Areas Of Expertise

• Banking & Finance Project Management
• Systems Implementation
• Cyber Security Systems Implementation

Education

• Bachelor of Arts – Business studies, University of South Pacific
• Project Management Institute (PMI) Certification

About Katherine Whiteside

Katherine is a skilled Program Manager, joining Seven Consulting’s Sydney Practice in May 2016. She has over 17 years’ experience in project management, with expertise in banking system project implementation including planning, executing, controlling and closing projects, delivering business value and managing expectations of stakeholders.

What Katherine brings

• Strong leadership and stakeholder management skills, used to align stakeholders, team members, vendors and customers to the same objectives.
• Comprehensive and clear communication ensuring common understanding of status and issues.
• Ability to resolve concerns, conflict and deal with issues, by offering solutions that ensure competing priorities and objectives are effectively resolved.
• Highly capable of creating and managing project budgets and expenditure and managing schedules.
• Strong delivery focus and drive.

Key Clients

• AMP
• Woolworths
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)
• B&N Bank, Russia
• National Bank of Fiji

Key Achievements

As Program Manager at AMP, Katherine was responsible for the CloudX program where she managed the migration of applications off the AMPA group of applications on to AWS Public Cloud Platform. This included delivery of detailed analysis documentation, defining target state, establishing migration patterns to allow for successfully migration of applications and groups services. Katherine managed implementation activities including Infrastructure provisioning, application configuration, integration to internal and external system including Testing phases of SIT, Functional and Performance Testing, Coordination and Management of cutover activities and ensuring that Hypercare support is in place for each migration. Katherine ensured effective engagement with APRA and other key internal stakeholders leading to ‘no objection’ in moving Heightened and Extreme risk workloads. She successfully completed the Detailed Discovery of the AMP Legacy Platform to establish Scope, Cost and Implementation plans to Migrate and test all applications to AWS cloud platform and to effectively decommission the legacy platform. This included detailed analysis documentation, Migration approach, Implementation wave plans, Timelines and Cost estimations.

As Project Manager at Woolworths, Katherine managed the STEP Program – ITSM Project. She successfully delivered the implementation of the Service NOW – Change and Release Management modules. This included integration to CA Harvest used for Software Change Management, introduction of new policy, procedures as well as organisation change management including training. Katherine also managed the migration from the existing tool (SRS) to Service WOW for the Change and Release Modules. The project also decommissioned the SRS system.

As Project Manager at Woolworths, Katherine was responsible for the Cyber Security Program. She successfully implemented the Woolworths Enterprise Single Sign On (ESSO) Solution (Microsoft Azure AD). This included user data alignment across the Woolworths environments and applications to utilise the ESSO Solution. The project also established business and support framework to enable ESSO service to be consumed by the company. Katherine also successfully implemented the Privilege access Management Solution (CyberArk). She improved controls and assurance around privileged account management and access. The project also established Business and support Framework to enable the PAM Service to be consumed by the company.

As Project Manager at Woolworths, Katherine successfully completed the implementation of the Uplift of the Vulnerability Management solution (i.e., Security Centre product from the Tenable Network Security) expanding the monitoring capabilities across the Woolworths environment. This included Integration to Woolworths monitoring systems and the Woolworths Management and Compliance systems. The project also established monitoring and remediation process and procedures.

As Project Manager at CBA, Katherine successfully delivered the end-to-end financial solution of CBA projects. This included responsibility for scope, confirmation, development, testing, and deployment. She was responsible for management reporting, project financials including budget control and estimations, vendor management and change management. She delivered completed the project implementation review and lessons learnt with the team, and obtained complete project sign off from final stakeholders.

As Project Manager at CBA, Katherine focused on the payments domain, including processing of local and international payments, processing of card transactions, integration of payments systems with front end channels and downstream data warehouse and other reporting and monitoring systems. Also responsible for intersystem automated financial and technical reconciliations, managing general ledger mapping requirements and integration into the corporate general ledger systems. For CBA, Katherine successfully delivered several projects within the payments stream. These included deposits systems legacy to SAP transition, vostro account migration, legacy system shutdown and home Loans legacy to SAP transition.

As Project Manager at B&N Bank, Katherine advised on and successfully led a multi-million systems implementation for the bank which was successfully rolled out across 3 regional branches. The project was delivered within scope, quality, and budget within the constraints of a complex regulatory environment in Russia and required resolution of complex logistical issues. Katherine managed an offsite project team consisting of 30+ employees across 4 locations including liaising with offshore development centres. successfully delivered a critical system upgrade implementation using a phased rollout. She successfully managed several system study projects across a range of local and foreign banks and production of business proposal documents.

As Business Project Lead and Manager Operations at National Bank of Fiji, Katherine had deep involvement in the implementation of Core Banking System Replacement. She successfully led a team of business and technical staff through defining and developing requirements for banking applications including migration from legacy systems. Managed the IT Operations department being responsible for the daily batch operation, Bank reporting and Banking IT system maintenance and upkeep. Katherine led E2E testing and UAT testing for the Bank’s Core Banking System Replacement, working with technical teams to facilitate performance testing. As part of her role, she successfully restructured Bank IT Operations department, automating several of the batch processing requirements. In addition, Katherine successfully set up and managed IT help desk of 6 staff, supporting 12 branches of 250 staff.