IT‑IS‑Networking
Timeline › 2024–2026

Director of Services · Principal Architect

NRI North America (formerly Core BTS) — Two posts in two years at a global technology services provider — hands-on principal architect, then director of a practice of up to fourteen running 88 client engagements, with a thirty-six-month post-quantum research program originated along the way.

Two posts over two years: Principal Architect, Hybrid Infrastructure from April 2024, then Director of Services, Enterprise Networking from August 2024 to August 2026, in a role created for the promotion.

The first fourteen weeks

Hybrid infrastructure and network architecture for enterprise clients across data center, campus, WAN and security domains, advising senior stakeholders on technology investment and build-versus-buy.

It was also the densest hands-on stretch of the whole tenure — seven engagements worked personally, in the configuration, the peer reviews and the customer calls. The team came over on the second day and architects were being interviewed into it by week six, before the title existed. Four of the engagements that defined the next two years opened here.

The practice

Named clients and specific implementations sit under nondisclosure, so what follows describes the work at sector level. That is a real limit on what this part of the record can show, and it is stated rather than left to be inferred from a thin list.

An architecture practice of up to fourteen — sixteen architects and contract architects came through it across two years, ten to twelve running at any one time, including four CCIEs and four CCNPs with Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet specializations. A weekly practice rhythm unbroken for nineteen months, per-engineer certification plans, and a vendor enablement track behind them.

Reference architectures, standards and the design review gate across a portfolio of 88 numbered engagements, twenty-plus live at any moment, so work was delivered against one design language rather than individual preference — spanning Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and Juniper.

Senior technical authority and executive escalation point for enterprise accounts: a player-and-coach arrangement in which design direction, escalation and hands-on architecture sat with the same person.

Originated the thirty-six-month post-quantum cryptography program with the group’s parent company, ran the network orchestration proof of concept behind an Itential master services agreement, and moved the practice off engineer-owned hardware onto a governed lab.

Projects in this period

  • Enterprise Networking Practice Lab2026Three repurposed servers being rebuilt into a 2.3 TB virtualized network emulation cluster, funded on a cost-per-month argument against a six-month procurement lead time — and the end of a practice running on engineers' own hardware.
  • Enterprise Agreement Pursuit — Global AutomotivePursuit March–April 2025 · headquarters session May 2025 · relationship carried forwardCisco services subject-matter expert on a bid for a global automotive manufacturer's North American arm — a two-day clarification window, an affiliate's engineering bench as the differentiator, a loss, and a headquarters meeting four weeks later.
  • Diversified Industrial Manufacturer2025–2026Business-unit and data center assessments, automated discovery and network assurance, an enterprise architecture review, and integration across two acquisitions.
  • Network Orchestration Proof of Concept2025–2026Itential and Gluware assessed against traditional automation for the group's parent company — built out on virtualized topologies rather than judged on datasheets, under a signed statement of work, closing with a master services agreement.
  • Post-Quantum Cryptography ProgramProposed December 2025 · accepted January 2026 · began February 2026A thirty-six-month joint research engagement with the group's parent company, originated rather than assigned — proposed December 2025, accepted January 2026, transacted at CFO level between two companies.
  • SD-WAN Portfolio — Banking and State Legislature2025–2026Three concurrent SD-WAN engagements in regulated and public environments, with the low-level design at revision 2.0 and every configuration passing a routing review before production.
  • State and Local Government Delivery2025–2026A state transportation department data center relocation inside a single summer window, and county switching, firewall and platform replacement alongside it.
  • Enterprise Architecture Practice Build2024–2026An architecture practice of up to fourteen, built and run to a design review gate and a weekly rhythm — so engagements were delivered against one design language rather than individual preference.
  • Casino Surveillance Network Design and Segmentation2024–2026Surveillance refresh and segmentation for a metropolitan casino property — designed as Principal Architect and governed as Director, through a phased implementation and a mid-program re-scope.
  • Client Architecture Portfolio2024–202688 numbered engagements across two years, twenty-plus live at any moment, across healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and the public sector — the inverse of nineteen years inside one estate, and a different problem.
  • E-Rate Funded Network Programs2024–2026Roughly fifteen engagements across school districts, a regional education service agency and a public library consortium — every design constrained by federal funding eligibility and the funding-year window.
  • Multi-Property Gaming Group2024–2026Four properties for a regional casino group — security and segmentation, core refresh, wireless, surveillance separation and firewall consolidation.
  • Healthcare Estates2024–2026Five providers — firewall and intrusion-prevention upgrades against an active vendor advisory, a multi-site data center fabric on standing retainer, and segmentation with virtual desktop.
  • Vendor and Partner Program2024–2026Seven technology and service partners brought in across two years for capability the practice did not have or could not scale, with a formal manufacturer specialization track behind it.
  • Utility OT/IT Engagement2024–2026A natural gas and electric utility, carried from review of the SCADA statement of work through firewall and switch delivery.
  • Firewall Refresh and Intrusion Response2025A multi-site next-generation firewall refresh for a nonprofit health provider — and an intrusion the night after cutover, met with geo-fencing and containment run alongside day-one support.
  • Municipal Infrastructure Assessment to RFP2024–2025An infrastructure assessment for a town government, scoped from the start to become the foundation of its own procurement rather than a proposal for follow-on work.
  • Fourteen Weeks on the ToolsApril – August 2024The densest hands-on stretch of the NRI tenure — seven client engagements worked personally, in the configuration and the peer reviews and the customer calls, while taking over a team from the second day.

Technology fingerprint

The same instrument as the technology map, run over this post alone — the 13 disciplines it touched, across the 3 years it covered, weighted the same way.

Left to right is time. Each row is one of the 13 disciplines this post touched, ordered so kindred disciplines sit next to each other rather than alphabetically — a landscape only means anything if neighboring rows belong together. Height is the work running in that domain in that year, weighted by what failure would have cost — life-safety ×3, a statutory obligation ×2.2, the estate itself ×1.5, an evaluation ×1. Every project declares which of those it was, so each ridge traces to an entry you can open and disagree with. Work that ran across an employer boundary counts here as well as on the other era it belonged to. Height and color are on the record-wide scale rather than this page’s own, so a modest estate draws a modest landscape and any two of these pages can be read against each other.