From trunk lines to tenant isolation

Mandate

Keep each client's data and calls separate across shared centres, replace an ageing telephony estate and set the conditions for automated assistance.

Outcomes

• Separated all 36 programmes then running into isolated environments by June 2023
• Migrated 4,300 seats and 41 programmes to a cloud platform between May 2024 and July 2025
• Reduced annual telephony cost by C$3.1 million from 2026
• Introduced agent-assist for eleven programmes under client instruction and Canadian processing

Decisions in context

I took the role when the company had five centres and a telephony platform approaching the end of its support. My five directors lead telephony and platform engineering, workforce and client systems, infrastructure and end-user computing, information security, and client onboarding. I report to the chief executive and present to our audit and risk committee every quarter on security, certifications, availability and significant incidents. The decisions described on this site were taken within budgets the board approved, and each was disputed by a colleague with a sound reason, usually occupancy, cost or sales momentum. I value that disagreement; it makes the eventual decision easier to explain to clients. I attend board meetings only when invited to present and do not hold a directorship. My present focus is retention of recordings and transcripts, which several clients now ask about before signing.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking a first non-executive role alongside it with our board's consent.

Mandate

Give a newly listed company infrastructure, security and evidence that clients' auditors and our own committee could rely on.

Outcomes

• Obtained the company's first SOC 2 Type II report in 2017
• Reduced card-payment scope by moving telephone payments to masked keypad entry
• Equipped the Sherbrooke centre on a standard build when it opened in 2016

Decisions in context

The listing changed what clients and directors asked of technology. Clients' auditors wanted independent evidence, and our new audit and risk committee wanted incidents explained in terms it could weigh. I brought infrastructure, desktops, telephony and security under one operating rhythm and began reporting to the committee each quarter. Preparing for the first SOC 2 Type II period took eighteen months, mostly because controls that people performed conscientiously left no record. We also reduced the number of systems handling card numbers by asking callers to enter payment details on their keypads, with tones masked from agents and recordings. The Sherbrooke opening tested whether our standard centre build could be repeated without improvisation; it largely could, apart from a carrier delay that pushed the go-live date back by three weeks. That delay is why carrier testing now opens every centre plan.

Reason for the move

Became chief information officer after the previous holder of the role retired in early 2019.

Mandate

Replace three inherited telephony systems with one platform and give every client consistent reporting.

Outcomes

• Consolidated three telephony systems onto one platform across all centres
• Equipped the Winnipeg centre for its 2012 opening
• Standardised workforce management for every client programme
• Drafted the IT control descriptions required for the 2014 listing

Decisions in context

Moving from an insurer to an outsourcer meant learning that no system belonged to one customer relationship. Each of the three centres had grown its own telephony, and reporting to clients was assembled by hand from different sources. I proposed one platform and one workforce system, which reduced reporting effort but required every client to accept a cutover date. Two clients resisted until we showed them reconciled reports from the pilot centre. Equipping Winnipeg in 2012 was my first experience of opening a centre in a province where we had no existing carrier relationships. In 2013 the founders began preparing for the listing, and I wrote the descriptions of our IT controls with the finance team and outside advisers. That exercise exposed how many controls depended on two or three individuals remembering to act.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead IT operations and security after the listing.

Mandate

Keep the claims and service lines available and give planners reliable forecasts during weather surges.

Outcomes

• Introduced the centre's first workforce management system in 2006
• Built a storm-surge routing and staffing plan used in four major weather events
• Completed the insurer's first card-payment compliance assessment for its telephone channel

Decisions in context

I arrived as the engineer responsible for the claims centre's telephony and became manager of all its contact-centre systems in 2007. A mutual insurer's policyholders are also its owners, and the claims line after a storm is where that relationship is tested. I introduced workforce management and learnt that a forecast is only useful if agents trust the schedule built from it. During one winter storm, call volumes doubled overnight; the surge plan we had rehearsed moved staff and routing within an hour, but it depended on supervisors honouring breaks afterwards. The card-payment assessment taught me how far recordings and screens spread sensitive data. I left because I wanted to apply those lessons where several clients' obligations had to be met at once, which an outsourcer could offer and an insurer could not.

Reason for the move

Joined Tidelorne to lead contact-centre technology across several clients and centres.

Mandate

Install, configure and repair telephone systems and their carrier connections for business customers.

Outcomes

• Completed more than 120 installations and upgrades for Maritime businesses
• Rebuilt the routing of a 300-seat collections centre after repeated misdirected calls
• Wrote the field team's checklist for testing carrier connections at go-live

Decisions in context

Field engineering taught me how a business telephone system behaves under real conditions rather than in a demonstration. I installed systems for dental practices, car dealers and a hospital foundation, and later took on larger sites. The most instructive was a 300-seat collections centre whose calls were regularly misdirected. The fault lay in routing tables edited by several people over years without a record; rebuilding them took three weekends and a great deal of patience from the client's floor managers. I wrote a checklist for testing carrier connections at go-live, because most callbacks we received traced to a step that had been assumed rather than tried. I enjoyed the work but saw only the start of each customer's experience. I wanted to stay with a contact centre long enough to understand how its systems shaped the work of agents.

Reason for the move

Moved to an insurer's contact centre to work on its systems from the inside.

Mandate

Resolve client support requests by telephone and on site, and keep accurate ticket records.

Outcomes

• Handled about 25 support requests a day across law offices, a hospital's administration and small manufacturers
• Prepared the desk's first set of written restoration procedures for common faults
• Supported two client offices through their move to networked file servers

Decisions in context

My first job taught me that support is mostly about the person waiting. Callers wanted to know whether their work was safe and when they could continue, and an honest estimate mattered more to them than a technical explanation. I learnt to say what I did not yet know. Our supervisor insisted that every ticket record the actual fix, not only the symptom, and I later realised that habit was my first lesson in evidence. I wrote short restoration procedures for recurring faults so that a colleague on the evening shift could repeat a fix without calling me. Two clients moved to networked file servers during my time, and their questions about who could see which folders were my introduction to access control. I moved to telephony because telephone faults interested me most and few colleagues wanted them.

Reason for the move

Joined a business-telephony company to specialise in voice systems.