Nobody should have to answer for software they can't understand.
The work is valuable. It's just rarely explained well. So I make software make sense. Technology leadership for regulated organisations.
Your status report says one thing, your people say another, and your regulator won't wait.
Enterprise and technical architecture contracts. I take on the architecture and get it moving again, in phases your risk and compliance teams can follow. I've worked within DORA and Ireland's Consumer Protection Code, and prepared insurers for the EU AI Act.
- From redIn production
I took claims extraction from a red steering status to production: 97% field accuracy, in 15 seconds a claim.
Laya moved the project to green, and no claim was lost at any point.
It's one of three production AI products I've shipped for insurers.
Laya Healthcarevia Brightbeam
- From amberDelivered
I took over NESO's grid-balancing innovation project at amber. It went green and delivered ML model prototypes over 90% accurate in some cases, on time and within budget.
NESOvia Mesh-AI
114,000COVID treatments
On a multi-award-winning NHS programme, I co-architected the national platform behind 114,000 COVID treatments in 19 months, with no downtime despite surges in positive tests.
NHSvia BJSS
- Its lead clinician called the process “a new way of identifying patients nationally”.
- It notified 1.3 million people at over 99.9% accuracy, and added 17,000 people to the PANORAMIC trial, which started with 6,000.
- The Management Consultancies Association highly commended it, and the programme gave me its Mission Impossible award at the NHS's 75th anniversary party.
- I also co-created the programme behind NHS Notify's first 100 million messages, and that programme called me a “visionary” member.
Your business runs on software, and nobody at the top can check what you're being told.
Fractional CTO. You get a CTO's judgement for part of the week, and each decision explained so everyone can follow it.
- From a 30-year-old productRezcontrol
Avondata hired me to replace a 30-year-old on-premises product. My team built Rezcontrol, a global hotel platform: a hotel joins in under five minutes, and 50 legacy sites moved onto it in three months.
Faults that took hours to fix took minutes, and its penetration test beat the industry average.
- From daily outagesEnded within days
Its ageing API was down for over two hours a day, taking charging revenue with it. I ran urgent workshops with its engineers to find the root causes, and wrote the plan to fix them, which became the blueprint for its replacement system.
A national EV charging providervia Contino
Your board has to approve technology decisions that none of its directors can question.
Non-executive director. I explain technology risk to colleagues who don't build software, so the board can challenge it and decide.
- Three multi-stream AI roadmaps
I co-created the board papers and multi-stream, multi-wave roadmaps for three insurance clients, including a Call Intelligence wave.
Insurance clientsvia Brightbeam
- Real-time call outcome
- Call summarisation
- Call categorisation
- Vulnerability analysis
- National NFC room keys
During a leadership transition, its CTO and senior leaders asked me for technical direction. I co-wrote the feasibility study, and the C-suite approved NFC room keys for prototyping across the hotels.
Whitbreadvia Contino
I've also worked with FactSet, Vitality and Spicerhaart.
I say all this out loud, too.
What you might be thinking…
- Another consultant, another deck.
- We agree the outcomes before we start, and measure them at the end.
- You'll tell me what I want to hear.
- I'll tell you early when a date is at risk.
- It's just one person.
- Yes. You'll always know who to blame.
Would it be a bad idea to tell me what's stuck?
I'll reply myself. There's no sales team to get past.
info@id.darrenhickling.com