solaris to Linux Infrastructure Cloud Migration

Feb 2018 - Dec 2018 (11 months)

Objective of the project was the migration of the deal capture entry point (Orchestration layer) of the MUREX system from standalone servers to the IBM cloud solution CMS. With a core 10 person technical team and coordination with +50 more counterparts throughout the client organization, 19 virtual machines (about 25 environments) were delivered required extensive script conversions (roughly 400), over 200 software installations and almost 90 (re)connections to upstream and downstream systems. The migration resulted in about EUR250K annual savings to the organization along with a platform that allows for meeting the increasing business demands as well as allowing for extensive capabilities/innovation to be brought to the overall platform.

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Market Risk Management IT Lead

Sep 2016 - Jun 2018 (1 year 10 months)

Objective was to improve the performance of a 9 person business analyst team focused on market risk and facilitate their conversion to the Agile development methodology. Responsibilities included ensuring that clear requirements were defined, extensive alignment between business & IT, facilitating the conversion of requirements into deliverables and ensuring that these artefacts were effectively delivered into production. Results from this engagement included more than 200 full user stories delivered by the team within the first 8 months of collaboration, enabling of revenue that generated more than 1.1M EUR, operational improvements that resulted in significant clean-up of the trading system and pricing improvements that reduced RWA by 20M

B

Barclays Capital - Project Manager - Credit Derivatives Flow Business: Copernicus Program

Jun 2014 - Mar 2015 (10 months)

Focus on the movement away from the legacy credit derivatives processing platform to the target processing system. Tasks included defining what would be required to sever the line to the legacy system and moving the last remaining credit derivative standard product from the legacy system to the target system. Deliverables included process mapping of mapping of credit event (bankruptcy and failure-to-pay and focus) monthly expiry processes, incident and problem management process, requirements definition/management and use case development for the setup and migration of Recovery Products and Index Options and documenting the project management process.

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ING - Requirements Manager / Business Analyst - FX/MM Program: Atlas decommissioning project Phase IV

Dec 2013 - May 2014 (6 months)

Focus was on call notice products (standard, liquidity and collateral) and credit facilities products (standard and liquidity guarantees). Responsibilities were throughout trading flow (front office, back office, finance, credit and market risk). Tasks included requirements gathering and approval and stakeholder management. Deliverables included product descriptions, business and system process flows, business and system architecture diagrams, test scenarios and cases.

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ING - Requirements Manager / Business Analyst - FX/MM Program: Atlas decommissioning project Phase III

Jun 2013 - Dec 2013 (7 months)

Focus on manual, semi manual and automatic/sweep payments associated with investment banking. This includes payments resulting from derivative and capital market/bonds as well as items stemming from liquidity management, investigations as well as LCH-SwapClear and DTCC trades/fees. Responsibilities were throughout the trading flow (front office, back office and finance). Tasks included requirements gathering and approval and stakeholder management. Deliverables included product descriptions, business and system process flows, business and system architecture diagrams, test scenarios and cases.

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Project Manager / Business Analyst - Transaction banking (payments) reference models project

Aug 2012 - Feb 2013 (7 months)

This project entailed the consolidation of project experience and refining it into process and systems models for Front and Back Office operations within the payments environment. These models include • End-to-end process overviews • Specific process step descriptions and details In addition, product maps were created for domestic and international payment products and their associated fees (postal, admin, etceteras). The information in the product maps include • Product categories and descriptions (Domestic/International/SEPA, incoming/outgoing, etc) • Charge types and basis

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Project Manager / Business Analyst - Investment banking reference models project

Mar 2012 - Aug 2012 (6 months)

This project entailed the consolidation of project experience and refining it into process, systems and event models for Front Office, Back Office and Finance operations within the trading environment. These models include • End-to-end process overviews • Specific process step descriptions and details • Definitions of roles and responsibilities • Triggers and design decisions In addition, product maps were created for FX (cash, money market, options and OTC IRDs) and commodities (agriculture, oil, precious and base metals, energy and carbon) products. The information in the product maps include • Product descriptions • Trading type and market • Balance sheet positioning • Advantages / disadvantages • Resembling products

D

Deutsche Bank - Billing Rationalisation

Sep 2011 - Feb 2012 (6 months)

With the purchase a part of ABN AMRO’s (AAB) business by Deutsche Bank (DB) came a concern about the pricing differences for the transaction banking products between ABN AMRO and Deutsche Bank and how they would potentially impact the clients in question and/or the DB balance sheet. The billing rationalization project had the objective of mapping similar products between the organisations in order to find the potential differences in price, application and application frequency. This involved domestic and international tariff items from products as well as provisional items such as postal costs, credit line provisions, etceteras. As a result of this analysis, recommendations would be made on how to improve the differences and simulations pe

