Burkhard B.-Country Service Manager / Datacenter Lead
Check rate
Experience
Senior Project Manager / Service Manager / Datacenter Lead
Infosys
TAF-P
Strategic IT transformation partnership covering infrastructure transformation, hybrid-cloud migration, data-centre consolidation and transformation of IT operating models.
- Managed integration of services from transition through transformation.
- Acted as customer-facing Single Point of Contact between Mercedes-Benz, Infosys and third-party providers.
- Managed stakeholder relationships, demand, escalations and service delivery.
- Established structured communication and governance with IT management and executives.
- Coordinated transition and transformation activities across multiple parties.
- Managed SLA-related activities and service governance.
- Coordinated third-party suppliers and delivery teams.
- Managed procurement activities from demand/forecast through delivery and invoicing.
- Supported transition activities and customer sign-off.
- Coordinated knowledge-transfer and documentation activities.
Environment: Enterprise infrastructure, Hybrid Cloud, Data Centres, Service Transition, IT Governance, Vendor Management
Senior Project Manager
WORLDLINE – ANZ PAYMENT SOLUTIONS
International payment-platform development and migration programme. Key responsibilities and contributions
- Coordinated development, DevOps, infrastructure and security teams across Europe and Australia.
- Established three environments: European sandbox, Australian pre-production and Australian production.
- Coordinated deployment of 32 applications and 22 interfaces.
- Supported migration of production operations from Europe to Australia.
- Coordinated testing and deployment activities.
- Managed third-party, change, risk, stakeholder and team management.
- Provided programme and executive-level reporting. Environment: Payments | Private Cloud | DevOps | Infrastructure | Security | Agile / Waterfall
Senior Project Manager / Service Manager / Datacenter Lead
INFOSYS / MERCEDES-BENZ
TAF-P
Strategic IT transformation partnership covering infrastructure transformation, hybrid-cloud migration, data-centre consolidation and transformation of IT operating models.
- Managed integration of services from transition through transformation.
- Acted as customer-facing Single Point of Contact between Mercedes-Benz, Infosys and third-party providers.
- Managed stakeholder relationships, demand, escalations and service delivery.
- Established structured communication and governance with IT management and executives.
- Coordinated transition and transformation activities across multiple parties.
- Managed SLA-related activities and service governance.
- Coordinated third-party suppliers and delivery teams.
- Managed procurement activities from demand/forecast through delivery and invoicing.
- Supported transition activities and customer sign-off.
- Coordinated knowledge-transfer and documentation activities.
Environment: Enterprise infrastructure, Hybrid Cloud, Data Centres, Service Transition, IT Governance, Vendor Management
Change Manager / Environment Manager / Project Manager
UNIQA
Managed infrastructure, environment, change and project activities within a regulated insurance environment. Key responsibilities
- Project and programme coordination.
- Change and release management.
- Environment and infrastructure management.
- Third-party and vendor management.
- Risk, stakeholder and team management.
- Infrastructure installation and deployment coordination.
- Coordination of interconnectivity between sites and systems.
- File-transfer coordination.
- Infrastructure change coordination.
- KPI definition and operational governance.
- Project, portfolio and executive reporting.
- Process and workflow optimisation. Tools / methods: Jira | Confluence | ServiceNow | Agile | Waterfall
IT Consultant
MERIT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
Consulting and project-management support covering:
- Strategy-development workshops.
- Project evaluations.
- New-business development.
- Data-centre build and setup.
- Data-centre relocation.
- Microsoft Office 365 migration.
- Project-management methodologies and standards.
- Proposal and pre-qualification documentation.
- Budget, resource and timeline planning.
Programme / Project Manager
Liberty
Storage infrastructure refresh programme covering IBM and EMC storage, Brocade SAN, data-centre refurbishment, backup infrastructure, server farms and associated infrastructure.
Project Manager
South African Breweries – SAB
Business-continuity infrastructure including disaster-recovery storage and network connectivity between data centres.
Project Manager
BCX / ICT
Data-centre relocation, storage infrastructure implementation and SAN migration.
Project Manager
ABSA / NEDBANK / FNB / AFRICAN BANK
Projects covering storage and backup infrastructure, enterprise archiving, server consolidation, SAN implementation, help-desk implementation and infrastructure optimisation.
