I worked with Daran over 9-months in a customer/supplier relationship. Daran was charged by the TfL networks CIO to get from Capita, their networks supplier, a detailed proposal for a core data centre network transformation, including a high level design, service model and a delivery programme, that was to be governed and fully costed. Throughout this time, Daran’s experience, professionalism and knowledge of his organisation’s IT strategy and its stakeholders, enabled a collaborative approach between our two companies to prosper and to deliver what was required. As an IT professional and consultant, Daran fits in and operates with incisive clarity and tact, essential ingredients for consulting tasks such as this complex one we worked together on.

Daran is a trusted team player able to run projects autonomously and also in managing Program streams. Capable of interacting at all levels from Engineering up to C-suite management.
His broad range of experience and skills allow Daran to be an effective problem-solver, get results in difficult situations and tight timeframes and in developing automated/time-saving solutions. Great understanding of risk remediation and regulatory requirement delivery complexities.

I have known Daran for more than 25 years and worked with him at several companies, the most recent being at UBS where he managed the Big Rocks risk remediation programme on behalf of UBS and I managed the programme on behalf of CSC, the then networks provider.
Daran is an extremely capable IT professional, effective at management and delivery and also very skillful with applications. He delivers under pressure and keeps his cool, focusing on creative outcomes to complex and difficult issues. He has a wide range of skills and capabilities, from strategic leadership, team management and staff development, engineering, programme management and audit risk and governance. I have no hesitation in recommending him to any employer in a senior IT management role.

Daran is an excellent Engineering manager with proven technical, service and commercial experience. He has demonstrated his drive, innovation and leadership consistently over the years I have known him which have played a significant part in the development of the Global Network Services function.

I’ve worked with Daran in his role as Global Head of Data Engineering at Barclays for the last 3 years and even more closely so since becoming involved in project resource allocation. Daran has built a high performing team of engineers based in the UK, Singapore, Sub-Sahara Africa and Lithuania who are involved in and have delivered some of the most high profile projects within Barclays. He is a strong leader with very good client facing skills and brings a wealth of knowledge to his role and that of the wider team. Because of this Daran engenders an open and honest working environment in which his team can thrive and are provided with development opportunities to ensure ongoing professional development for each and every team member. Daran’s knowledge extends into the service management area and because of this he brings a good perspective to the end to end service expected by customers. Daran has provided a high level of mentoring for me throughout my time at Barclays and is someone I see as trusted and whom I go to when requiring advice and guidance.

Over the past 3 years Daran has been responsible for building a dynamic global team of hand picked individuals and providing us with strong technical direction as we create an entirely new department at Barclays. I consider Daran to be a good leader, who offers excellent support to his direct reports and consistently provides us with the tools we need to do our jobs, and would not hesitate to work with/for him in the future.

I worked for Daran at Barclays. He was an excellent boss to work for – he was knowledgeable, efficient, diligent, and to the point. He also, most importantly, gets results…

Daran is an excellent manager and fosters a great team environment allowing the delivery of world class network. Daran is pragmatic, willing to share and learn contributing to ensure that the selected solution is optimal and integrated. Daran has real ‘common sense’ something that allows him to understand the issues at both a technical and business level. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Daran and would eagerly work with him again. A real asset for any company.

Brian Jenkinson, Windows Domain Architect/Manager of Distributed Engineering – Solutions Engineering, Barclays Bank

I engaged Daran Rowlands’ services to revamp a very old and out of date website for me.  Daran worked tirelessly to give me as many options as possible to ensure that the final version was exactly what I needed.  He was patient and proactive and the website has been brought up to date with a huge amount of flair and expertise.
He has given me ongoing support and perhaps it is only necessary to say that he is first rate in every respect.

Daran was professional, decisive and partnership oriented and always a pleasure to do business with. I enjoyed working with him as we implemented our overall service providing the European Enterprise Network platform for Merrill Lynch. His fair and focussed style was an asset to ML.

During my time at COLT, I had the privilege to work with Daran on a number of strategic projects at ML, that Daran had responsibility for. What impressed me was his professionalism in terms of managing the project requirements, plus excellent communication and negotiating skills. It would be great to work with Daran again.

Daran is an extremely effective infrastructure manager, with a wealth of experience in the industry and broad technical knowledge across many disciplines. Daran is also a strong leader, with proven success at building and developing teams to provide solid operational support and technical engineering functions. Daran is justifiably very well regarded in the industry and I have no hesitation in highly recommending his work.