Benny Ikhalea

• Leading an 8-person cross functional team focused on digital transformation projects for top tier financial institutions.
• Successfully conducted product Road mapping and strategy for SaaS products with 95% project completion rate.
• Conducted User research, Interviews and Benchmarking to determine product value proposition metrics.
• Achieved successful execution of the “New Mobile and Internet Banking application”, which was showcased at the Nexus technology event, Oriental Hotel, Lagos Nigeria.
• Achieved performance-based promotion to “Level 2” within the organization within first 18 months.
• Achieved 90% acceptance rate on developed wire frames for all prioritized backlog items/features for undertaken projects.
• Defined strategy for Digital Onboarding of new and existing users through robust KYC user flow. Led to 95% positive user acceptance.
• Facilitated productive collaboration meetings with C-level commercial bank stakeholders on Web and Mobile applications projects.
• Successful development of a transaction enabled social media platform as a sub-feature of the Heritage Bank mobile application.
• Developed and documented the SRS (System requirement specifications) documents for all SaaS, Internet, and Mobile Banking products.
• Accelerated value delivery through coaching on the use of value-based task prioritization in identifying and selecting high value backlog items for development. while consistently providing project updates on a consistent basis (including but not limited to physical and virtual meetings) to various stakeholders (Internal & External) about strategy, adjustments, weekly project progress updates and issue resolution updates.
• Achieved completion of the cutting edge “Octiplus Digital Banking” Mobile application project for Heritage Bank with less than the required number of team members for project completion.
• Successful coaching of team members in applying team collaboration for performance improvement despite some team members operating from widely different time zones.
• Maintained excellent relationship with product owners for entire duration of projects undertaken even with apparent resource constraints.
• Led QA testing on completed modules on all projects.
• Leveraged customer research data and analytics to make informed decisions and drive business improvements for Digital Products
• Reduced waste and pursued revenue development strategies to keep department aligned with sales and profit targets.

Key Accomplishments

• Pilot and showcase of MVP features for New Internet Banking application for Micro Finance Banks on 7th November 2023, at Nexus technology event at Oriental Hotel, Lagos Nigeria.
• Completion of MVP features for New Mobile Banking Application for top financial institutions in 6 Months.
• Successful API Integration of Seamfix's KYC verification system onto the Octiplus banking application.
• Complete development and launch of Omnichannel Octiplus digital Banking application to the stores (Play Store or App Store is triggered based on phone type).
• Launch of upgrade to Omnichannel HB Padie Web Application to successful user adoption growth of 30% in first 3 months

• Led a scrum team the size of 7 team members within the Information Technology team focused on delivering technology requirements for the organization Drive and Support IT portfolio projects within the foundation.
• Supported successful execution of 4 digital workplace and 2 enterprise application projects within six months.
• Provided support documents and project artifacts for all IT related projects.
• Improved team collaboration between global team members (in different time zones) through collaborative leadership to ensure timely completion of all digital workplace projects and enterprise application projects (totaling 6 projects) within 6 months.
• Facilitated scrum of scrums meeting occurring at a cadence of once per week with the Head of IT Operations.
• Schedule and facilitate project huddles and collaborative meetings between Project managers, Network IT, Procurement, and infrastructure taking into consideration multiple time-zones.
• Through application of agile/scrum practices, supported the scrum team to the successful launch of physical Office Re-Opening in Lagos (Nigeria), Office Expansion in Uganda and Office Relocation in Ethiopia in 3 months.
• Engaged in QA testing of completed Project modules.
• Provided proper documentation for all executable projects within the foundation.
• Commended for success of proper communication to all stakeholders (especially C-level) within the foundations on embarked upon and completed projects.

Key Accomplishments

• Successful launch of temporary office space in Lagos Nigeria, with installations of printers, desk monitors and internet connectivity for end users. Project Delivery within 4 months.
• Successful implementation of SSO & MFA on Montala space and ETO applications. Project Delivery within 4 months.
• Successful completion of Ethiopia temporary office moves to the Addis Adore Hotel to 100% end user satisfaction.
• Collaborated with Program lead to conduct QA Testing on Service Now prior to production move.

• Led a 5-person cross functional scrum team focused Mobile and Web Software Development projects for financial institutions.
• Averted a risk of $3000 debt on a digital banking project through proper documentation and interpersonal relationship with third party stakeholder.
• Developed strategy for consolidation of rebranding tasks for active web application due to acquisition of product by another Tier 1 Bank.
• Developed Project Plans for Web development projects.
• Observed cost estimation for web development projects in conjunction with the business development team lead.
• Successfully facilitated scrum ceremonies with scrum team.
• Implemented and enforced the use of Kanban boards to improve transparency for task progression.
• Improved risk mitigation significantly with risk occurrences dropping to 10%.
• Conducted QA testing on completed Web and Admin interface projects yielding satisfactory feedback from product owners.
• Commended for exquisite content writing for completed web projects.

Key Accomplishments

• Launch of E-finance website re-development project.
• Completion of GTBank Nigeria's Internship application portal.
• Development and launch of the Veritas Glanvills Website Re-development http://vgpensions.com/.
• Initial execution and subsequent re-branding of Access Bank (formerly Diamond Bank) Xclusive Offers webpage; https://xclusivechannel.accessbankplc.com/