Head of IT · Infrastructure · Operations

Dependable, measurable IT and operations that cost less to run.

Two decades leading IT, infrastructure, service management and operations in regulated industries: online gaming, the public sector and manufacturing. I lead from the front: designing and building alongside my teams, guiding them through delivery, then handing over systems and processes they own and run with confidence.

Based in MaltaMBABSc Computer EngineeringITIL 4CCNA
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The IT sideInfrastructure, service management, automation, identity governance, security, budgets The Operations sidePlanning, reliability, facilities, procurement, commercial

Impact at a glance

The kind of results I deliver, across both sides.

Hours → minutes
Faster incident detection ahead of a global sporting event.
Zero user impact
Active/active disaster recovery built across two data centres in different countries.
Acquisitions integrated
Acquired companies brought into group IT, with significant contract and licence savings.
Less downtime, more output
Predictive maintenance and planning that cut production downtime and raised efficiency.
Data-led decisions
Platforms that pull data from infrastructure, services and machines to set priorities.
Leader of leaders
Departments run through managers I coach, develop and get promoted.

The IT side

Infrastructure, service management and the platforms that hold them together.

Infrastructure & resilience

  • Architected active/active disaster recovery across two colocation data centres and delivered it hands-on, with automated site failover and no user impact, keeping the team involved through daily syncs and handing over in full.
  • Consolidated server infrastructure from several countries onto a new virtualisation platform, migrating workloads one by one without disruption.
  • Ran a multi-country corporate estate: virtualisation, directory services, DNS/DHCP, PKI, backup and patching.
  • Led the design and build of the IT for a large new public venue from the ground up: wired and wireless networks, CCTV, digital signage, points of sale and IP-based audio-visual systems.
  • Delivered high-density Wi-Fi for large international conferences, and led the build of a broadcast-style studio for company-wide town halls across international offices.
Online gamingPublic sector

Service management & observability

  • Improved incident detection from hours to minutes ahead of a global sporting event, with a single-timeline view across monitoring and alerting sources.
  • Put in estate-wide monitoring, reporting and trend analysis, including certificate monitoring and structured on-call alerting.
  • Modernised service-management workflows across request, change and release.
  • Introduced sprints, prioritisation and ticket discipline across engineering teams.
Online gaming

Automation & platforms

  • Designed and built, hands-on, an automation and governance platform that integrates identity, device, security, backup and network systems and is driven by the service desk's ticket workflow. The team was involved throughout and given access to each module once tested.
  • Developed automation with the IT team that powers, resets, monitors and updates a large fleet of public-facing interactive systems, with automatic recovery on fault.
  • Delivered a custom point-of-sale system with automatic stock deduction per item sold, and architected an organisation-wide ERP.
  • Release management through CI/CD, version control and structured releases.
Online gamingPublic sector

Identity governance & audit

  • Designed and built, hands-on, the identity governance (IGA) module of a full governance platform.
  • Group and application ownership, so every access right has an accountable owner.
  • Position-based access baselines: birthright access set automatically from role, department and company.
  • Periodic access reviews by owners, supporting ISO 27001.
  • A complete audit record of who had access to which groups and applications, and between which dates, ready for auditors.
  • Involved the team throughout and gave them access to each module once built and tested.
Online gaming

Security & compliance

  • Designed disaster recovery around ISO 27001 and DORA readiness.
  • Secure staff, guest and event wireless with certificate-based authentication.
  • Moved an entire organisation to secure remote working at the start of COVID.
Online gamingPublic sector

Budgets, suppliers & M&A

  • Integrated acquired companies into group IT, delivering significant savings across cloud, backup, virtualisation and software licensing, and consolidating finance systems onto one ERP.
  • Owned the full corporate IT budget across on-prem, cloud, software, end-user hardware and SaaS.
  • Introduced a budget gate into purchasing and full asset tracking for end-user hardware.
  • Owned supplier management and contract negotiation.
Online gaming

The Operations side

Planning, reliability and running the physical side of an organisation.

Planning & supply chain

  • Owned order-to-delivery: committed customer delivery dates and planned production end to end on a round-the-clock shift pattern.
  • Ran just-in-time ordering of raw and packaging materials, tied to quality and regulatory documentation.
  • Owned logistics: transport booking, load planning and allocation of shipments by destination.
  • Sequenced production to reuse tooling and cut changeover time, and replaced flat material allowances with data-driven setup quantities.
  • Kept contingency plans ready for breakdowns and staff absence.
Manufacturing

Maintenance & reliability

  • Significantly cut production downtime and raised efficiency through predictive maintenance built on part-wear trend data.
  • Introduced, with the engineering team, a machine-data system that captured stop reasons directly from the PLCs to expose bottlenecks.
  • Engineered practical fixes that shortened changeovers, including a purpose-built material-loading trolley.
  • Worked with tooling suppliers in several countries to bring new product formats onto the lines.
Manufacturing

Venue & facilities operations

  • Ran day-to-day operations of a large public visitor venue, including maintenance and facilities.
  • Introduced online ticketing and streamlined front-of-house.
  • Moved catering stock control to automatic deduction per sale, sharply reducing waste and supply needs.
Public sector

Procurement & tenders

  • Ran public tenders end to end under national procurement rules, with no appeals.
  • Led the IT and technical scope of a major construction and fit-out contract.
  • Managed contract variations and payment approvals after award.
Public sector

Revenue & commercial

  • Launched new revenue streams for a public venue: conferences, weddings and evening events.
  • Gave commercial teams reliable delivery commitments for every production order.
Public sectorManufacturing

Workforce, quality & governance

  • Led technician teams: rosters, maintenance assignments and collective-agreement matters with union representatives.
  • Worked to GMP, with audits, quality checks and cleaning procedures built into the schedule.
  • Applied Lean and 5S methods to everyday operations.
ManufacturingPublic sector

Decisions driven by data

On both sides, my teams and I build the data foundation first, then set priorities from what the data shows.

