Léon is social media and web 2.0 practitioner and has managed a number of successful social software implementations with clients including British Airways, Microsoft & BT.  Co-designed with Ecademy’s board one of only a few economically viable social network subscription based business models.  Previously spent 15 years designing and delivering IT transformation programmes in financial services, telecoms, retail and travel, for blue chip companies, counting Union Bank of Switzerland, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Barclays Capital, Andersen Consulting, Airtours, Opodo, BT, Tesco, Argos and Norwich Union.

Current  Assignment

Carphone Warehouse Plc

Managing a programme of work to deliver connected world services to CPW Wireless Stores opening in 2009, technical support & protection services to giant US consumer electronics retailer, Best Buy ahead of the roll out of its massive footprint stores in 2009, and advising on the social media strategy for the UK’s new Geek Squad (technical support & protection services) web site.

Social Media Assignments

BBH, London,  British Airways, Social Media

Managed a programme of work to deliver a ground breaking social utility (a recommendation engine) for British Airways.  Developed in Ruby on Rails, using Agile development techniques (acting Scrum Master), Amazon Cloud services and an innovative user experience based around lists.  Introduced rigorous project management disciplines.  Planned and delivered business and technical streams across four separate agencies covering legal, PR, marketing, software development, moderation and community management. www.metrotwin.com.

Passado.  Social Network

• Managed multiple streams of activity to migrate five European language social network sites (supporting 5m members in five languages) to a new suite of applications designed to redefine the way Groups and User Generated Content are provided in the Web 2.0 space.
• Strategic guidance to CEO & Board: Proposition development, user interaction design and integration with Google OpenSocial and Facebook platforms. White label distribution, Software As A Service, widgets.
• Managing the offshore development team (St Petersburg, Russia – 25 people) and on-shore project activities.
• www.wasabi.com

Ecademy. Social Business Network

• Member of management team and minority shareholder. Co-designed a successful social network subscription model (150k+ subscribers). Led Ecademy’s consulting vehicle to deliver a wide range of online community solutions for BT, Microsoft, Regus and the DTI. Highlights;
  • For BT Mobile Sense; Devised and implemented a community marketing strategy for the launch of BT’s consumer centric mobile phone business (following 02 sale). Worked with BT’s creative agencies, identified and engaged online communities (Gay UK, Auto communities, and other lifestyle communities). Calculated the ROI.
  • For BT Broadband; Designed and specified a crowd sourcing platform to enable broadband champions at local exchange level to lobby citizens to register for broadband in order to hit trigger levels for exchange conversion.
  • For BT Openworld; Designed and implemented a “member get member” advocacy programme leveraging Ecademy’s online community platform.

Microsoft Solutions Provider (now Synchronica plc)

Conceived and wrote the concept document for Microsoft and presented in Redmond (2001) that led to the creation of a mobile web services community that is now Microsoft’s Mobile2Market.

Notable Career Achievements

Tesco Stores Plc

• Interim Project Manager. Led a technical stream of work across the UK, India & Turkey to create a ‘Tesco in a Box’ solution that enables the rapid roll out and deployment of new store openings worldwide, ahead of live implementation in Tesco’s first US stores (Fresh & Easy).

Argos, Home Retail Group

• Interim Programme Manager. Wrote the programme plan for a step change in eCommerce functionality on Argos web properties spanning 2 years. Responsible for translating the board’s business requirements into working specifications, programme costs, business case and risk assessments for executive sign off. £10m budget.

Norwich Union

• Programme Manager. Managed the infrastructure integration programme following Aviva’s acquisition of the RAC. Governing a portfolio of projects including; IP based contact centre integration, intranet consolidation, and the implementation of a £2m technology and application refresh of Norwich Union Direct’s eCommerce platform ahead of an eight figure, six month TV advertising and marketing campaign

Union Bank of Switzerland – Ground breaking investment banking web application

• Project Director. For the Quantitative Finance Group (QFG). Managed the business/IT relationship at executive level to create a politically acceptable policy framework for conducting business on the internet. Delivered the first internet web site in UK investment banking, for the secure capture and warehousing of the quantitative financial analyses of European government investment portfolios.

Personal & Advisory

The Comedy Hub

• Summer break to pursue passion in social media. Assembled ex-BBC comedy writers, actors and professional editors to write a series of 12 football world cup comedy sketches as a proof of concept for ad funded podcast content. Beat Sky Sports, The Telegraph and Daily Mirror in iTunes rankings reaching second in the charts after Baddiel & Skinner. www.thecomedyhub.co.uk

Published Author – Winning by Sharing

• Self-published a book in 2004 on the future of brands in the context of the globalisation of work, the rise of network societies and the emergence of social software as a disruptive technology
• Blog – http://winningbysharing.typepad.com/
• Winning by Sharing: The Big Picture – http://www.winningbysharing.net/bp.asp

Advisory

• Advisor to The Law Firm & Andy Law, previously founder of St Luke’s (London) ad agency on social software design for their clients. http://www.the-l-a-w-firm.com/
• Advisor to CEO of SwarmTeams – a mobile social network viral marketing utility enabling musicians and artists to communicate at scale with their fan bases (Universal & EMI are clients). http://home.swarmteams.com/

Personal

• Married, 3 children. Age 45. Live in Hertfordshire.
• Computer Science degree
• Played schoolboy rugby for England
• Arsenal football fan (fanatic)

You can view all of Leon’s articles on Archer Ball by clicking here.