About Arsalan

Profile

Arsalan is a Consulting and IT-Business Executive with 25 + years of top international experience at industry leaders such as IBM, DXC, Accenture, and Wipro, and in high-growth organizations with an exceptional track in Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture.

Arsalan is a distinguished Enterprise and Business Architect (Certified by The Open Group), a highly experienced thought leader practitioner in Enterprise Digital Transformation, and experienced and Prince II certified Program Manager with excellent consulting and architectural skills and experience to distil strategic enterprise solutions that involve complex business, technology, organizational, and architectural aspects, and present them in business language.

Arsalan has an outstanding track record across the globe in devising and leading at the forefront of pioneering and innovative strategic transformation initiatives and engagements across Business and IT to help organizations achieve maximum business and operational impacts.

Previous Career Roles

Global Head of Digital and Consulting | Esplendor Group- UK/Europe
Head of Consulting Partners, Enterprise Architecture & Digital Transformation| Wipro- UK/Europe
Director CIO Advisory, Executive Architect | IBM UK/Europe
Founder & Managing Director | ODC Netherlands
Head of Enterprise Architecture Practice Europe | DXC UK/Benelux
Senior Consultant | Accenture Sweden/Scandinavia
Practice Leader for Object Technology Practice | IBM North America

Education & Qualifications

Master of Science MSc, Information Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
Distinguished/Thought Leader Enterprise, AND, Business Architect, The Open Group, Netherlands
Master Enterprise, AND, Business Architect, The Open Group, Netherlands
IBM’s Object Technology University I & II (3 months), Atlanta, USA
Prince II Project/Program Management, QA Institute, UK
Togaf Enterprise Architecture, The Open Group, Netherlands/Italy

Other Professional Training:

Program Management, Could Technology (UK) | IBM Banking Architectural Framework IFW, IBM’s Insurance Framework IAA, Agile & Devops, Sis Sigma/Lean Sigma, Architectural Thinking (Netherlands) | Business Analysis and Design (USA) | Business Practice (Finland) | Consulting Skills (Sweden) | Foundation for Corporate Processing (France) | Rational Suite & RUP Certification (Belgium) | Technical Leadership University TLU 1 and TLU 2 (UAE) | Client Advisory (China) | Industrial Engineering (Sweden) | 7 Habits of highly effective people, Financial Abilities (Mexico)

Affiliations

Accenture: Leading Contributor (global methodology expert team), Object Technology, Chicago, USA
DXC: Leader for Global Expert Group Enterprise Architecture/BPM, Dallas, USA
IBM: Practice Leader Business & Enterprise Architecture Benelux, IBM enterprise architecture global expert board member
Wipro: Head of Digital Transformation, leading member of the global EA Academy
Wipro: Head of Digital Transformation, leading member global EA academy.

Thought Leader Practitioner Digital Transformation, Enterprise Architecture, and Consulting

Distinguished/Thought Leader Enterprise, AND, Business Architect with great reputation for being a trusted advisor, and for “getting results” not only as a leader, but also as a hands-on practitioner.
Devised an own IP’ed Digital Transformation Framework “ePerspectives” as a practical business-driven business-language methodology for Enterprise/Business Architecture to guide digital transformation – the framework has been greatly acclaimed and successfully implemented at strategic enterprise level at leading European organisations with excellent results and executive feedback and testimonials.
Head of Enterprise Architecture practice at IBM, DXC, …Started, led, and successfully developed, headed, and grew highly successful pioneering innovative and reputable and profitable business practices in Architecture, as well as Consulting, Digital Transformation, CIO Advisory, Enterprise and Smart/IoT, at leading Consulting firms in the UK, Europe, Americas, and Asia. Started, led, and successfully developed, headed, and grew highly successful pioneering innovative business practices in Consulting, Digital Transformation, CIO Advisory, Enterprise Architecture, and Smart/IoT, at leading Consulting firms in the UK, Europe, Americas, and Asia. Have won numerous consulting achievement awards.

Achievements and Industry Experience

Banking

Led multinational teams that included senior architects and technical and business SME’s at a large leading global Investment Bank, devised an unprecedented innovative wealth management solution, presented and convinced the CEO, COO, and CIO and the executive management, secured and led the engagement that to successful completion with new follow up engagements in a new client logo.
Successfully crisis-managed a high-visibility country-wide online banking platform launch in a $500 M+ global integrated account under threat for a global top 20 bank
Successfully crisis-managed and thereafter led a 3-way strategic and highly successful collaboration between IBM, DXC and Mckinsey in a 400 M integrated account at a global top 20 bank
Led other strategic engagements for leading banks in the UK (Lloyds, Credit Suisse, HSBC), Germany (DB, HDH), Denmark(Unibank), US (Statestreet Bank), Latin America (Banamex), and M.E (QNBN, QIB)…

Insurance

Led large global teams in UK/DE/NL/US/IN in recovery of a highly strategic and complex enterprise-wide business and IT Digital Transformation Program in crisis for global credit insurance leader. Achieved trusted advisor status with executive management including CIO, COO, devised and convinced of a new revamped Program approach and roadmap, led global expert teams and produced winning proposal, outcompeted and replaced incumbent System Integrators, passionately promoted the approach and raised enthusiasm leading teams across client business, strategy, and IT organizations hence spearheading, winning, and successfully leading implementation in a new $90 M showcase engagement
Led other insurance engagements valued over 300 M for leading Insurance companies in then UK (Winterthur/AXA, Netherlands (AMEV), Scandinavia (SPP), Belgium (RVS)…

Telecoms

Headed a mission-critical billing transformation Program at a leading European Telco with scope of over one billion Euro annual invoices, which had previously failed by Accenture and Athos, led client business and IT executives and teams, achieved millions of cost savings by building self-financing business case with and gained consensus and conviction across Business and IT in a politically volatile atmosphere in a Program fully implemented to become a countrywide showcase and Nr. 1 success story.
Led other Telecoms engagements valued over 200 M in the UK (O2, BT, Vodafone), Germany (DT, T-Mobile), Scandinavia (Telia, Ericsson) France (Nokia), Netherlands (Ziggo, Tiscali), …

Government/Public Sector

Engaged on regular basis with the CIO and the Executive Business & IT leadership and gained enthusiastic sponsorship for my proposed Enterprise Architecture and Digital Transformation method and framework adoption, greatly received, adopted, and institutionalized, leveraging which I led 4 successive and highly successful engagements in a strategic Digital Transformation Program, which became a showcase acclaimed strategic initiative with unprecedented tangible results – with outstanding reception and feedback from client executive leadership
Led other Governmental engagements in the UK (Ministry Of Defence, Cambridge Council), South Africa (Government Of South Africa IT Agency -SITA), Netherlands (Royal Army, City Councils, Harbour and Maritime Authority), Middle East (Smart City Dubai, Qatar MoD)…

Healthcare & HealthTech

Replaced Global VP Technology & CTO and become Interim Global Head of Architecture and Emerging Technologies selected by and reporting to CIO with place on the Executive board, leveraged own EA and Digital Transformation framework, adopted and implemented it as company-wide EA & DT framework, revamped global architecture function into a best-practice one, harmonization of key enterprise-wide transformation Programs into a consolidated joint Program for improved efficiency, led a strategic Program to define future technology model and roadmap, engaged with various key initiatives to help address existing issues and accelerate progress
Led other Healthcare & HealthTech engagements in the UK (NHS, GSK), Germany (Dräger, Hartmann), Netherlands (Philips) …

Energy & Utilities

Led in several solutions and engagements such as Application Portfolio Modernisation, Solution Architecture as a Service (SAaaS) Business Process management and Enterprise Architecture tooling at one of the biggest energy companies.
Led other Energy & Utility engagements in the UK (BP, Bristol Waters, STW), Netherlands (Shell, Essent), Germany (Uniper, Leoni), Sweden (SKF), Middle East (QP)…

Manufacturing & Technology

Replaced Chief Architect and also took on engagement lead role in a Program experiencing serious issues and successfully turned around a global Transformation Program leading teams across Belgium, Sweden, and USA, also regularly advised CIO and IT executives.
Led other Manufacturing & Technology engagements in the UK (BAT, ASAHI, OKIDATA), France (Michelin, Continental, Renault), Germany (Rolls Royce), Sweden (SKF), Outukompu (Finland)…

Retail

Led a highly innovative ”Smart Supply Chain” Program encompassing 3 projects, also redefined and optimised the Enterprise Architecture/SDLC DevOPs approach and methodology to a best-practice and highly agile one
Led other Retail engagements in the UK (TJX, Pentland ), Netherlands (Staples, Albert Heijn, Sara Lee), Turkey (Kellogg’s), Sweden (ICA), …