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Technology, Management and Business Consultants |
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We focus our efforts on assisting companies that depend on technology for their business success.
Principal Bio
David Grenier, B.Sc., PMP, I.S.P., ITCP
I have been actively involved with technology since 1972 when I moved from my family home in a small Ontario town to pursue computer courses in Toronto. I began working part-time at Dataline in 1975, then full-time while still attending high school. I put my university degree on hold so I could continue my "on the job" training at Dataline and Star Data Systems, both of which provided a much greater wealth of technology, and challenge. I returned to university and completed my B. Sc. in Computer Science part-time while continuing to work full-time and raising a family.
When not working I relax by motorcycling, reading and listening to a wide variety of music.
I created Celestine Technologies Inc. in 1994.
Core Competencies
Leadership
Problem Solving
Creative Solutions
Strategic Planning
People Management
Financial Management
Team Building
Coaching & Mentoring
Delegating
Conflict Resolution
Client Management
Vendor Management
Relationship Building
Communication
Time Management
Business Acumen
Negotiation
Influencing
Product Management
Project Management
Consulting
Integrity
Commitment
Matrix Management
Organizational Skills
SDLC / PMLC
Requirements Gathering
Business Analysis
Technology Architecture
Software Design
Software Development
Product Development
Web Design
Database Design
Integration
Network Infrastructure
Server Infrastructure
Data Centre Operations
Budgets
Startups
Experience Summary
Celestine Technologies Inc. (1994 to Present)
Private consulting practice:
- Delivered solutions in financial services, real estate, construction, technology, retail, healthcare, telecommunications, and web B2B and B2C.
- Provided strategic planning, project leadership, business and system analysis, and product and project management, involving communication with C-suite and all levels of organizations.
- Jointly and independently designed, developed and implemented web, desktop and server applications.
- Strong team building, mentoring and time management skills. Extensive experience with business, technology, software and database architecture and development, business analysis and project management.
Sample engagements:
- Chief Technology Officer for a startup offering prepaid Visa cards, responsible for product design and development, vendor and partner management, client technical relations, operations, help desk, PCI DSS compliance and participating in development and execution of the company strategy.
- Chief Technology Officer, lead designer and developer and an integral part of the business and marketing strategy for a web-based wellness services startup
- Provided technical and business analysis and direction, and project and general management for an international investment company.
- Provided business analysis and project management services for a large Canadian construction and mining company. I led the IT work stream for a major process reengineering effort in their Fort McMurray mining operations. This involved managing the project, gathering and documenting requirements from different business levels, coordinating many meetings and conference calls, contacting vendors and providing presentations to senior management. There were significant challenges due to staff turnover and resistance to change.
- Headed the technical architecture and development of a retail promotion management website project for a large Canadian marketing fulfillment firm.
- Designed, developed and deployed an internet-based real estate listing, contact management and lead generation service (SaaS).
- Worked closely with sales, marketing and support of Celestine's resellers to ensure our products and services satisfied the needs of their clients.
- Acted as the technical lead and key designer and developer for the transition of major components for an international financial service provider from a large-scale mainframe environment to a distributed Linux farm.
- Leader of a team responsible for the design of a next-generation financial service. Created and presented the final report with recommendations.
- Leader of the deployment team responsible for the successful technology conversion at a major Canadian bank.
- Acted as the technical lead, project manager and a key designer and developer for the successful transition of the systems of a major financial service provider from a large-scale mainframe environment to a distributed Linux complex capable of handling hundreds of thousands of transactions per second; provided project management for the development aspects of the project.
- Designed and developed an extensive order entry system for a financial services company, permitting automation of most order processing; the project received an award for outstanding contribution.
- Design and development of a quote/order system for a telecommunications equipment provider.
- Provision of technical expertise for a number of organizations, including audits of existing and planned systems.
- Design and development of an inventory control system, including electronic entry of orders, purchase order generation and integration with an existing accounting system.
- Development of telecommunications billing system incorporating integration with client's accounting system.