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JP Morgan - Project Manager Target State Architecture (TSA) Commodities ACE2 onboarding project

Oct 2010 - Feb 2011 (5 months)

This project entailed the migration of the Commodities portfolio from 3 separate platforms to one platform. The product that were in scope included (from the physical and derivative perspectives) Global Oil, Base Metals, EMEA/NA Power and Gas and Agriculture for the forward, swap, swaption, FX, Loan/Deposits and payment series perspectives. This part of the TSA Commodities program involved onboarding the products and instruments to the ACE2 accounting subledger in order to ensure the proper posting and reporting of the cashflows resulting from these trades. The role of project manager encompassed working with the Finance and Operations business counterparts as well as the IT accounting and settlement representatives. The main items that the

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JP Morgan - Project Manager OTC Clearing ACE2 onboarding project

Oct 2010 - Feb 2011 (5 months)

This project entailed preparation of the ACE2 component for processing OTC Clearing trades. The lines of business that were in scope included Credit, Rates and Equities. This part of the OTC Clearing program involved preparing the ACE2 tool to process instruments including IRS, CDS, Basic Swaps, Zero Coupon Swaps, Overnight Index Swaps, Div Swaps, Variance Swaps and OTC Vanilla Look-alike Options to the ACE2 accounting subledger in order to ensure the proper posting and reporting of the cashflows resulting from these trades according to the Dodd-Frank regulations. The role of project manager encompassed working with the Finance and Product Control business counterparts as well as the IT accounting and settlement representatives. The main it

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JP Morgan - Project Manager Sempra Commodities ACE2 onboarding project

Oct 2010 - Feb 2011 (5 months)

This project entailed the integration of the purchased RBS Sempra portfolio into the JP Morgan Global Commodities business. The products that were in scope included (from the physical and derivative perspectives) Power and Gas for five eastern European entities: Poland/Romania, Serbia, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Rep. The instruments that were in scope included variations of forwards, swaps, swaptions, FX, Loan/Deposits and payment series. In the role of business analyst, Lawrence assisted the Program Manager in ensuring that the remaining items that needed to be configured within the ACE2 accounting component were implemented. This included items such as • Missing instrument attributes definition and implementation for tax fees as well a

F

Fortis - Project Manager Liberty Commodities Project

Mar 2010 - Oct 2011 (1 year 8 months)

This project involved the delivery of the Fortis Commodities product portfolio into the Fortis/ABN AMRO organization. The target trading system was the Calypso trading system and the work required preparing the Fortis organization to work with the changes that resulted. All stakeholders from the FO, BO (processing and control), Finance and Risk (Market Data, Market Risk, Modelling, Credit Risk and Operational Risk) parts of the business were included in the exercise. The product range involved within the commodities portfolio included Carbon, Oil and Precious Metals for plain vanilla instruments (Futures, Swaps, Spot, Forwards, etceteras). The project managed both the business and the IT aspects of transforming the organization including r

A

ABN AMRO - Project Manager Remedy GM Project

Apr 2008 - Dec 2009 (1 year 9 months)

This project entailed consolidating, packaging and migration of clients and their associated trades from ABN AMRO to Deutsche Bank as a part of the purchase agreement of ABN AMRO by Fortis, RBS and Banc Santander. The product range included FX/MM, FX Options as well as plain and structured IRD asset classes. It involved +5000 clients and trades with a notional value of over 9B Euros. Responsibilities included implementing the defined portfolio structure, routing deals through the books, limiting access to the books, SLA creation, trade and accounting flow definition and implementation. The core team consisted of 3 people, with an extended team that ranged from the Business to Ops, Finance and IT and from the sales to FO, BO and Finance. • A

A

ABN AMRO - Project Manager Retail Banking/User security

Dec 2007 - Mar 2008 (4 months)

An audit performed on the MSec system has identified a number of issues which need to be addressed. These issues were compiled and made into a project brief that defines the maintenance update for the system. The Multiplatform Security Hardening (MSH) project had the purpose of closing holes found by Group Audit in the bank’s user security system. • Business and technical requirements • Work orders defined and submitted • Creating and updating project plans using Prince2 and DSDM principles • Directing the development of architectures for the projects via RUP UML principles • Managing both internal staff as well as outsourced staff in development of project artifacts

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ABN AMRO - Project Manager Transaction Banking System Development Cycle (SDLC) implementation

Jan 2006 - Aug 2007 (1 year 8 months)