Project Manager
Edcon
Retail
Archive and storage consolidation, including Enterprise Vault, SAN implementation and migration to consolidated storage.
Project Manager
MTN / VODACOM / CELL-C
Business continuity and storage consolidation projects, including disaster recovery infrastructure, network connectivity and SAN migration.
Project Manager
SA POST OFFICE / SARS / ACSA
Storage consolidation, SAN implementation and migration to consolidated storage platforms.
Project Manager
DISCOVERY HEALTH
Archive and storage consolidation, content storage implementation and SAN migration.
Project Manager
EMC
Customer and infrastructure projects involving data centre relocation, storage, SAN, LAN, NAS, data migration, software and infrastructure implementation, and product evaluation.
Programme & Project Manager
STANDARD BANK – CIB & GROUP IT
Extensive programme and project management responsibility across banking infrastructure and enterprise transformation.
Tier-4 Data Centre Consolidation:
- Consolidation of three data centres into one newly built Tier-4 data centre.
- Physical server relocation.
- Server virtualisation / P2P migration.
- Installation and migration of storage and SAN infrastructure.
- Infrastructure planning, supplier coordination and implementation.
Next Generation Infrastructure:
- Development of a highly automated infrastructure delivery platform.
- Cisco ACI-based infrastructure.
- OpenStack and SCVMM environments.
- Development / test environment establishment.
- Third-party resource management.
- Offshore team coordination.
- Bill of Materials and procurement coordination.
- Built-specification documentation.
- Pre-production and production infrastructure implementation.
Storage & Backup Transformation:
- Technology refresh of storage and backup infrastructure.
- NetBackup appliance implementation.
- EMC, HDS and IBM storage environments.
- SAN transformation.
- Backup and recovery infrastructure.
Africa IT Operating Model:
- Analysis of the South African IT support model.
- Development of an operating model for the wider African business.
- Stakeholder workshops.
- SME negotiation and resource coordination.
- Executive presentations and organisational lobbying.
- Development and implementation of the new operating model.
Outsourcing Programme:
- Development of an outsourcing model.
- Tender management.
- Supplier evaluation.
- Contract negotiations.
- Vendor management.
- Staff transition coordination.
Technology Refresh & Decommissioning:
- Replacement of legacy infrastructure.
- Migration from legacy to new technology.
- Decommissioning of end-of-life EMC, Brocade and IBM infrastructure.
- SAN upgrade and storage optimisation.
Enterprise Archiving:
- Enterprise Vault email archiving.
- Centera and HCP content storage platforms.
- Platform implementation, upgrades and migration.
Industry experience
See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time.
Experienced in Information Technology, Banking and Finance, Insurance, Retail, Automotive, and Telecommunication.
Business area experience
See which departments and functions this freelancer has contributed to most.
Experienced in Information Technology, Project Management, Procurement, Customer Service, and Product Development.
Summary
Accomplished and dynamic professional with 30+ years of international experience delivering complex, business-critical technology and transformation programmes across Europe, Africa and Australia. Specialising in IT Project Management, Program Management and Transformation, with strong experience bridging business strategy and technology execution. Proven delivery across the full project lifecycle — from strategy, mobilisation and planning through implementation, migration, go-live, service transition and handover into operations. A particular strength is working at the Business–IT interface, connecting executives, sponsors, business stakeholders, architects, engineers, infrastructure teams, suppliers and delivery organisations. The approach is structured, pragmatic and focused on achieving measurable business outcomes.
