English Exam Centre

Head of Technology in Estoril, Portugal
November 2022 - ...

In late 2022 I was invited to join the English Exam Centre as their Head of Technology to help the company take the next step in their technological evolution.

The English Exam Centre had several ad-hoc and manual procedures and if it wanted to grow it needed to review and streamline them.

Being a small company working with a very large number of end-customers and some very large corporate customers, we needed to make sure that all changes to the way we operated and presented ourselves to the market had to be spot-on.

As part of my responsabilities, I led the implementation of a whole new internal management system that tied in with our public website.

This system encompasses recognisable structures such as a CRM and a whole e-Commerce structure, while also implementin very custom systems relating to exam session bookings, including notification systems for candidates.

As these systems streamlined the inner workings of the company, we then started implementing and investing in pushing the company out to the market with a fully redesigned website, betting very strongly on SEO, SEA, SERP Rich snippets, Social Media, along with the implementation of some new features in the website, like Professor Percival, our 24/7 available AI Assistant, supported by OpenAI APIs and its latest Large Language Models as well as model training so that Professor Percival is knowledgeable about our business domain and particular information about our current day to day business dealings.

As a direct result of these changes and some others in the market, the English Exam Centre is projected to turnover roughly 60% more than last calendar year, even though we were able to do so without a significant increase in headcount or costs.

JOCAVI Acoustic Panels

General Manager & Head of Technology in Sintra, Portugal and Newark, NJ
September 2017 - November 2022

I joined JOCAVI on a permanent basis after over 10 years of collaborating as a freelancer. JOCAVI is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-quality acoustic treatment products and has been around since 1992, providing acoustic treatment products for clients and venues all over the world. Initially, I started collaborating with JOCAVI as a freelancer, developing acoustic engineering tools, like the JOCAVI Acoustic Simulator and other tools for the company.

After 10 years, João Carlos, JOCAVI's CEO, made me an offer to join the team on a permanent basis as the Head of Technology.

Since then, I’ve been working to improve the technology side of the company that had been working with old processes and tools. We've redeveloped the whole website, the internal management systems, the tooling used for the day-to-day work.

My responsibilities include developing and implementing the technological roadmap for the organization at all levels. From disaster recovery, communications structures, management organization, commercial and technical tooling through to supporting the manufacturing side of the business with the best technological tools to improve product delivery quality and speed.

In 2019, I took on the role of General Manager for both the Portuguese and the US companies with a view to improve overall productivity and management of both companies.

We've gone through a process of formally identifying the workflows within JOCAVI to create a better and more stable environment considering the existing culture and values in both companies.

In April 2018, JOCAVI founded a US-based subsidiary, and I’ve worked very directly in its management, with recurrent trips to the US to manage the business and deal with customers directly.

Ultimately, the main goals are to achieve better and measurable performance levels and to improve on deliverability, quality, and cost reductions.

Helping to create and improve music studios for artists and producers like Wiz Khalifa, Jaycen Joshua, Post Malone, Iann Dior, Louis Bell, Xutos & Pontapés, Pitbull, Angelo Montrone and Dave Mathews Band has always been an interesting challenge.

Along with the work I've been developing in the area of creating music studios and other types of acoustic environments, I've also taken on the work of running training and acoustic talks to the general public, which definitely increases the profile of the subject of acoustics.

I've been lucky enough to join such talented people like Rafa Sardina, Paul Irizarry (ECHO), Maurizio Sera (IRKO), Arbise Gonzalez (Motiff), Dave Malekpour and others in presenting talks about acoustics and how important acoustics are in their studios.

Soundnet

Head of Technology in London, UK
March 2012 - September 2017

In March 2012 I joined Soundnet as the Head of Technology for the organisation.

Being one of Europe's leading suppliers of audio and video content, Soundnet needed someone to help them grow technologically to the next level.

I was responsible managing the development, support and infrastructure teams in the company, as well as the design of systems and architectures at Soundnet, along with some implementation work. Amongst these projects, we've started the redesign and redevelopment of several internal systems, of most importance amongst them, the internal management system (SIMIAN). The music industry is quite complex and has several problems when it comes to standards and cross organisation communications. To minimise this, we've decided to implement the DDEX standard to our new domain model.

We've also developed, along with nimbletank, an award winning mobile agency, an application callsed soundjack, which is a platform that allows the user to pick music to play in retail and hospitality environments straight from his phone.

In March 2014 we've launched soundjack services which connects thousands of users to thousands of jukeboxes all over the world.

Also in March 2014, we've started working on a a tablet-based music system with profiled music service tailored for your business. Your customers used the award winning soundjack app to pick and play your profiled music.

The whole ecosystem was created to improve engagement with venue customers soundjack and allowing them to connect with the venues brand in a unique way.

The services included bespoke music profling so that the right music played at the right time. It is a true plug'n'play solution where the customer only needed to connect the soundjack tablet to their amp and speakers.

It became a great online music system that was always up to date and easy to manage with a phone app integration and would let customers interact with the music in the venue using the soundjack app.

The users could play the songs that fit the customers brand as they could only choose to play the songs that fit the customers music profile.

The award-winning soundjack app allowed your customers to engage with the brand in a unique way. It created a powerful connections between customers and brands. All soundjack background music customers could also earn direct revenue from advertising on the app, advertising between tracks or by having users either paying to bump their track higher up on the playlist or through pay to play.

