Suraj Varma, Melbourne, Victoria

Technology Delivery and Transformation Leader

20+ years across banking, payments, retail and telecom. At HCL Technologies I led teams and accounts, including BNSF at US$16M annual revenue; my most recent client assignment was delivery assurance for the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Five MS Project plans, 1,530 tasks 76 findings classified, 535 constrained tasks triaged One critical path the owners agreed
Reserve Bank of Australia, Payment Operations Program (HCL client assignment). The schedule sat across five plans with different owners, so nobody could see the real critical path. I reviewed 1,530 tasks, classified 76 findings and gave leadership one view to act on.

I help complex programs get control of the basics: plans people can trust, risks that support decisions, reporting that tells the truth, and automation that removes manual drag without removing judgement.

Australian citizen 0406 760 598 varma_suraj@hotmail.com LinkedIn
See delivery case studies Email Suraj

My core work is enterprise program delivery, delivery assurance and portfolio governance. My AI projects show how I apply that experience to automation, decision support and governance.

At a glance

Delivery assurance, transformation and governance, with practical automation where it helps.

A concise view of the delivery environments I work best in, the strengths I bring, and the outcomes I focus on.

Evidence register
ClientWhat I didFigure
BNSF

Delivery leadership at scale

Grew HCL's modernisation account from 60 to 145 professionals in two years as P&L owner, at US$16M annual revenue and about 35% margin.		US$16M annual revenue
Reserve Bank of Australia

Schedule assurance

Reviewed 1,530 tasks across five plans and classified 76 schedule findings for remediation.		76
NAB

Vendor-squad delivery

Coordinated five vendor squads to onboard 53 production microservices into an automated patching framework.		53
Coles

Vendor transition readiness

Led HCL's due diligence, Hack to Transition and GameDay exercises, and SRE foundation workshops for application-support readiness.		Transition
ANZ

Portfolio investment governance

Managed an AUD 2.5M innovation fund across multiple initiatives, including an Agile KPI Dashboard and mobile applications.		A$2.5M
Zain Telecom

Global customer-platform delivery

Delivered the customer self-care portal for Zain Bahrain, part of an operator with 50+ million customers across 22 countries, leading a 26-person team and a US $850K budget.		US$850K

Credentials: Bachelor of Economics, Bombay University. SAFe Agile Practitioner, Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals and AWS Cloud Practitioner.

Enterprise delivery experience

Technology delivery and transformation, backed by practical governance.

Enterprise leadership, commercial discipline and recognised delivery credentials, followed by the case studies that show how the work was actually done.

Deputy General Manager, HCL Technologies

Jul 2010 to Jul 2026

Led delivery teams, vendor squads and account operations across banking, retail, telecom and media. Held P&L responsibility across engagements including utilisation, revenue forecasting, invoicing, SOW drafting and margin-improvement levers.

Most recent HCL client assignment: Reserve Bank of Australia

Delivery Assurance Consultant, Jan to Jun 2026

Supported the Payment Operations Program across four workstreams under Payments System Board oversight, reviewing 1,530 tasks and producing a 76-finding remediation register.

Selected case studies

Practical examples of control, clarity and repeatability.

Selected examples showing how I bring structure, visibility, faster reporting, and better decision support to complex delivery environments.

Reserve Bank of Australia

Payment Operations Delivery Assurance

As an HCL delivery assurance consultant, I made schedule-governance gaps visible so RBA program leadership could see what needed fixing before the next reporting cycle.

Delivery assurance

Situation

The RBA Payment Operations Program had five planning artefacts with inconsistent hygiene and limited assurance visibility.

Action

Reviewed 1,530 tasks and classified 76 findings across baselines, status dates, constraints, calendars, and task quality.

Result

Created a clearer remediation path for workstream owners and a stronger evidence base for program reporting.

Artefacts

Schedule findings register, five-phase uplift plan, reporting notes, and workstream remediation view.

Impact: stronger delivery evidence, clearer remediation ownership, and more credible executive reporting.

Reserve Bank of Australia

Delivery Reporting Automation

The reporting process was too manual. I turned repeatable work into a checked workflow, while keeping delivery judgement in the loop.

Reporting automation

Impact: less preparation drag, more time for analysis, and a reporting rhythm people can reuse.

Situation, action, result and artefacts

Situation

Reporting relied on recurring spreadsheet and slide-pack effort, with too much time spent formatting instead of analysing.

Action

Created a one-click SteerCo Pack Generator and a 535-task constraint-triage workbook, with repeatable checks around MS Project reporting outputs.

Result

Reporting became faster to prepare, easier to review, and more consistent from cycle to cycle.

Artefacts

Steering committee pack generator, constraint triage view, RAID navigation packs, and quality checks.

