Neil Rawson

Accomplished Programme & Portfolio Director with 20+ years leading large-scale infrastructure, cloud-first, and application modernisation programmes across global consultancies and systems integrators. Trusted advisor to executive and board-level stakeholders, spanning public/private cloud strategy, legacy re-platforming, and data centre transitions. Skilled in RFP leadership and strategic bid development, with commercial acumen across multi-million-pound budgets and multi-disciplinary global teams of 100+ across financial services, insurance, and energy.

Programme Director, Financial Services, London Stock Exchange at Consulting Professionals Ltd (Contract) (2025-10 – Present)

• Directed a £9.6m re-platforming programme to upgrade LSEG's legacy market data distribution service, delivering a seamless transition for 60+ clients across Asia Pacific with zero service disruption.
• Modernised infrastructure using HPE Synergy software-defined networking, reducing deployment time by 60% and enhancing operational efficiency.
• Owned end-to-end programme governance, financial control, and risk management across a team of 60, driving stakeholder collaboration across global operations and customer-facing teams.
• Drove platform standardisation initiatives to increase operational resilience, embedding delivery lessons learned from previous large-scale programmes.

Cloud Transformation Director at DXC Technology (2024-09 – 2025-10)

• Directed DXC's transformation portfolio for Zurich Insurance's cloud-first strategy, leading large-scale modernisation and re-platforming of ~240 business applications to AWS public cloud across 5 geographical business units (including Zurich UK, Ireland, and Germany), targeting delivery within a 24-month migration programme.
• Owned all cloud-related opportunities across the account, aligning transformation initiatives with delivery objectives and operational requirements across each business unit.
• Held full accountability for delivery and ongoing operations of cloud transformation programmes, reducing total cost of ownership by up to 30% across the modernised application estate.
• Drove strategic cloud adoption across the organisation, advancing public cloud capability and embedding lasting modernisation outcomes across all 5 business units.

Cloud Transformation Programme Manager at DXC Technology (2022-03 – 2024-11)

• Secured personal recognition for delivery impact during the first year of Deutsche Bank's Google Cloud programme, resulting in DXC being awarded the re-host and re-platform workstreams for the bank's wider cloud migration programme.
• Led discovery, design, and delivery of re-platforming and re-hosting for 47 application workloads, migrating to Google Compute Engine (GCE) and OpenShift container platforms.
• Directed technical assessment and target-state design across the workload estate, determining the appropriate migration path (re-host vs. re-platform) for each application.
• Built on the repeatable migration patterns established during the pioneer workstream, scaling delivery approach to a significantly larger workload volume.

Programme Manager (Staff Augmentation) at Google Professional Services (2021-01 – 2022-03)

• Client-facing lead for Google, leading a workstream within Deutsche Bank's Fixed Income and Commodities (FIC) transformation to Google Cloud Platform, under a strategic multi-year Google Cloud partnership.
• Delivered technical programme management for the re-platforming and modernisation of 25 'pioneer' applications to cloud-native technologies on Google Cloud, acting as primary interface between Google and Deutsche Bank stakeholders.
• Established repeatable migration processes and patterns from these pioneer applications, laying the foundation for subsequent, larger-scale migration waves.

Program Manager at DXC Technology (2019-04 – 2020-12)

• Led and delivered a global VMWare vSphere Hypervisor upgrade programme for a European investment banking client, ensuring successful execution of a complex, large-scale infrastructure initiative.
• Recovered the programme from a 'deep red' commercially deadlocked position to a successful outcome, with the turnaround recognised by board level stakeholders.
• Enabled DXC Technology to meet its contractual technology refresh obligations while restoring client confidence in the organisation's ability to deliver complex programmes to aggressive schedules.
• Delivered the successful migration of 28000+ virtual server workloads to new Hypervisors, representing about 60% of the bank's IT infrastructure, with no disruption to business operations despite a challenging external environment.

Project/Program Manager at Deutsche Bank (2009-08 – 2019-04)

• Delivered a broad portfolio of infrastructure programmes for Deutsche Bank over a 9-year engagement, progressing from delivery-focused roles into global process governance of infrastructure provisioning and programme oversight.
• Supported Deutsche Bank's outsourcing of IT operations to HPE (now DXC Technology), ensuring continuity and governance across the transition.
• Led cross-functional, multi-disciplinary teams to deliver complex infrastructure projects on time and within budget.

Project Manager / Transition Enablement at BP (2008-05 – 2009-08)

• Managed BP's internal stakeholder and systems dependencies to enable the transition of BP's European Mega Data Centre operations to Hewlett Packard under a 5-year, $250m contract, supporting objectives to reduce costs, improve service capability, and lower operational risk.
• Coordinated with HP Transition Project and Programme Managers to ensure smooth service take-on, extending delivery capability to offshore centres in Brazil, India, Malaysia, and the US.
• Provided governance assurance to BP management and stakeholders, confirming programme delivery against company policy and procedure throughout the transition.
• Aligned transition activities with ITIL, SOX, CVP, and other internal control frameworks, supporting compliance and risk management across the programme.

Operations Consultant / Project Manager at BP (2004-12 – 2008-05)

Provided services within BP's newly formed project management team in the Global Operations & Infrastructure (GOI) division.

• Delivered large-scale infrastructure projects supporting BP's oil and gas trading business, working alongside trading applications development teams to take highly available, business-critical applications into operational support.
• Owned full project lifecycle delivery — from initial engagement, planning, and solution design through procurement, release management, go-live, and early life support — before transitioning applications to full operational support.
• Role was later rebranded 'Operations Consultant' in recognition of its expanded remit spanning both applications and infrastructure delivery.

Graduate Trainee at CSC (2000-03 – 2004-12)

Structured graduate programme in IT infrastructure and project delivery within CSC's Consulting & Systems Integration division.

Bachelor of Science in Information Systems / Business Management – Oxford Brookes University

A-Level – John Hampden Grammar School