Starfire Group of Companies (1994 to 2000)
Starfire Success Systems provided motivational and sales training. Starfire Communications raised funds for non-profit groups through various methods, primarily telephone long distance rebilling. Starfire Technologies provided marketing solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, helping them promote their products and services using several forms of media, particularly StarPages.com.
- In conjunction with the President and other management team members, assisted with the day-to-day operations of the companies, including marketing, sales, training, administration, technology and general management, with special emphasis on technology, sales/marketing strategies and project management.
- Designed, developed, deployed and managed the projects for the technical infrastructure of a long distance rebilling system and the StarPages search engine website and internal administration system.
Star Data Systems Inc. (1985 to 1994)
David was a co-founder of Star Data, which created a real-time equity, options, futures and commodity service for Canadian stockbrokers, traders and wealth management professionals.
- Led the technical team that created this real-time stock market system. Within six years the team had built a complete system from scratch, achieved market success and bought Dataline Inc., a major competitor and former employer. Led the technical team during the successful Dataline acquisition. The company topped Profit Magazine’s Fastest Growing 100 in 1993.
- Worked closely with sales and marketing to develop RFP responses and marketing and sales strategies.
- Provided pre- and post-sales support to help win and retain clients.
- Worked with client executives, vendors, partners and technical teams to develop new products and identify business opportunities.
- Successfully introduced several new products.
- Managed relationships with data and application vendors, including contract negotiations.
- Provided project and incident management and successfully defused several volatile situations.
- Drove the sale and conversion of a daylight lending application that facilitated security transaction settlement, from a mainframe to a UNIX-based system, allowing us to retain a major banking client.
- Created technical reports for successful SR&ED tax credit claims, in conjunction with the CFO.
- Promoted from Senior System Analyst through increasingly responsible management levels, eventually to Senior Vice President, Business Development.
- Managed software development, data centre operations, network infrastructure and product teams. Developed and implemented SDLC processes. Managed teams to ensure 24x7 availability for critical systems. Fostered a collaborative environment so all team members felt part of the solution. Led employee orientation sessions.
Dataline Inc. (1975 to 1985)
- Senior Systems Programmer, 1981-1985:
- Responsible for maintaining customized mainframe operating systems (DECsystem-10 and IBM S/370).
- Responsible to maintain the reliability and stability of a real-time, online stock market system.
- Took the initiative to create COBOL and C interfaces for the stock market system, allowing more rapid application development.
- Accounting Programmer/Analyst, 1980-1981:
- Provided programming and operations support for the accounting department.
- Developed a transaction collection system and integrated it into the company’s proprietary billing system.
- Operations Supervisor and Trainer, 1977-1980:
- Responsible for managing staff and training, often involving late night and weekend work.
- Following a mentor’s advice to expand my career, started developing system utilities and applications.
Technical Skills
- Productivity:
Microsoft Word
Excel
PowerPoint
Outlook
Apple Pages
Numbers
Keynote
Open Office
- Drawing:
Microsoft Visio
Adobe Illustrator
Photoshop
OmniGraffle
- Project Management:
Microsoft Project
OmniPlan
- Collaborative Tools (e.g.):
SharePoint
Google Docs
DeskAway
Base Camp
Target Process
JIRA
- Web Content Management Systems (e.g.):
- Web Servers (e.g.):
- Source code control (e.g.):
- Design and Development Methodologies:
Agile
Iterative
Waterfall
JAD
System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Project Management Life Cycle (PMLC)
- Operating Systems:
Mac OS X
Windows
UNIX/Linux
- Languages/Standards:
C/C++
PHP
HTML/CSS
SQL
JavaScript
ASP.NET
Visual Basic
VBScript
XML
JSON
jQuery
Ajax
C#
Java
Angular
FoxPro
Assemblers
PCI DSS
Network protocols
- Databases:
SQL Server
MySQL
MS-Access
FoxPro
SharePoint
ETL
BI/DW
Developed proprietary B-Tree used in a large real-time financial services product
Database design and performance optimization
