Areas Of Expertise:

• Project Management
• Agile Implementation
• Scope Definition
• Change Management
• Risk Management and Ownership

Education:

• BSc Biomedical Science, National University of Ireland, Galway Post Graduate Diploma in Pharmaceutical Business & Technology, Innopharma College

About Niall Burke

Niall is a dynamic and innovative professional with 8 years of hands-on Project Management experience who joined Seven Consulting’s Sydney team in October 2022. He is a certified Agile Scrum Master with extensive experience in delivering software development, process redesign, lean implementation, and change management projects.

Niall has a record of successfully shaping and delivering changes such as new operating models, core system updates or developments, and digital transformations.

What Niall brings

• Possesses excellent work ethic, time management and confident decision-making skills, along with a vast range of technical and analytical skills.
• Extensive stakeholder management acquired through numerous large-scale projects across several sectors, including Beverage / Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Pharmaceutical and Financial Services industries.
• Excellent leadership and communication skills, with demonstrated experience in coaching & development of highly skilled project professionals.
• Knowledge in Agile, Waterfall and Hybrid project delivery methodologies.

Key Clients:

• Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
• Sanofi
• Novartis
• Allied Irish Bank
• Bank of Ireland

Key Achievements:

As Project Manager at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), Niall led the SAP Transport Management System (TMS) Optimization Project, which involved the enhancement of the client’s core Supply Chain system. The objectives of the TMS Optimization Project were to improve planning accuracy (closing the gap between planned and actuals) and improve Planning Efficiency (getting quicker at planning through automation). The project was successfully delivered using Hybrid methodologies, and included 9 Project Go-Lives. Niall successfully led the Project delivery from initiation through to closure while managing vendor and Business resources. The anticipated Business savings due to these implementations is forecast to be $235k per annum. The Project has been recognized by the CCEP Business as it was nominated for the Global Supply Chain Excellence Awards in the “Innovation” category.

As Project Manager at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), Niall led the Prestige SKU Processing Project which involved the configuration of several systems to allow for the end-to-end processing of the newly acquired prestige alcoholic products. With cases retailing at over $5k per bottle, this was a limited inventory that was to be shipped annually and had specialized delivery and customer requirements. Impacted systems included SAP ECC, SAP Transport Management System (TMS) and SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO). Niall successfully managed the project team and the solution delivery end-to-end, and ensured the Project’s benefits of the $1.6m Net Con were realized for the client through the successful Project Go-Live.

As Project Manager at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), Niall led the Customer Demand and Supply Planning (CDSP) mobilization Project for Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia (API). This Project entailed the client’s transition from SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) to the client’s globally aligned platform, namely SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP). The implementation of IBP, which is hosted on the SAP Business Technology Platform, was previously carried out across the client’s Business Units in Europe, before the planned roll-out in the API region. The roll-out of this solution would enable CCEP to have one consolidated, global planning system, with data from all regions managed centrally. As part of the mobilization phase in API, Niall led the SAP Data Team and the Business leads in carrying out the data assessments across the current Supply Chain platform and technologies – this included facilitating workshops with over 25 Business resources in order to understand integration points and the impact on connected systems. As part of this project’s activities, a complete data gap-analysis and process impact assessment was successfully completed – this has laid the foundation for the future roll-out of SAP IBP in API, which is planned for Q3 in 2024.

As a Global Agile Site Deployment Lead at Sanofi, a global pharmaceutical company, Niall managed an agile team to develop a deployment kit to accelerate site onboarding of a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to 24 pharmaceutical sites. Niall managed 5 scrum teams consisting of 25 team members. He was responsible for integrating SAFe Scrum practices and training into the client organization and ensured compliance across all site deployment leads to the agile methodology and tools to ensure synchronisation across global sites. Niall drove the necessary changes in processes and structures to ensure the new agile tools worked efficiently and effectively in the new environment. He liaised between product teams and local business teams to deliver customer requirements whilst adhering to agreed global templates and ensured that the organization’s release controls were documented and understood by development teams and program support teams. Niall also assisted the Program Manager and the development team members in planning each release and successfully implemented a digital solution for the client in a project worth over $100m.

As Agile Project Management Office Lead at Novartis, a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical, Niall ensured the alignment of Scrum Masters to the project specific hybrid agile/waterfall ways of working and led weekly touchpoints to ensure synchronisation across workstreams. Niall managed 4 workstreams and a project budget of $20m. He provided project planning, milestone management, scope management, resource forecasting and change management support across the program. Niall set-up dashboards and reporting processes using Jira queries to document project information, including a risk log, action log, decisions log, and issue register. He configured Jira and Confluence applications across all workstreams and developed user guides to ensure alignment across all team members and monitored and controlled user access levels and privileges for program applications for the project team. Niall also managed the overall MS Project Plan while ensuring that project milestones aligned to the agile workstream’s projections. He provided workshop support for the Release Train Engineer during Sprint Planning and PI Planning, compiled financial and KPI reports and ensured project costs and finances were managed accordingly. Niall prepared regular status reporting for the engagement of the leadership team and coordinated project closure workshops and ensured lessons learned were documented.

As Scrum Master for the Deployment Workstream at Novartis, Niall facilitated agile team meetings, including the Daily Stand-Up, Iteration Planning, Review and Retrospectives. Niall managed 3 workstreams and a project budget of $10m. He coordinated the development of User Stories and Definition of Done criteria while leading a Scrum Team, supported the Product Owner to manage the backlog and guide the team while facilitating a healthy team dynamic with respect to priorities and scope. Niall ensured the use of Scrum and Kanban to facilitate team events and to support program execution and was responsible for the team’s alignment to the project’s digital tools such as Jira, Confluence, Trello, and various Microsoft applications.

As Data Migration and Processes Workstream Lead at Novartis, Niall led assessment activities of a pilot site to ascertain the impact of the roll out of a digital tool on the current IT infrastructure, lab instruments, Standard Operating Procedures, and resources. He managed the workstream project budget of $6m and a team comprised of 4 onshore and 6 offshore analysts that reported to Niall. He developed the Deployment Plan and Pilot Protocol to detail how the target site would onboard the new cloud-based workflow management solution and quality control applications. He led the development of the Data Migration and Validation Plan through an iterative development process. Niall supported the management of the data migration from SAP QM to a new digital workflow solution and developed a visual tracking tool using Power BI to support the reporting of the progress. He supervised a team of 4 site personnel to execute the data migration plan against a critical timeline while managing expectations from numerous stakeholders.

As Process Improvement Consultant at Allied Irish Bank, the largest retail and commercial bank in Ireland, Niall carried out interviews with client resources and management to understand issues and impediments in the Complaints Department. He managed the ‘As-Is’ process mapping and analysis to define improvement opportunities and remediate known inefficiencies in the client processes using lean and agile methodologies. Niall led a team of workshop facilitators as part of a client Design Thinking initiative to ideate solutions and formulate strategies for implementing a new operating model. He also mapped the ‘To-Be’ end to end processes using lean and design for six sigma methodology and implemented the target operating model using agile practices. Niall supported the Change Management workstream to deliver communications and training to over 200 client resources.