Huibert Aalbers

Huibert Aalbers

Executive IT Architect at IBM Mexico
IBM Global Business Services

Profile

Passionate technologist with thirty years of experience in software development, currently working on complex transformation projects in the financial industry.

Experience

Chief Architect

IBM Mexico (2015 - 2019)

Chief Architect for major bank transformation projects at Banorte and Citi-Banamex.
  • At Banorte, responsible for the MDM, Data Warehouse and Mobile projects.
  • At Citi-Banamex lead the payments platform re-engineering assessment as well as the ECM and Biometrics implementation.

BUE Technical Professionals & SW Services Manager

IBM Mexico (2006 - 2015)

In Mexico, the SWG technical team used to be divided in four separate teams. By mid-2006 it became clear that this situation was far from optimal. I was asked to lead the whole pre-sales technical team in order to improve team work, morale, technical skills and specially our results when working on large, complex, multi-brand projects. In 2007 I was asked to also run the Software Group Lab Services team.

Achievements:
  • Increase the technical skills of the team by improving our use of the education budget, cross-brand skill transfer and self-study.
  • Dramatically increase the number of product certifications obtained by the team by adding technical related challenges to their variable compensation model
  • Improve the technical team ability to detect new business opportunities by having cross-brand teams working together with complementary products and offerings
  • Grow the SW Services consulting team while maintaining utilization and GP levels.
  • Turn around the Education Business, which was producing disappointing results

Most of these initiatives are part of a larger effort to improve the seniority of my team and obtain better recognition and opportunities for them at the LA and WW levels.

Senior IT Architect

IBM Mexico (September 2001 - June 2006)

After IBM acquired Informix, for a while my team and I worked on exposing WebSphere tools to Infomix customers as well as helping them migrate their web applications to the new IBM technology. Later, we worked on cross-brand projects, evangelizing customers on new technologies, proposing advanced software architectures and participating in the development of proofs-of-concept that required solid programming skills.

Achievements:
  • Design complex software architectures based on SOA for our largest customers and engage in challenging proofs-of-concept to drive product sales.
  • Develop a tool set called Instant Portal that help us migrate Informix Web Datablade and i.Sell (ATG) applications to J2EE which helped us keep key customers.
  • Lead the effort of porting Instant Intranet to J2EE and Websphere.
  • Quickly learn and adopt IBM products, obtaining seven product certifications in just four years.

Director, LA Internet Competency Center

Informix Software, Mexico City (January 2000 - August 2001)

After IBM acquired Informix, for a while my team and I worked on exposing WebSphere tools to Infomix customers as well as helping them migrate their web applications to the new IBM technology. Later, we worked on cross-brand projects, evangelizing customers on new technologies, proposing advanced software architectures and participating in the development of proofs-of-concept that required solid programming skills.

Achievements:
  • Design complex software architectures based on SOA for our largest customers and engage in challenging proofs-of-concept to drive product sales.
  • Develop a tool set called Instant Portal that help us migrate Informix Web Datablade and i.Sell (ATG) applications to J2EE which helped us keep key customers.
  • Lead the effort of porting Instant Intranet to J2EE and Websphere.
  • Quickly learn and adopt IBM products, obtaining seven product certifications in just four years.

Internet Business Development Manager

Informix Software, Mexico City (January 1999 - December 1999)

Due to the increasing importance of Internet technologies to Informix, it was decided to create a new business unit to focus on this market which I was asked to lead, both from a technical and sales perspective.

Achievements:
  • Overachieve the sales quota by twenty five percent, by winning new large customers such as SAT, IMSS, the city of Guadalajara, Afore XXI, IFE, Cedetel (now Telefónica), SEP, ILCE, Mabe, MVS, CFE, etc.
  • Quickly train my team of three trainees in web technologies to expand our ability to deliver solutions to our customers.
  • Establish new business relationships with partners to develop the use of our tools and web products through training, sales and marketing programs.
  • Training effectively our sales force in selling web solutions, teaching them how to !recognize opportunities and understand the strategies of our competitors.

Senior Consultant, Internet / Object-Relational databases

Informix Software, Mexico City (February 1997 - December 1998)

As a result of the close relationship built with Informix in my previous position and the successful implementation of their technology in an enterprise-wide Intranet project for the third largest Mexican bank (Bital, now HSBC) I was of- f!ered this position to reproduce this success at other customers sites.

Achievements:
  • Developing a new Intranet sales strategy aimed specifically at the largest Mexican corporations.
  • Creating several demos, used all over Latin America, to showcase the possibilities of object relational databases in workflow, content management and web-site administration projects in an Intranet environment.
  • Providing consulting services to important Informix customers such as the Mexican Senate, Mexican Secret Service, Bancrecer and Televisa.
  • Establishing new relationships with key Internet developers to promote our tools.

General Manager PROESA, Director Internet Division ASAE

Grupo ASAE-PROESA, Mexico City (May 1996 - January 1997)

Due to the growth of the Internet business that I had created within PROESA (see previous position) it was decided to move it to ASAE, the consulting arm of the Group (with over 300 employees).

Achievements:
  • Negotiating strategic distribution agreements and partnerships with Netscape, Informix, Silicon Graphics, Sun and Cabletron. This converted us in the first Mexican company that could offer end-to-end solutions for corporate Intranet development.
  • Building very quickly a team of young developers, designers, technical support staff and salespersons (25 people) that after going through intensive training were able to produce some very high-quality solutions that allowed us to increase our customer portfolio with some of the most well-known names in Mexican companies like Pemex, Bital, Bancrecer, TAESA (airline), MVS (cable TV), Mabe, etc.
  • Developing an effective sales channel for our ISP service.
  • Maintaining the growth of the Apple and PC businesses (18 months of consecutive growth).