Infrastructure posture

  • Built reporting platforms hands-on that pull data from Active Directory, Entra ID, Intune, Jamf, Defender, Meraki, FortiGate and backup systems into a single view of the estate.
  • Involved the team at every stage and gave them access to each module as soon as it was built and tested.
  • Turned that view into a clear posture picture: patching, device health, backup success and security findings.
  • Used live and trend data to make decisions and set priorities on what to fix first.
Online gaming

Service intelligence

  • Guided the team in building a service-intelligence platform that combines monitoring, logging and alerting data with business events on one timeline.
  • Shows what is happening right now and what happened before, so teams can spot patterns and recurring issues.
  • Used live and historic data to set on-call priorities, measure detection time and focus improvement where it mattered most.
Online gaming

Production analytics

  • Used SQL to pull data straight from production machines: run hours, speeds, product formats and every stop with its reason.
  • Analysed where production time was being lost and changed processes to cut it.
  • Learned how long each critical part lasts under real conditions, then replaced parts during planned maintenance to avoid unplanned breakdowns, with spares always in stock.
Manufacturing

How I lead

Across both sides: a manager of managers who still gets his hands dirty.

Lead by example

I never ask anyone to do something I haven't already done myself. When the work gets hard, I'm in it with the team.

Grow people into leaders

I push people to learn and excel, and I've championed many promotions into team lead, tech lead and senior roles.

Honest, constructive feedback

I name the gap clearly, then show how to close it and how to stop it happening again, with a plan agreed together.

There for my people

When someone is going through a hard time personally, I make sure they have support. I'm a helping hand day to day and the fallback when things go wrong.

Hands-on and current

I lead through managers, but I still design, build and troubleshoot alongside my teams, so I stay fully in touch with the technology and with what they face.

Executive engagement

I present to C-level leadership, build the business case and win buy-in for major programmes, then deliver what I committed to.

I never ask anyone to do something I haven't already done myself.

Flagship work

Three projects that show how I work: the challenge, what I did, the result.

Infrastructure · Resilience

Active/active data centres across two countries

Challenge
Virtualisation licensing costs were rising, and the business needed proper disaster recovery to meet ISO 27001 and prepare for DORA.
What I did
Architected and delivered the programme hands-on, keeping the team involved through daily syncs: consolidated infrastructure from several countries, moved to a new virtualisation platform, built the network and connectivity in two colocation data centres, migrated workloads one by one and automated site failover.
Result
Delivered end to end with no user impact, then handed over in full to the team. In a live failover test, all workloads moved to the second site within minutes with no user complaints.
Service management · Observability

From hours to minutes before a global event

Challenge
I took on the service management team shortly before a major global sporting event, with peak activity overnight European time. Incidents needed to be spotted much faster.
What I did
Introduced a modern monitoring platform and guided the team in building a service-intelligence view that brought multiple monitoring and alerting sources onto one timeline alongside the event schedule. Promoted a team lead and a tech lead to own it.
Result
Detection time improved from hours to minutes, and the event ran successfully.
Automation · Identity & access

An automation and governance platform for corporate IT

Challenge
Many routine access and software requests were handled by hand, which was slow and prone to error.
What I did
Designed and built the platform hands-on, with one module per domain (identity, devices, backup, network, assets), integrated with the main corporate systems and driven by the service desk's ticket workflow. It includes birthright access, periodic access reviews and a full audit trail for ISO 27001.
Result
Dashboards and orchestration running in production, with the team involved at every stage and given access to each module once tested. In testing, routine access requests were fulfilled in minutes instead of hours.

Where I've worked

By sector. Employer names and references available on request.

Skills & technologies

Used in production across my career.

Infrastructure & cloud

Hyper-VVMwareAzureAWSColocationVeeamDR design

Network & security

Palo AltoFortiGateMerakiCisco / Arista / ArubaVPN802.1X / EAP-TLSDefender

Identity & devices

Active DirectoryEntra IDIntuneJamfSCCMPKIIdentity governance (IGA)Access reviewsRole-based access baselinesAccess ownership

Service management

ITIL 4ServiceNowJira Service ManagementCMDBSLA / OLAOn-call

Observability & data

Data-driven decision makingPosture reportingDatadogInstanaPrometheusOpenSearchGrafanaPRTGPower BISQL

Building software

Platform & integration designServerless & queuesREST APIsC# / ASP.NETCI/CD & releasesAI-assisted development

Operations

Just-in-time planningPredictive maintenanceRoot-cause analysisLogisticsLean / 5S methodsGMPPLCs

Leadership

Manager of managersCoaching & mentoringDeveloping future leadersPerformance feedbackExecutive presentationsStakeholder buy-inChange leadership

Commercial & governance

M&A IT integrationBudget ownershipPublic procurementSupplier negotiationERPISO 27001

Education

 

  • MBAUniversity of Derby · 2020
  • BSc Computer EngineeringUniversity of Hertfordshire · 2012
  • Diploma, Computer EngineeringMCAST · 2006

Certifications & more

 

  • ITIL 4Service management
  • CCNACisco networking
  • MCTSMicrosoft, C#
  • LanguagesMaltese (native), English (fluent)

Let's talk

Always happy to connect and exchange ideas on IT, infrastructure and operations.

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Doyle Abela