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William Richards

Mr. Richards has more than 25 years of experience in managing the planning, designing and implementation of global, state‑of‑the‑art, wide‑area networks supporting voice, data and video communications. Prior to becoming a CTO Group Prinicpal, Mr. Richards was Vice President and Practice Director for telecommunications and networking at Gartner, Inc.

While at Gartner, Mr. Richards completed the following:

• For a major U.S. pharmaceutical company — conducted a study to select a site in Europe for the consolidation of 16 European data processing centers. The study included economic, technical, workforce skill set availability, and EU Labor Law‑related factors in making the selection. The study recommended primary, secondary and tertiary alternatives for consolidation.
• For a major international development bank — conducted a review of the current network architecture, and developed new architecture required to support emerging Web‑enabled applications and intra‑bank international voice and data communications requirements.
• For a major international pharmaceutical company — was engaged to lead the effort to develop a strategic plan for a new global network infrastructure to support manufacturing, sales and distribution in the United States, EMEA and the Pacific Rim.
• For a major Wall Street financial institution — evaluated existing voice network services supporting the firm’s NYC operations. Developed a recommended architecture to deliver intelligent, fault‑tolerant voice network services for 23,000 users in lower Manhattan.
• For a major domestic U.S. bank — conducted a decision support analysis and impact analysis on the selection of next‑generation IVR technologies to support the bank’s credit card call center operations.

Mr. Richards’ previous experience includes:

• General Motors Europe (GME - responsible for the development and implementation of a pan‑European VPN for all GME voice services. In addition, he planned and designed a global backbone network infrastructure for General Motors spanning Latin America, Europe and the Pacific Rim.
• For Marriott International — designed and implemented a 1,230 node Frame Relay network to replace existing Private X.25 Packet Switched Network infrastructure. The new infrastructure supported both SNA and TCP/IP over a single network.
• For Lehman Brothers — designed, engineered, installed and migrated company global data communication network and services to support separation from previous parent network. This infrastructure was required to support business operations for the new standalone company.
• For Mobil Oil Corporation — planned, engineered and implemented all corporate voice and data communications services. This was a global network encompassing a very large virtual telecommunications network services (VTNS) voice network, an SNA‑based data utility network, and a routed Internetwork providing TCP/IP, DECNET and IPX connectivity.
• As a consultant for British Airways — conducted a study of its North American Reservations Call Centers. This study resulted in the consolidation of the centers, the elimination of redundant facilities and a significant improvement in agent call‑handling procedures.
• As a consultant for United Parcel Service — worked on the automation of its first Package Tracking System, and the expansion of this system into Europe and the Pacific Rim.

Mr. Richards received a diploma in telecommunications from the City and Guilds of London Institute. He also graduated from the British Army School of Signals with concentration in communication systems engineering, cryptography, and RF communications design and engineering.