General Manager PROESA

Grupo ASAE-PROESA, Mexico City (June 1995 - May 1996)

PROESA, a company founded back in 1982, employed 30 persons when I joined it, used to be the largest Apple retailer in Mexico. However, by mid-1995, be- cause of the peso devaluation, the economic crisis and the fierce competition of two American mail-order companies, it was on the verge of collapse, surviving only because of the loyalty of a single very large customer.

Achievements:
  • Increasing sales 300% (to over US$ 4,000,000), in just one year, during the worst economic crisis in Mexican history. This was in part the result of a new purchasing policy that allowed us to regain low-prices leadership and an improved customer service.
  • The marketing effort focused on differentiating us from the mail-order competition that dominated the market and position the company as a value-added retailer with competitive prices. Instead of mailing a catalog I created a quarterly magazine with technical articles and ads of our most competitive products. This strategy proved very effective in improving our image and positioned us as the most knowledgeable Apple retailer.
  • Creation of an Internet division that put the corporate offices and two branches on-line. The use of Internet helped us at the beginning to improve internal communication and eased the work of the purchasing department by giving it tools to place orders quickly and tracking products, effectively shortening delivery time of imported goods to our customers. Simultaneously, our web-site contributed to our new image, but it was our Intranet that allowed us to improve the quality of the service provided by our sales force by putting our complete product catalog on-line, including data sheets. Finally, as an ISP we were able to reach a wide range of new customers. The use of the Internet as a sales and purchasing tool was definitively one of the key factors of the company’s revival.
  • Opening a new branch for Intel based PCs. At the beginning, the growth of this branch was based exclusively on sales to Macintosh customers that used both platforms but we were also able to build a healthy PC only customer base.
  • Coordinate the commercial activities of the PROESA stores located outside Mexico City. These stores, part-owned by their managers used to behave quite independently. However, our new purchasing policy allowed them to obtain better prices when purchasing through us instead of directly from resellers. We also participated together in trade shows and the magazine was used to unite the Group. This way, we were able to centralize purchases and give an image of unity to both our customers and resellers, !something that had never been achieved before.

Marketing Manager, ASAE, S.C.

Grupo ASAE-PROESA, Mexico City (February 1994 - May 1995)

ASAE, S.C., founded at the end of 1993 was one of the youngest companies belonging to Grupo ASAE-PROESA and its mission was to sell specific computer solutions to schools, from Kindergarten to High-School.

Achievements:
  • Negotiate distribution and localization agreements with several key US educational software companies like Davidson, MECC, ImageSmith and Optimum Resource. This allowed us to create attractive and competitive bundles for schools.
  • Establish a nation-wide retail channel for these products.
  • Design brochures, catalogs, manuals, boxes, etc.
  • Translate the software and the manuals (15 titles).
  • Build and train a small group of programmers to develop educational and school !administration software.

Marketing Trainee (AIESEC Student exchange program)

Service Information Access (SIA), Montréal, Canada (July 1993 - December 1993)

SIA is a company that develops client-server software to implement business reengineering strategies.

Functions:
  • Create promotional brochures and bilingual manuals (French/English) for the company’s products.
  • Prepare conferences and exhibits to demonstrate the software developed by SIA.
  • Implement the help system on one of their products using RPG/400.

Freelance developer

Multiple companies (Britannica Software, Edelvives), San Francisco - Madrid (1984 -1993)

Between age sixteen and the end of my studies I developed several games and educational software titles for the Apple II/IIgs North American market. These products were successfully distributed by Britannica Software, Compton’s New Media and Phillips Interactive (over 100,000 copies). I also wrote some shareware and several FoxPro applications for small companies.

Education

IPADE Business School - Executive MBA (MEDEX), 2010 - 2012


Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, Bachelor in Economics and Business Administration, 1992


K-12 Education


  • Licée René Cassin, Bayonne, France, Baccalauréat C
  • Collège Calvin, Genève, Switzerland
  • Centre d'orientation de Sécheron, Genève, Switzerland

Languages

  • Spanish (Native)
  • French (Native)
  • English (Fluent)
  • German (Conversational level)
  • Dutch (Conversational level)

Patents

• United States US 9426110 Automatic determination of additional languages used in Social Networks

Computer skills

Programming languages / Platforms / Other

Java, C/Objective-C, SQL, JavaScript/HTML, J2EE, Cocoa, XML, WebServices, BPEL

Databases

Informix, DB2

Enterprise middleware / Developer tools

WebSphere Application Server, Rational Application Developer, WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Integration Bus, IBM Process Server, Oracle J/Developer, Apache Tomcat, Apache Web Server, Eclipse

Profesional certifications

Senior Certified Software IT Architect (2008), Open Group
CISSP (November 2015)

Product certifications

  • IBM Certified Database Associate - DB2 V9 fundamentals (2007)
  • IBM Certified Solution Developer - Web Services Development with RAD (2007)
  • IBM Certified SOA Associate (2006)
  • IBM Certified System Administrator -- WebSphere Application Server V5.0. (2005)
  • IBM Certified Associate Developer -- WebSphere Studio V5.0 (2004)
  • IBM Certified for e-business - Solution Designer (2003)
  • IBM Certified Specialist - DB2 v7.1 User (2003)
  • IBM Certified Solutions Expert - DB2 UDB V7.1 Database Administration for UNIX, Linux, Windows and OS/2 (2003)
  • SUN Certified Programmer for the Java Platform (JDK 1.1) (1999)
  • Informix Dynamic Server Database Specialist (version 7.x) (1998)