Open to opportunities

Vik Bhandari

@vikbhandari

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Senior IT leader specializing in global data centre transformation, program delivery, and cost optimisation.

United Kingdom

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What I'm looking for

I seek senior roles leading large-scale datacentre and infrastructure transformation with strong governance, cross-functional teams, and opportunities to drive cost savings and cloud migrations.

I am a senior IT leader with 22 years of global experience delivering end-to-end data centre, infrastructure and IT transformation programmes. I have managed large cross-functional teams and vendor ecosystems, owned budgets up to £375M, and driven consistent cost savings and operational improvements across EMEA.

My background includes program and service delivery at hyperscalers and major financial institutions, leading colocation and hyperscale datacentre builds, cloud migrations, and large-scale consolidations. I focus on stakeholder engagement from C-level to vendors, strong governance (ITIL, PRINCE2, PMP), and pragmatic use of automation and AI to improve productivity and reduce costs.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

EMEA Program Manager

Current

Amazon Web Services

Jan 2021 - Present (4 years 9 months)

Manage EMEA colocation datacentre programs end-to-end, delivering capacity, contracts and service management while achieving ~£12M annual cost savings through negotiation and SLA optimisation.

Data Centre Management Program Management Contract Negotiation Service Management Capacity Planning AWS PMO Governance Cost Optimization

Programme Manager

Chivas Brothers

Jun 2019 - Dec 2020 (1 year 6 months)

Led a £190M IT transformation and new 8MW datacentre design, fit-out and migration to Azure, managing global service delivery, budgets and stakeholder engagement across five countries.

Program Management Budget Management Stakeholder Management PMO Vendor Management

Programme Manager

Hyperion Insurance Group

May 2018 - May 2019 (1 year)

Managed end-to-end datacentre transformation and relocation for 2,000 staff, consolidating four legacy datacentres into two colocation sites and delivering IT modernisation projects.

Program Management Change Management Citrix Stakeholder Engagement PMO Infrastructure

Senior IT Program Manager

Royal Bank of Canada

Sep 2017 - Apr 2018 (7 months)

Directed European datacentre exits and migrations into hyperscale colocation with £200M budget accountability, driving application migrations, service transition and agile workplace deliveries.

Data Centre Exit Program Rescue Agile Delivery PMO Stakeholder Management CAB Testing

Senior IT Manager

Deutsche Bank

Jun 2015 - Sep 2017 (2 years 3 months)

Program managed consolidation of 20 global datacentres into six target sites and supported transition of 650 applications to cloud, improving TCO and service management.

Data Centre Consolidation Cloud Migration Application Transformation Stakeholder Management PMO Budgeting ITIL

Senior IT Project Director

UBS Investment Bank

Jan 2015 - Jun 2015 (5 months)

Led a six-month program to collapse global datacentres into Tier‑4 sites, manage user relocations and deliver desktop and O365 upgrades for 4,700 users.

O365 Project Management Change Management Service Delivery

Head of EMEA Production Services

The Bank of New York Mellon

Jun 2010 - Dec 2014 (4 years 6 months)

Managed 220 staff across EMEA, collapsed seven datacentres into two active/active sites and delivered a $110M annual IT services savings program including $30M from virtualization.

Team Leadership Data Centre Strategy Virtualization Operations Infrastructure Management Vendor Management

IT Project & Service Manager

BNP Paribas

Jun 2006 - Jun 2010 (4 years)

Owned infrastructure projects and service delivery across EMEA, managing datacentre relocations, office moves and post-merger integrations with end-to-end accountability.

Infrastructure Service Delivery Datacentre Relocation Integration Stakeholder Management ITIL

IT Manager

Arcapita

Mar 2004 - Apr 2006 (2 years 1 month)

Led global IT infrastructure, datacentre and offshoring projects, and established a PMO and ITIL-aligned service management structure for operations in Dubai and Bahrain.

PMO Service Management Governance Infrastructure Offshore Management

IT Infrastructure Consultant

Lehman Brothers

Mar 2002 - Mar 2004 (2 years)

Managed consolidation of infrastructure including datacentres, network and Wintel servers using VMware, and presented progress to executive stakeholders.

VMWare Project Management Decommissioning

IT Project Manager

Deutsche Bank

Jul 1996 - Mar 2002 (5 years 8 months)

Delivered tactical and strategic infrastructure initiatives across Europe including datacentre relocations, trading floor networks and email rollouts for 2,700+ users.

Project Management Datacentre Relocation Network Email Migration Stakeholder Management