1. Darren Nicholls
Email: dnicholls74@aol.com
LinkedIn: https://ie.linkedin.com/pub/darren-nicholls/29/885/b86
Professional Profile
A dedicated, resourceful and versatile professional combining over 20 years’ experience in investment banking with
expertise as a Business Analyst within finance and data quality transformation programmes. A proven track record of
implementing strategic and target solutions to meet demanding objectives whilst remaining focused on exceeding client
expectations. Adopts a highly analytical approach to solving complex problems and possesses the interpersonal,
communication and stakeholder management skills to build positive working relationships with internal and external parties
at all levels.
Key Career Achievements
• Completed trader portfolio maintenance and linkage to other applications for reference data hub
• Established new processes and controls of bonds, primary trades and equities product reference data to minimise,
cancel and amend untrue confirmations and improve STP to increase efficiency and cut costs
• Migrated Fixed Income Trade Support to a new location as part of a cost cutting exercise whilst still maintaining high
standards, including screening candidates and writing and delivering a 3-day presentation about the business to new
starters
• Set out training requirements to meet daily deliverables, published daily KPI’s enabling senior management to track
progress, managed 14 staff and liaised with the circa 40 traders and partners
• Created, led and managed a new team for reference data management and ensured a high standard, and central
control, of data quality
Career Summary
Apr 15 – Date Relocation to Republic of Ireland
Jun 14 – Apr 15 SENIOR FINANCE BUSINESS ANALYST, (Contract Role), Credit Suisse
• Responsible for the global centralisation of FX levelling working within change management, and covering for the
Project Manager as required
• Working with authors of functional requirements documents and specification authors, and closely monitoring build and
development work to ensure adherence to timeframes and accuracy
• Establishing roles and responsibilities to facilitate support for the new application from end users to power users and IT
support
• Using key leads to implement bug fixes, improvements and new requirements for future releases
• Working closely with the integration go-live leads to ensure timeline alignment with other projects as the rollout was
part of an integrated release
Key Achievements:
• Designed effective material for global training and prepared status reports to clearly and articulately communicate
details to the business and business sponsors
• Wrote test scripts using own traceability matrix and conducted comprehensive functional testing to identify and
highlight defects and change requests
• Logged all test cases, testing results using ALM (Quality Centre tool, and part managed UAT)
• Created, agreed and implemented effective project plan timelines, working groups, business requirement
documentation and test strategy documentation
• Successfully rolled out new reports to aid users with their day to day FX role
Dec 13 – Jun 14 Volunteer Work
Jun 10 – Dec 13 FINANCE BUSINESS ANALYST (Contract Role), Credit Suisse
• Working within change management as part of the Finance System Transformation Programme to streamline current
processes including P&L through reconciling by-product instead of by book/portfolio
• Collaborating with various personnel including Product Control Change, Product Control, IT, Programme Manager and
stakeholders to design and implement the Product Control Performer and Supervisor Exception tool for credit, equities
and rates business
• Responsible for managing group meetings, gap analysis, handling business and functional requirements, cross
referencing with functional design, test scripts, playback sessions, test strategies and monitoring system integrated
and functional testing and UAT
• Partnering with another workstream to develop reports via the Product Control Data Warehouse stream and
conducting detailed post implementation reviews across the different work packages
• Responsible for occasional programme management tasks, such as defining delivery timelines, ensuring key tasks
completion, and reporting up to date status via KPI’s and RAG
• Centralising reports in a repository enabling users to tailor them to specific needs subject to entitlements
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2. • Providing demonstrations of replacement reports to minimise user queries prior to report decommission
• Managing the documentation, testing within the integrated test environment, and liaising with IT and Product Control
for the rollout of each report, with each release cycle including new reports, bug fixes, report enhancements and
decommissioning of legacy reports
• Working closely with other workstreams such as Product Control Work Station, Exception Management and Change
Management teams on integration issues
Key Achievements:
• Implemented a new tool to highlight breaks and adjustments based on break threshold/aging rules across products
with the rules triggering several automated adjustments in the overnight batch resulting in fewer breaks and
adjustments for daily review, while also replacing legacy reconciliations/processes
• Developed the strategic tool with three annual releases including components such as reassignment tracking, audit
reporting to show break type splits, user activity, threshold and new rules maintenance
• Created comprehensive strategic reports, including those for breaks and adjustments, P&L attribution and trends for
supervisors based on Product Control feedback
Responsibilities outside of Finance Systems Transformation Programme:
• Responsible for centralising a daily FOBO process within an existing in-house P&L application to mitigate an audit
point
• Key member of the team responsible for the training pack, training delivery and production of SLA’s
• Organising and delivering multiple workshops to mitigate reference data errors outside original mandates, prior to
identification of a fit for purpose solution, used extensive OPS knowledge to outline key attributes required for OPS to
onboard the report and take over the process from Product Control
• Managing and prioritising a detailed book of work for Product Control to support existing processes
• Prioritising each item, reviewing cost benefits, fix urgency, timelines and ensuring no projects impact each initiative
before documenting bug fixes, testing and handing over to user for sign off
• Chairing meetings with key Product Control Change leads and engaging both IT and Product Control
• Documenting business and functional requirements, developing test scripts, testing and managing the UAT process,
determining success criteria, and compiling presentations and results using KPI’s and MI
• Chairing working group meetings, updating senior managerial personnel and developing strong working relationships
at all levels of the organisation
Key Achievements:
• Co-created a daily FOBO report to identify any breaks, adjustments, user ID and commentary enabling the user group
to check, query and update FOBO breaks
• Helped reduce expenditure within the London branch, and migrated and created a new team in Singapore prior to the
role’s eventual move to India
Oct 09 – May 10 Relocation to New York
Oct 05 – Oct 09 BUSINESS ANALYST (Contract Role), ABN/RBS
• Responsible for creating and maintaining a Golden Source for trading book and business unit attributes between Trade
Support and Finance
• Identifying key tables and mappings to implement a new sub ledger and decommission legacy systems
Key Achievements:
• Set up new BAU procedures to refine gaps for fixed income trading and reporting book maintenance
• Created an innovative new automated Flash P&L for daily trader sign off and assisted with the implementation of a
new sub ledger
Sep 96 – May 04 JP Morgan Chase (Permanent)
Jan 03 – May 04 Fixed Income Trade Support Manager (Permanent)
Jun 01 – Jan 03 Trade Support – Professional/Supervisor (Permanent)
Mar 99 – Jun 01 Markets Product Support (Reference Data Management) – Staff Supervisor (Permanent)
Sep 96 – Mar 99 GL Control Team Member (Permanent)
Education and Qualifications
2 A Levels Economics and Sociology
11 GCSEs Including English and Mathematics
Key IT Skills
 Proficient in Microsoft packages including Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Project; Visio, ALM (Quality Centre),
SharePoint, Bloomberg and other FOBO in-house systems
References
 References available on request
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