Robin Gordon

120 Foxknowe Place 01506 416 994 (Home) 07980 291034 (Mobile)

Eliburn E-mail Address: rj.gordon@sky.com

Livingston

EH54 6TZ Age: 45 Marital status: Married

Profile Summary

Experienced and resourceful Senior Mainframe Analyst/ Developer with proven background in the financial sector.

Current Employer

November 2009 – present Scottish Widows plc, Technical Analyst / Lead

Edinburgh Developer (Contract Basis)

Machine/tools/packages/applications/languages

COBOL, JSP, TELON, JCL, IMS, DB2, ASF, XPEDITER, FILEAID, TSO, OUTLOOK, MERCURY TEST DIRECTOR, QUALITY CENTER

I returned to Scottish Widows in the role of a Technical Analyst / Lead Developer joining a project dealing with the
legislative changes in State Pension Age, Upper Accrual Point and Government/DWP Rebate changes and the
introduction of the abolition of ‘contracting out’ of State Pension.

My role deals with the necessary changes required in the Swiftel On-line Quotations and New Business systems along
with the interfaces to the associated systems, e.g. the Policy Administration, Web, portals etc., plus the required wording
changes in the various output formats. This primarily has meant carrying out a thorough Impact Analysis assessment of
the changes involved, the creation of a detailed Technical Specification Design document, and the delegation of work
(based on the aforementioned document) to the small team of mainframe developers resourced to the project. Additional
tasks included in my current role are: attending project team meetings; reporting progress to the project manager and at
the team meetings; consulting with the business areas; reviewing other technical specification design documents, the Unit
Test Plans and Master Test Plan; and assisting the Test Lead and Test Analysts in the preparation and running of System
Testing.

Previous Employers

October 2009 - November 2009 Asda Superstore, Livingston Home Shopping Loader/Picker

In order to continue bringing in some income, - whilst actively continuing to pursue the next IT position, I took on a
temporary/seasonal job at the local superstore.

Role involved : consolidation of numerous parts to the customers orders previously picked by the team of pickers - this
involved substantial numbers of grocery, chiller and freezer products; occasionally picking orders myself on the shopfloor;
loading of vans for the 3 sets of delivery times and assisting the drivers with the delivery of the customers orders.

Whilst on the shopfloor I was always customer focused, attentive to any queries from the customers, smiling and happy in
nature and always never too busy to attend to the customers’ needs.

January 2007 – September 2009 Scottish Widows plc, Edinburgh Mainframe Analyst/Developer
 (Contract Basis)

Machine/tools/packages/applications/languages

COBOL, JSP, TELON, JCL, IMS, DB2, ASF, XPEDITER, FILEAID, TSO, OUTLOOK, MERCURY TEST DIRECTOR, QUALITY CENTER

Returned to Scottish Widows initially for a 3 month contract in similar role as previous contract employment.

The last project task I carried out was in the creation of a Technical Specification Document detailing all the required
Quotation system changes – screens/validation/additional calculations/web and portals interfaces, for the introduction of a
new ‘Advisor Payment Charge’ on commission relating to 2 group policy product types.

Previous project was made up of 2 separate areas covering a new fund launch and an ‘assets transfer between platforms
where I successfully carried out the dual role of ‘temporary’ Business Analyst and Senior/Lead Developer.

New fund launch.

The initial role involved the investigation and handling of the main impact and changes for the mainframe and off-
mainframe systems. This task entailed me :- liaising with a number of the respective business areas; attending meetings;
reviewing business and project documents ; drafting ‘Requirements Catalogue’ and ‘Technical System Design’ documents
for subsequent review and signoff; and close collaboration with the Project Manager, Business Architect and Test
Manager. Once the signoffs were achieved I then reverted back to my normal role of Senior Developer and successfully
completed the Build/Unit Testing stage of the actual fund changes within the IMS Rules database and the development
on-line screens. System and User Acceptance testing were then supported where I – along with another developer,
provided daily support when problems occurred. This fund launch was successfully implemented with no ‘Early Life
Support’ issues at all.

‘Assets transfer between platforms’.

This project reached the initial discussion /feasibility stages where a number of possible solutions were being assessed
for the transfer of a dozen large policy schemes with a very high fund value between an interim database and a Third
Party platform. In my role as Business Analyst I facilitated and took part in each of the meetings held so far between
members of IT and the business areas of Marketing and Finance.

Previous project involvement:

‘Fund Review and Maintenance’.

The project itself was initially for the launch of 26 new investment funds and latterly for the closure of another 30 funds.
For the successful fund 'launch' this had entailed me detailed updating and reloading of a large number of rules on an IMS
database - in close collaboration with the Business Analyst within the project team, and Unit-Testing of development on-
line screens. This phase – along with the later ‘fund closure’ phase(again involving IMS rule updates), had involved me
also providing dedicated support (resolving technical and data issues) to the testers carrying out System Testing. My
previous experience with running Policy Administration batch jobs, and supporting online Swiftel Quotes and Web-
Mainframe testing (and environment setup) has proved very useful in the initial phases of the project. Test Director was
used extensively for the logging and resolving of defects during System Testing.

‘Critical Illness Reviewable Rates’

For Term Assurance contracts with Critical Illness cover, premiums were to be reviewed at 5 year intervals and subject to
new Actuarial rates/calculations. I successfully carried out the Build/Unit Testing stage for the necessary calculation
changes to the Policy Administration and Payment Management System modules and along with my fellow developers
completed the supporting of the Integration/System testing phase. This project was made up of 2 phases - initially to
cover a sole reassurance company with the latter phase incorporating a further 2 such companies.