Responsible for a team of 10 focused on the rollout of the SDLC/RUP package (including software and methodology/process) into the IT Transaction Banking (TB) organization. This required relationship management with 4 different departments, 9 portfolio managers and 12 different development processes. Responsibilities included: • Coordinating the pilots within 7 different projects to generate requirements for a broader rollout • Analysing the results of the pilots to build the business case and plan for the broader/holistic implementation • Building the foundations for the broader rollout by ensuring the software was available to all parts of the organization and everyone within the organization had a basic knowledge of SDLC/RUP • Determining

A

ABN AMRO - Business Analyst Security and compliance CIM Project

Jun 2005 - Dec 2005 (7 months)

Responsible for the developing, coordinating and implementing a training and communications program for the Case Investigation Management (CIMS) project. The clients of the project were the investigators within the Group Security and Group Compliance departments within ABN AMRO Netherlands. Tasks included leading workshops in order to get better insights into various needs and demands within the business as well as the project. Business quickscans were also performed of the various investigative processes within the client departments (as well as the project team) in order to get a better understanding of how work was performed, the demands of the work and results of the work. This information was initially the basis for the project bluepri

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Shell BV - Recovery Operations (EPT-RO) department - 3DRes Project

Nov 1997 - Jan 1998 (3 months)

This project has been proposed is to provide the reservoir engineer (RE) with 3D models of data with which they are able to interact. With these visual images, the RE is aided in understanding complex (often massive) numerical representa-tions of scientific data The prototype generated by this exercise should be able to continuously update itself and allow for direct interactions with the generated information such that it might be seen how the 3D visualization paradigm might fit into the methodologies utilized by the reservoir engineer. Design of the 2D (windowing) and 3D in-terface aspects of oil exploration simulations. The designs generated were mainly the results of a user profile study and the problem domain definition / object graph

C

Code Porting and Cluster-finding experiences on the IBM SP2 and the TMC CM200

Jan 1996 - Nov 1997 (1 year 11 months)

Although different chip variations will inevitably be invented, it was predicted that the next major advancements in the short term will be in bringing parallel architecture technologies more into the mainstream. In general, this means that systems will be equipped with more than one processor with which to handle a number of operations simultaneously. In this way, hardware will be able to handle a number of tasks simultaneously and with ever-speedier chips. Thus, complex problems could fall by sheer numbers rather than by raw speed. The theory behind this is that if one processor can perform a million computations per second, then one hundred processors should be able to perform one hundred million computations in the same amount of time.

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Realism vs abstraction in virtual reality interface design

Nov 1994 - Dec 1995 (1 year 2 months)

This experiment delved into why research in VR interface design is an important factor in the current state of VR. The objectives of performing research into VR interface design (VRID) was to learn how a more productive VR interface might be developed.

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Virtual reality instrument development

Feb 1994 - Nov 1994 (10 months)

Included during this period was the development of the Bowl-ophone as a immersive virtual reality instrument which allowed users to make music through the manipulation of fish in a fishbowl environment.

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Simulations and calculations of transport and elastic properties of composite materials

Mar 1992 - Nov 1994 (2 years 9 months)

The Composites project was a solid state physics project which sought to combine a number of theories on transport and elastic properties of composite materials into a single theory / program which enables one to predict (to a large degree) the effects on a system when it is exposed to various conditions. Theories used in this exercise included • Hashin-Shtrikman Theorem • Weiner Bounds Theory (including that for isotropic systems) • Effective Medium Theory (including SCM Effective Medium Theory and the Average Field App. Effective Medium Theory)

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Measurements of attenuation in scintillating fibers for the g-2 calorimeters

Jan 1992 - Mar 1992 (3 months)

A study was undertaken for the dominate effect of attenuation in a scintillating fiber; claddering light or self-absorbtion. BCF-10 fiber produced by the Bicoron Corporation was used as it was scheduled for use in the SSC collider. The actual loss of light yield was studied along with the calculated effective attenuation wavelengths.

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Supersymmetry in Cahn-Hilliard-Cook Theory

May 1991 - Nov 1997 (6 years 7 months)

Supersymmetry is a theory which states that there exists an invariance in a system under transformation from commuting to non-commuting variables. The theories used in this present a supersymmetric representation of the Cahn-Hilliard-Cook (CHC) linear theory of spinodal decomposition (SD) and continuous ordering (CO) which relates Grassmann variables to physical objects. These supersymmetric representations suggest a new morphological description to the early stage of SD and CO, and provide insights into the process of equilibration above the critical temperature. Brief description of work As a researcher, Lawrence delved into the supersymmetric problems presented by the Cahn-Hilliard-Cook theory. This included utilizing percolation and sup

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Marketing Management: Analyzing and Improving a Service Concept - Pharmaceutical Distribution

Analyzed in a critical way the different approaches followed by the authorities in the pharmaceutical sector, benchmarking against multiple measures.

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