JATO Dynamics

Development Team Leader, Interface Engineer and Customisation Engineer in London, UK
November 2007 - March 2012

My position encompassed the leadership of a geographically distributed development teams that developed several applications/

From multi-tiered web applications to high volume custom data extraction applications, through publicly available data and intelligence services provided both through web services or WCF services to all the big manufacturers and players in the automotive industry, my job was to manage, lead, mentor and guide both our local and remote teams.

I was also the architect of the new framework that will be used in the new generation of CARSPECS, improving performance and memory footprint of the application and related services.

In May 2010 I went to Oslo, in Norway, to provide training on CARSPECS Web Services to FINN.no.

FINN.no was, at the time, the largest nordic consumer portal and part two of the largests european media groups (Polaris Media and Schibsted).

My job was to train the development team on how to use CARSPECS's web services so they could redevelop their car section in their portal.

In 2011 I started travelling regularly to Mexico City to manage the local development team.

My work was mostly focused on the technical and moral improvement of the local team and to expand it and make it the development hub for all South, Latin and North American operations.

Before I became the Development Team Leader, I worked as an Interface Engineer in July 2008. My role consisted in developing CARSPECS 2008's Presentation Layer. Soon we started working in enhancing the presentation layer by presenting some new, high-quality, interface technologies to provide the user with a new, simple, fast, customisable, technologically sound and hassle free experience.

The goal was to merge several technologies into one project. Flash, Ajax and others would allow us to create a much more appealing and user-friendly interface that provides the user with a much more rewarding and exciting experience.

Before becoming the Interface Engineer, I worked as part of a two man team of Customisation Engineers, customising a market leading automobile comparison tool, CARSPECS, for it's clients all over the world. This job was based on ASP development, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, C++ and SQL.

Eventually I began working on some interestingly complex applications migrating them from VBScript to C# with the goal of achieving much higher performance levels. These projects gave me an extensive experience and knowledge on SQL and T-SQL that is continuously growing.

I then started working on rewritting CARSPECS intelligence layer into C# and presentation layer into ASP.NET, as well as the development of some nice Flash interface elements for it.

NEWMOOD:CTI

Founder in Cascais, Portugal
June 2004 - November 2007

Back in 2004, after some work done as a freelancer, I decided to open NEWMOOD, an IT consultancy business with a very close friend.

We specialized in providing customised solutions for businesses IT infrastructures and software needs.

In NEWMOOD my job was to architect, develop and maintain websites and web applications that went from simple CMS through online marketing campaign management systems, online shop catalogues, training management tools straight to corporate websites.

I also provided network infrastructures design, implementation and maintenance for servers, workstations and network equipment and developed a VoIP server application along side Montisistemas, one of the largest telecomunications services retaillers in the country.

MRF SGPS

IT Manager in Cascais, Portugal
August 2002 - August 2005

I worked as System Administrator, Helpdesk and Web Applications Developer for MRF SGPS and its group of companies.

MRF was a startup nursery and consulting company in Cascais that held in it's offices multiple companies, such as Publifresh, QT Consulting, QE – Projecto de Reabilitação de Pessoas com Deficiência, LBGS, BHS, Medical Institute of Cascais, and Workcare, and I was responsible for providing voice and data network design, systems implementation and management.

SIMH

Technical Director in Cascais, Portugal
August 2001 - April 2002

Back in 2000 I was invited to join SIMH as the Technical Director especially brought in to manage the development of SIAM, a medial information and hospital administration management system, commissioned by the Portuguese Army.

Having worked directly with both the commander of the main military hospital in the country and the Army Chief Of Staff at the time, this project encompassed the creation of a system that managed all aspects of day to day hospital work that provided services to both the military and civilian population.

The scope and depth of the domain knowledge I had to learn for this project was breathtaking as a hospital has so many different moving parts.

Later on I worked in Cape Verde in a project for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as a consultant to the Healthcare Ministry and managed the project created to establish telehealth capabilities between Portuguese and Cape Verdian hospitals.

Given the shortage of specialized staff to perform diagnostics using medical imaging equipment (CT Scans, X-rays, and ultrasound scans), we’ve created a partnership with the Pulido Valente Hospital in Lisbon, so that the scans executed in Cape Verde could be sent digitally to an automated system that would alert the specialist on call, in Lisbon, so that he could then produce a relevant and timely diagnosis.

MPM Events

IT Manager in Algés, Portugal
March 2000 - September 2000

MPM Eventos was the organising body responsible for both the Beach Football Mundialito (World Cup) and the Beach Football European Cup at the time. (both tournaments are now managed by Beach Soccer Worldwide and FIFA)

My job was to make sure that both the office's and the event's IT systems were all running smoothly.

From specifications definitions to on-site deployment of systems and networks. I was responsible for providing all international media and competing teams with accreditation, work areas and fulfilling all their IT requirements.

BolsaPlus

Data Manager in Cascais, Portugal
January 1997 - March 1999

Being a financial information publication, BolsaPlus had very strong requirements when it came to financial data.

My work was to manage, develop and maintain the systems that collected the financial market data from major suppliers (Bloomberg, Dealogic, Fidessa and others) so that the analysts and editors could produce their articles for the publication.