Reserve Bank of Australia

RAIDD and Decision Workflow Uplift

The governance artefacts existed, but they were not helping decisions enough. I tightened the structure so risks, issues, dependencies, and decisions were easier to act on.

Governance

Impact: clearer escalation paths and a better distinction between planning gaps, delivery risks, and decisions needed.

Situation, action, result and artefacts

Situation

Program artefacts were spread across plans, logs, reports, and workstream updates, making escalation paths harder to follow.

Action

Linked schedule issues to RAID themes and shaped the uplift into practical review, remediation, and change-control steps.

Result

Leadership had a cleaner view of what was a planning issue, what was a delivery risk, and what needed a decision.

Artefacts

RAID refresh approach, decision-support notes, governance cadence recommendations, and escalation prompts.

NAB

Automated Patching Transition

Multiple vendor and platform teams needed a common rhythm. I used evidence, cadence and follow-through to transition work with clear ownership and no loss of coverage.

Delivery control

Impact: 53 production microservices onboarded with clearer readiness tracking and operational control.

Situation, action, result and artefacts

Situation

NAB required coordinated uplift across vendor squads, platform teams and operational stakeholders.

Action

Coordinated five vendor squads to onboard 53 production microservices into an automated patching framework.

Result

Reduced manual patching effort by approximately 70–80% per service while maintaining transition readiness, risk tracking and operational control.

Artefacts

Governance cadence, handover artefacts, readiness tracking, risk views, and delivery follow-up routines.

Coles

Vendor Transition and Service Readiness

At HCL, I worked on the incumbent-vendor transition, testing application-development and support readiness with the people who would inherit the work.

Operational uplift

Work delivered: transition due diligence, Hack to Transition and GameDay exercises, and SRE foundation workshops.

Situation, action, result and artefacts

Situation

The incumbent-vendor transition needed technical and business risk review and application-support readiness checks.

Action

Led due diligence, Hack to Transition exercises and GameDay sessions for application support and maintenance.

Capability uplift

Delivered SRE foundation workshops covering SLIs, SLOs, error budgets and toil elimination.

Focus

Service readiness, transition risk and the working practices needed after handover.

Interested in a conversation? Contact me about senior program management, delivery leadership, portfolio governance or delivery assurance opportunities, including programs involving AI adoption and governance.

Email Suraj LinkedIn
Supporting AI and automation work

Practical AI tools, prototypes and governance.

Alongside enterprise delivery, I build and shape AI tools for governance, reporting and workflow support. The examples below distinguish prototypes, internal tools and independent practice.

AI governance proof of concept

AI Sentinel

Developed at HCL Technologies as a pre-sales proof of concept demonstrating AI discovery, risk classification, monitoring and executive reporting.

Capabilities demonstrated
  • Discovery, classification and continuous monitoring
  • Control evidence and regulatory mapping
  • Executive-level governance reporting
Internal AI-assisted bid tool

Governed RFP and bid-response support

At HCL Technologies, led governance design for an internal AI-assisted RFP tool that triaged requests, structured key asks and surfaced approved internal material for bid-team review. It supported human review and approval of proposal content.

What it covers
  • Source grounding and traceability
  • Human approval for claims and commitments
  • Approved-content and data-protection boundaries
LLM request-security prototype

Aegis

Built at HCL Technologies as a prototype LLM request-security gateway, demonstrating policy controls, authentication options, rate limits, request guards, redaction-first audit logging and safe startup validation.

What it covers
  • Policy controls and request guards
  • Redaction-first audit logging
  • Safe validation before startup
Independent practice

Self-hosted agentic AI operations

Independently built and operate a self-hosted OpenClaw environment for persistent agent workflows, including Cost Guardian controls for privacy, security, cost and accessibility. It is a personal practice environment, not an HCL client production service.

What it covers
  • Scoped context, controlled tools and approval-aware delivery
  • Model routing, scheduler health and failure recovery
  • Cost Guardian controls for privacy, security, cost and accessibility
How I work with AI

AI that improves the work without weakening control.

AI can structure work, improve reporting signals and reduce manual effort, while judgement and accountability stay with people.

Start with the decision

I begin with the decision or workflow that needs help, then design the automation around clearer reporting, earlier risk signals or less manual effort.

Make outputs checkable

Good workflows need visible inputs, repeatable steps, validation, audit trails and clear human ownership.

Build for real operations

I prefer monitored, documented workflows over fragile one-off scripts that only one person can maintain.

Important distinction: I use AI to support delivery assurance, governance, reporting and workflow automation. It improves visibility and execution discipline, while people remain accountable for decisions and commitments.

Best fit

Available for senior program management, delivery management and delivery assurance contracts. Melbourne based, Australian citizen, open to on-site, hybrid and remote work.

varma_suraj@hotmail.com LinkedIn 0406 760 598 surajvarma.cloud/portfolio