December 2006 Marks & Spencers, Livingston Customer Assistant

Duties involved serving customers at the Point Of Sale tills, carrying out waste and date rotation checks, and stock
replenishment in the various sections of food, grocery and wine within the store.

August 2004 – September 2006 Scottish Widows plc, Edinburgh Mainframe Analyst/Developer

(Contract Basis)

Machine/tools/packages/applications/languages COBOL, JSP,

TELON, JCL, IMS, DB2, ASF/DCF, XPEDITER, FILEAID, TSO, OUTLOOK, MERCURY TEST DIRECTOR

This had been my 1st period of contractual work but did not involve an interview being conducted as both the IT HR and IT
Service Delivery Senior managers knew me from my previous period as a permanent employee of the company.

I had been involved in numerous projects during my time at Scottish Widows ranging from legacy based systems, e.g.
Quotations, New Business, Agency and Sales Force Credit, to the very new mid-range based systems, e.g. ‘Protection
For Life’ where the company is in partnership with Virgin.

The tasks I undertook within the projects were:-

• Addition, maintenance, testing of Telon screens and PDF/Cobol programs;

• Creation and testing of two database ‘user-exit’ routines (written in PDF/Cobol) to initialise new fields set
up on the Quotations and Agency IMS databases;

• Assisting in the investigation and resolving of incidents raised in Test Director during system testing using
Xpediter, Fileaid and DB2/IMS where necessary;

• Setting up of an IMS rule for use in the batch and on-line Sale Force Credit systems. 2 batch PDF
modules and another ‘confirmation’ Telon on-line screen were also updated to include the new rule and
DB2 table updating for a new Sales Force Credit transaction;

• Code changes made to the quotations validation modules in Telon and PDF for the restriction of premium
limits in individual Stakeholder and Personal pensions. In consultation with the business area I also
uncovered a production wording issue with the Quotation prints and ‘incremental’ quotes;

• Created ASF/DCF output wording and Cobol Code changes for new ‘Mass Affluent’ agents within the
Quotations system. Successfully Unit Tested and assisted with the subsequent System testing –
answering and resolving any issues raised in Test Director;

• Creation of a new ‘cutback’ charge IMS rule to be applied to Quotation Illustrations which included a With
Profit fund. Also involved ASF and DOC1 output wording changes in the ‘Notes’ section of the
associated documentation provided in the quotation. System Testing was also supported with the use of
Test Director;

All projects were implemented successfully with ELS (Early Life Support) being provided for an interim period after
the project had gone ‘live’;

For a new Web-based application, - ‘Protection For Life’ I also coded and Unit-Tested new batch PDF modules
linked to a newly created Web-based transaction for the IMS updating of Policy Status and Claim Type fields, and
additional updates to the Client system. I also created and supported testing of a new suite of Payments jobs for
said ‘Protection For Life’ application - answering queries/resolving issues, and included the successful set
up/testing of new Payment letters /cheque production on the required stationery.
Oct 1996 to August 2004 Standard Life, Edinburgh Senior Systems Developer
Machine/tools/packages/applications/languages IBM 3090,

COBOL, DB2, IMS, JCL, OPCA, SOLVE, ENDEVOR, PLATINUM, MILLENIUM, SENTINEL, SWIFT/MQ MESSAGING, XCOMM, CONNECT DIRECT, FILEAID, ABENDAID,
XPEDITER, LOTUS NOTES

As a member of the IS Investment (Production Support) team I supported the many Investment systems both during the
day and as part of an overnight standby rota. Tasks undertaken as part of my role within the support team:

• Investigating and resolving the batch/transaction error incidents or user queries raised via the Solve
application;

• Interrogating MQ message logs when there had been a transaction failure(s) within the ‘Fund Access’
website;

• Creation and testing of authorized production batch jobs;

• Checking/arranging the OPCA job schedule for the Investment batch over the periods;

• Quality Assurance checking of new jobs/applications, documentation, and implementation plans raised in the
whole IS Investment team;

• RACF (security authorisation) rep and local contact within the IS Investment team for news items, upgrades
and any system ‘housekeeping’ ;

• LINK (Staff association) rep – raising concerns and issues on behalf of staff with local and senior IS
management.

March 1991 to October 1996 Scottish Equitable plc, Edinburgh BPR Developer / Analyst Programmer
Machine/tools/packages/applications/languages IBM 3090 MVS

ESA, OS2, COBOL, IDEAL, DB2, JCL, SEER HPS

May 1986 to March 1991 Scottish Widows, Edinburgh Mainframe Programmer

Education

September 1982 to June 1985 Napier College, Sighthill Campus, HND in Computer Studies
Edinburgh

August 1976 to June 1982 Forres Academy, 5 Highers 8 ‘O’ Levels

Forres

Interests
Football, keeping reasonably fit, watching sporting activities either at home or with friends, listening to music, family holidays/days out (3 daughters aged 12,
8 and 4) As an Assistant Beaver Scout
Leader I help with running the local Beaver ‘colony’ which meets weekly for boys and girls in the immediate area.

Additional Information
I am reliable and keen to learn new skills. I enjoy working as part of a team although I work well independently. I have good communication skills and I

contribute well as a team member.