Colin Bowern

Current

Senior Consultant at ObjectSharp

Past

Enterprise Architect at Meridian Credit Union
Vice President, Technology at officialCOMMUNITY
Senior Consultant at Microsoft

Principal Consultant at NetSolutions Canada / Idein Systems
Programmer/Analyst at Dufferin Game Room Store
Programmer/Analyst at Dolfin Developments

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Education

University of Liverpool
University of Waterloo
Wilfrid Laurier University

Recommended

10 people have recommended Colin

Connections

293 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Websites

Colin Bowern’s Summary

Colin Bowern is a solutions architect and coach focused on the advancement of organizational goals through pragmatic technology. His work spans music, financial, public sector, and technology industries including start-up and multi-national organizations like Microsoft, Bank of Montreal, and officialCOMMUNITY. Colin engages teams and executive management to boost productivity and drive innovation through user-centric design and craftsmanship in software engineering. Recognized by the community for interactive contributions in public speaking, community building, and writing, Colin has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for ASP.NET for several years. His work appears across books, forums, and web casts. You can find out more about Colin on the web at ColinBowern.com.

Colin Bowern’s Specialties:

Inspire Teams to Deliver Simple and Effective Solutions, .NET Development, Web Development, High Availability Infrastructure

Colin Bowern’s Experience

Senior Consultant

ObjectSharp

(Privately Held; Computer Software industry)

April 2009 — Present (1 year )

* Consulting into medium to large sized organizations on IT strategic planning and development projects

* Coaching executives and development teams on software design, development, and deployment practices

* Championing intuitive user experience design and pragmatic architectural approaches to maximize business value while minimizing complexity and easing maintainability

* Delivering technical infrastructure and development presentations at local conferences on Microsoft technologies – DevTeach Toronto, TechDays Toronto, Toronto Code Camp

* Delivering technical development training at Seneca College including re-development of courseware
Enterprise Architect

Meridian Credit Union

(Privately Held; Banking industry)

September 2008 — March 2009 (7 months)

* Worked with stakeholders to identify gaps in IT capabilities focusing on financial and core banking systems

* Participated in technical review of project design and deployment plans

* Championed sustainable innovation and user empowerment, balanced with the need to protect and simplify the business, information, and technology landscapes

* Worked with IT team to refine the language and approach when interacting with the business to better connect with their needs and challenges

* Provided guidance through one-on-one, team lunch-and-learn, and regular communications to infrastructure and development teams on technical skills and best practices for development and infrastructure lifecycle
Vice President, Technology

officialCOMMUNITY

(Privately Held; Music industry)

September 2003 — August 2008 (5 years )

* Designed, developed, and deployed the technology infrastructure based on the Microsoft platform to support the online communities and commerce for established record artists ranging in the millions of page views weekly and $3M+ annually in revenue

* Growth and management of a technology team from inception to nine individuals to build and support the infrastructure necessary to manage the day-to-day business by providing leadership, mentoring, and peer review processes to enable effective scaling of the team

* Managed service providers and supply chain to optimize technology and business process integration resulting in the foundation for hiring additional personnel to scale the business

* Delivered technical infrastructure and development presentations to local and international user groups and conferences on Microsoft technologies – DevTeach Toronto, Toronto Code Camp, Great Indian Developer Summit
Senior Consultant

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

May 2000 — September 2003 (3 years 5 months)

* Consulted into large enterprises (40,000+ users with 1,000+ sites) across several industries (financial, utility, logistics) on infrastructure and software development projects

* Delivered technical infrastructure and development presentations to local, cross-country and international user groups and conferences of up to fifteen hundred senior technical staff and business decision makers

* Developed award-winning tools and workshops for re-use by consulting force worldwide, provided feedback for product planning, and contributed to Microsoft Certified Professional exam development
Principal Consultant

NetSolutions Canada / Idein Systems

(Information Technology and Services industry)

January 1995 — May 2000 (5 years 5 months)

Consulted into small to medium sized businesses across several industries (retail, legal, financial, manufacturing) on infrastructure and software development projects
Programmer/Analyst

Dufferin Game Room Store

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Retail industry)

January 1994 — December 1995 (2 years )

Administered corporate and retail outlet networks including development of automated management process.
Programmer/Analyst

Dolfin Developments

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

June 1993 — August 1993 (3 months)

Developed data conversion software for inventory management equipment