Core expertise includes:
- IT Transformation & Digital Transformation
- IT Project & Program Management
- Infrastructure & Data Centre Transformation
- Cloud & Hybrid Cloud Projects
- Service Delivery & Service Transition
- Change & Release Management
- PMO, Governance & Executive Reporting
- Risk, Issue, Dependency & RAID Management
- Vendor, Outsourcing & Contract Management
- Procurement & Third-Party Management
- International & Multicultural Team Leadership
- Agile, Waterfall, Kanban, PMBOK & Hybrid Delivery A strong technical foundation covers data centres, storage/SAN, backup, networking, virtualisation, private/hybrid cloud, infrastructure automation and IT service management. This enables technical, business and management perspectives to be connected and complex technology issues translated into actionable decisions. Career experience spans banking, financial services, insurance, automotive, payments and enterprise technology, including Mercedes-Benz, Infosys, Worldline, UNIQA, Standard Bank, Liberty and EMC. What I bring: It is 30+ years of practical experience, structured delivery, strong stakeholder leadership, technical understanding, commercial awareness and people-focused management. The motivation to continue comes from enjoying the profession and knowing that experience can make a tangible difference. Solving problems, bringing structure to complexity, supporting people and seeing projects move successfully from idea to operation remain highly rewarding. For me, experience is valuable when it is shared and put to work. Have to have FUN working.
Skills
It Transformation & Program Management
- Enterprise It Program & Project Management
- It Transformation & Change Management
- Transformation Governance
- Cloud & On-Premises Transformation
- Migration & Transition Management
- Operating Model Transformation
- Process Optimisation
- Organisational And Interface Management Stakeholder & Management
- Executive Stakeholder Management
- Business–It Interface Management
- Management Consulting And Decision Support
- Customer And Vendor Management
- International/Intercultural Team Management
- Escalation And Conflict Management
- Workshop Facilitation
- Communication Management Planning, Risk & Performance
- Project Planning And Control
- Risk, Issue And Dependency Management
- Wbs And Work Package Structuring
- Kpi Definition And Governance
- Management And Executive Reporting
- Portfolio And Demand Management
- Process And Impact Analysis
- Root Cause Analysis Agile & Change
- Agile Project Management
- Kanban
- Waterfall
- Sdlc
- Change/Release Management
- Team Enablement And Coordination
- Process And Ways Of Working Optimisation
- Stakeholder And Change Communication
Languages
Education
Pretoria Technikon
National Diploma · Electronic Data Processing & Systems Analysis · Pretoria, South Africa
PMI
PMP · Project Management · Johannesburg, South Africa
Certifications & licenses
MBA-level Studies – Project Management
Management Development Programme (MDP)
PMI-CPMAI – Certified Professional in Managing AI (in progress)
Project Management Institute
SMC – Scrum Master Certified – SCRUMstudy 774298
Statistics
Experience
Global experience
Expertise
Qualifications
Profile
Frequently asked questions
Have questions? Find more information here.
Burkhard is based in Graz, Austria and can operate in on-site, hybrid, and remote work models.
Burkhard speaks the following languages: Afrikaans (Native), German (Native), English (Advanced), Dutch (Elementary).
Burkhard has at least 24 years of experience. During this time, Burkhard has worked in at least 7 different roles and for 15 different companies. The average length of individual experience is 2 years and 7 months. Note that Burkhard may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.
Based on recent experience, Burkhard would be well-suited for roles such as: Senior Project Manager / Service Manager / Datacenter Lead, Senior Project Manager, Change Manager / Environment Manager / Project Manager.
Burkhard's most recent position is Senior Project Manager / Service Manager / Datacenter Lead at Infosys.
In recent years, Burkhard has worked for Infosys, WORLDLINE – ANZ PAYMENT SOLUTIONS, and INFOSYS / MERCEDES-BENZ.
Burkhard is most experienced in industries like Information Technology, Banking and Finance, and Insurance. Burkhard also has some experience in Retail, Telecommunication, and Transportation.
Burkhard is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology, Project Management, and Procurement. Burkhard also has some experience in Customer Service and Product Development.
Burkhard has recently worked in industries like Information Technology, Automotive, and Banking and Finance.
Burkhard has recently worked in business areas like Information Technology, Project Management, and Procurement.
Burkhard holds a Bachelor in Electronic Data Processing & Systems Analysis from Pretoria Technikon.
Burkhard has 6 certificates. Among them, these include: MBA-level Studies – Project Management, Management Development Programme (MDP), and PMI-CPMAI – Certified Professional in Managing AI (in progress).
Burkhard is immediately available part-time for suitable projects.
Daily rate distribution
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Average rates for similar positions
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Calculated based on our freelancers’ daily rates as of 6 Oct 2026. Actual rates may vary depending on seniority level, experience, skill specialization, project complexity, and engagement length.
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