Hassan Syed

Hassan Syed: Bringing People, Ideas, and Solutions together

Hassan Syed's Bio:

Hassan Syed's Experience:

• Chief Executive Officer at Bir Ventures International

  September 2012 - Present | Minneapolis, MN

  Bir Ventures is a 21st century technology incubator, tapping into the power of social media and crowds, to bring new technology products and solutions to the market.

• Executive Director of Resources at Twycross Zoo

  April 2011 - September 2012 | Twycross, UK

  Direct and manage all financial plans including cash flow and forecasting, ensuring that sufficient funding is in place at all times. Direct IT strategy to ensure appropriate IT is in place to meet organisational needs in a cost effective manner and ensure availability of all business critical applications Lead the development of HR strategy and ensuring HR policies and procedures are implemented. Oversee reporting and monitoring of organizational performance metrics. Lead the preparation of Management Accounting reports and present them to CEO/Trustees/Directorial team. Manage and oversee the human resource function including but not limited to recruitment, hiring, compensation, benefits administration, professional training and development, new employee induction, retention strategies, regulatory oversight and legal compliance Oversee risk management and legal activities: letters of agreement, contracts, leases, and other legal documents and agreements

• Chief Information Officer at International Species Information System

  June 2003 - April 2011

  Spearheaded business and technology transformation initiative to improve management of animal population and care in aquariums and zoos worldwide. This initiative – Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS) realizes the vision that fundamentally changes how aquariums and zoos manage animal populations worldwide and improve lives of animals in their care. ZIMS is currently in use by 50+ aquariums and zoos worldwide. ZIMS is Software as a Service (SaaS) based product using Microsoft Stack, providing one, single, real-time, animal record on the web. ZIMS Release 1.0 was developed with an investment of ~$5M, valued at $19M by a third party assessment of total earned value.

• IT Manager at Toronto Zoo

  July 2002 - June 2003

  Initiated Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) program and introduced the business concept to the executive management. Prepared business cases with ROI projections and secured funding from the City of Toronto for the Project.

• Vice President / CIO at Xentek Corporation

  October 1996 - April 2002

  Radically transformed Xentek by adopting best project management and software development practices. This restructuring helped improve repeat business from existing customers and referrals from clients. The services revenue grew from CAD$500K to $4.5M in four years

• Client Server Specialist at Kellogg Company

  August 1995 - September 1996

  Initiated and developed once a day automated backup solution for hundreds of laptop users across Canada which resulted in better disaster recovery and reduced data losses for the users. Initiated network storage analysis tool to maximize the server storage investment.

• IT Manager at Hempel A/S

  October 1992 - July 1995

  Led development and enhancement of Quotation, Sales Order Processing (SOP), Bill of Materials (BOM), Material Requirement Planning (MRP), Production and Inventory Modules of Hempel Information Management System and its integration with accounting software which resulted in operational efficiencies throughout the organization.

• Business Systems Analyst at Softek W.L.L.

  December 1991 - September 1992

• IT Manager at Sind Agriculture Development Association

  March 1991 - August 1991

  Led the implementation of a hospital management system project and successfully implemented it ahead of schedule.

• IT Manager at Abbas Bhai Sons

  October 1989 - March 1991

  Led development of the computer financial model ($340M) for a Thermal Power Generation Unit. In-sourcing of this initiative helped saving more than $1M in consulting services.

• Developer and System Analyst at Fateh Group

  1986 - 1989

  Initiated and developed remote print and job queuing on different VAX/VMS servers which distributed the workload on multiple machines. This initiative saved an investment of $0.5M in VMS Cluster.

Hassan Syed's Education:

• University of Sindh

  1985 – 1991
  BSc

• Hyderabad Institute of Computer Science

  1984 – 1988

• Government Collage Hyderabad

• Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences

• Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro

Hassan Syed's Interests & Activities: