Kenneth Blanck
Head of IT Infrastructure | GTU Japan & IMETA
Zushi,Shinjuku
Summary
- 25 years of IT Infrastructure & Service Delivery experience holding senior leadership roles at various Global Fortune-500 companies that cover the following areas:
- Developing extensive IT infrastructure road maps aimed to drive down infrastructure budgets and improve TCO's
- Designing and developing of IT Service Management policy and guidelines around Incident/Problem/Change/Configuration Management disciplines
- Leading large scape multi-million dollar IT infrastructure projects that includes Production/DR Data Center builds and migration, Campus LAN Remote User Office builds, Global WAN MPLS solution designing and builds, and Multi-Cloud infrastructure designing, implementation, and service migration to name a few.
- Managing IT network infrastructure operations and service delivery functions that cover over $30 million USD IT budgets centered around the management of infrastructure hardware, software license, maintenance, and outsource service contract agreements
- Extensive experience around building high performance teams
- Providing high touch infrastructure support towards business application development teams during critical business impacting IT incidents
- Providing deep infrastructure support towards FSA and Internal/External Audit inspections
- Acting as an enterprise infrastructure architect providing design and blueprints around core to edge networking, security infrastructure components, and compute/storage/endpoint infrastructure elements aimed for public and private cloud infrastructure environments
- Performing extensive cloud infrastructure assessments around AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle cloud environments
- Strong leader and problem-solver dedicated to streamlining operations to decrease costs and promote organizational efficiency. Uses independent decision-making skills and sound judgment to positively impact company success
- Results-oriented achiever with proven ability to exceed targets and drive success in fast-paced environments. Combines strategic thinking with hands-on experience to deliver impactful solutions and enhance organizational performance
- Troubleshooting complex infrastructure application performance issues and finding viable low-cost solutions to resolve User Experience issues that impact business productivity
Overview
25
25
years of professional experience
4
4
Certificates
Work History
Head of IT Infrastructure | GTU Japan & IMETA
Nippon Boehringer Ingelhem
Tokyo, Japan
01.2025 - Current
- Accountable for all IT Infrastructure for Boehringer Ingelheim Japan and IMETA APAC regions while overseeing infrastructure management.
- Focusing on Operational Excellence and Business engagement for Human Pharma and Animal Health business units, ensuring continuity of IT operations, coordination of BI business demand, and providing end-user support in collaborating across the broader Global IT Infrastructure and IT teams.
- Conduct periodic audits of infrastructure hardware inventory to ensure proper asset management across the organization''s technology infrastructure.
- Coordinated large-scale technology migrations while minimizing disruption while enhancing overall system capabilities - e.g. rollout of iPad in replacement of PC for Human Pharma SalesForce users
- Enhanced IT infrastructure by implementing strategic technology upgrades and streamlining system processes.
- Troubleshoot complex Citrix VDI application performance issues on iPad devices, isolating network connectivity problems, while conducting a thorough PoC to propose new low cost CASB/VPN solution to improve User Experience productivity issues.
- Optimized existing systems through regular evaluations, making necessary adjustments to improve functionality and user experience.
- Perform DR and BCP testing of Manufacturing Plant IT infrastructure.
Global Head of Network Services (Director)
Olympus Corporation
Tokyo, Japan
11.2021 - Current
- Accountable for all architecture, design, and implementation of IT Infrastructure and Service Delivery for Network Services (Data/Voice) globally for Olympus entities that include the Americas, EMEA, China/Asia-Pacific, and Japan regions
- Managing a team of 8 network/security architects, 4 network deployment engineers, and 2 project managers while having in-direct reports of 20+ network engineers across the Olympus regions
- Act as a Level-3 escalation SME for Olympus regional infrastructure teams and troubleshoot network performance issues (Wireless LAN, private cloud hosted SaaS application access, on-prem hosted security authentication issues, etc.)
- Provide vendor management discipline towards existing Olympus outsource MSP's (Managed Service Providers) managing their service quality against operational issues to project delivery
- Assess and analyze existing Olympus AS-IS network infrastructure from on-prem data centers, remote branch office, private IaaS/SaaS cloud computing environments, and security systems globally
- Evaluate technology and market trends leveraging best practices around network/security infrastructure architecture - e.g
- Multi-Cloud Infrastructure leveraging Equinix data center facilities, public/private cloud computing service providers (AWS/Azure/Oracle/GCP), networking solutions (SASE/SD-WAN, Zero Trust Architecture)
- Developed a comprehensive IT network infrastructure roadmap that focused on infrastructure transformation centered around Hybrid Multi-Cloud infrastructure leveraging Equinix facilities and services (Equinix Fabric, Bare Metal servers) aimed to improve better end-user experience and support Olympus cloud strategy in moving on-prem workloads to the private/public cloud while utilizing on-demand network access and services (Network Edge).
Head of Infrastructure Architect (Senior Manager)
Coca Cola Bottlers Japan Inc.
Tokyo, Japan
12.2020 - 10.2021
- Accountable for leading a small team of 2 full-time infrastructure analysts/engineers
- Responsible for designing and implementing Coca Cola Bottlers Japan information systems to fit with business’ enterprise infrastructure and initiatives
- Evaluate technology, market trends and industry best practices on pertaining to infrastructure architecture – e.g
- Mobile technology, public/private cloud computing, networking solutions (SASE, SD-WAN, Zero Trust Architecture)
- Promote organization architecture process and results to Coca Cola Bottlers Japan business leaders to develop IT infrastructure solutions
- Collaborate with internal infrastructure and security operations teams to fit infrastructure architecture assignments and identify need to modify infrastructure architecture to attain to project requirements
- Assess and analyze existing AS-IS infrastructure environment from network, cloud computing, and security systems
- Developed a comprehensive IT infrastructure roadmap that focused on end-to-end infrastructure transformation centered around a simplified Multi-Cloud architecture & IT Landscape enabling better end-user experience to cloud hosted workloads utilizing on-demand network access and network services (Network Edge) to public/private cloud providers (AWS/GCP/Azure/IBM) with embedded DR/BCP readiness through regional network access, & on-demand compute resources that provides integrated infrastructure backup/storage & security policies
- Managing work delivery under an Agile Methodology – Scrum, Sprint Review, and Retrospective.
Head of Network Services Japan (Director)
Mizuho Securities Co., Ltd.
03.2017 - 11.2020
- Accountable for leading a team of 10 full-time staff and 35 onsite vendor resources
- Supporting a Japan user base of approximately 11,000 across 160 site locations
- 2 data centers, 1 exchange co-location, 5 headquarter offices, 300+ branch offices
- Manage voice services & operations in addition to Trading Floor Dealer Board systems
- Cisco IP Telephony infrastructure
- Call Centre and voice recording infrastructure
- Delivering business solutions for low latency electronic trading network environments
- TSE/OSE exchanges for DMA & HFT Order/Execution
- Price Feed systems for prop trading & client execution platforms
- Liaise with the Global Markets & Equities business on designing client connectivity requirements
- Dark pool & FIX client needs for “client on-boarding” to Mizuho’s production trading platforms
- Manage client on-boarding through B2B 3rd party network service providers for FIX connectivity
- Radianz, TNS, Colt, IPC, and Reuters
- Provide remote network support & consultation
- Mizuho Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Shanghai, London, and United States regions
- Managing over 30 network vendors (legacy Japanese vendors)
- Lead Operational Excellence Program (Global Markets & Equities business) to reduced IT costs
- Performed a lead role from IT Infrastructure focused on network and market data services cost reduction initiatives.
Director of Network Services
American International Group K.K. (AIG)
Tokyo, Japan
01.2014 - 02.2017
- Leading a team of 55 staff across 7 teams supporting the 15,000 Japan user based: AIG Japan Group business entities P&C (Property & Causality)
- Life Insurance business (AIU/Fuji Fire Marine/AIG Fuji Life Insurance/Fuji Insurance Service/Tech Mark/AIG Business Partners KK)
- Transformed a legacy local operating Data/Voice Network Team into strategic functional teams
- Data/Security Network Engineering Team - Data/Security Network Service Delivery
- Voice Network Engineering Team - Voice Network Service Delivery
- Network Business Office - Technical Project Management
- Completed year-long Transformation Initiative: Offshore all Network Operations Data/Voice L1 and operational tasks to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Alignment of strategic partners & vendors for support according to the Global Network Organization
- Replacing legacy local vendors with Global partners: Dimension Data, Verizon, NTT Group Services – Data/Communications
- Transforming the legacy operating model to global standards and best practices for Data/Voice services
- Completed POC for Voice CTI Adaptor Middleware Services for Simpli-CTI (Converge One product)
- Later became a Global Standard CTI service offering for AIG
- Project for Network Operations & Stability to lock down access on production network devices
- Apply Governance around software/hardware EOS/EOL through a Tools & Automation practice.
Vice President of Global Technology & Service Ops
Deutsche Bank Group
Tokyo, Japan
07.2010 - 12.2013
- Leading a team of 5 engineers in supporting the 4 Deutsche Bank business entities for Tokyo/Japan
- Extensive vendor management of network & Data Centre service providers: Dimension Data, NTT Communications, KDDI, BT Radianz, TNS, KVH, Equinix, TEPCO AT Tokyo, Arista Networks, Cisco Systems, Corvil, NetScout Systems
- Responsible for delivering business solutions for ultra-low latency network solutions for the TSE/OSE exchanges for DMA & HFT Order/Execution and Price Feed systems as well as the FX (Foreign Exchange) market data exchanges for spot trading & pricing feeds
- Liaise with business Japanese market clients directly on face-to-face interaction & market the bank’s FX platform/infrastructure while design solutions for cross-connect & connectivity to the bank’s co-location venue platform in part of “client on-boarding” to production platforms
- Supporting B-2-B 3rd party FIX connectivity with broker/clients whom demands are to connect to DB via 3rd party extranet service providers such as Radianz or TNS
- Maintaining and supporting of DB Tokyo’s primary data center, DR data center, BCP user office sites
- Supporting Front Office trading applications located at TSE/OSE co-location sites
- Maintaining & managing of DB Tokyo’s data network budget and spending plan aligning to global organization cost spend initiatives
- Maintaining DB Tokyo’s network systems keeping them up to date and being compliant to the Tech Refresh global standards for hardware/software platforms
- Designing of “cost effective” low latency & cutting edge networks
- Designing of the bank’s Production & BCP Data Centre structured cabling infrastructure.
Business Technology Infrastructure (Senior Mgr.)
Pfizer Japan, Inc.
Tokyo, Japan
05.2008 - 06.2010
- Service delivery in infrastructure department for support for Japan sub-region in Asia Pacific
- Network compliance, qualification, and standardization within the sub-region of Japan
- Executing and complying with ITIL framework for service delivery and service support processes
- Manage the availability of the production network on 24x7x365
- Leveraging internal Global Teams
- Internal/external security audits to represent the service for networks in compliant with SOX
- Manages the Japan sub-region network budget and forecasts on future projects Cap-Ex spending
- Data Centre Operations/Management and HQ & BCP office
- Built Pfizer’s Production Data Centre ground up (over 100+ racks)
- Structured cabling plant for Fiber MDF & Copper UTP Cat-6A cabling providing connectivity from network infrastructure equipment to server/storage rack space.
Head of Network and IT Security (Senior Manager)
Hartford Life Insurance K.K.
Tokyo, Japan
10.2007 - 03.2008
- Responsible for leading and managing a Network Team of 3 members
- Data Center and HQ Office Relocation Projects
- Designing IP networks
- Introducing the company’s first BGP internet Active/Active design
- Provide operational support to the company’s network
- Troubleshooting complex issues to Layer-1
- Liaison between different technology departments supporting mission critical applications
- Built Hartford Japan’s Production & BCP data center (100+ racks)
- Managed a full data center migration of production & BCP network/storage infrastructure platforms.
Assistant Vice President of Network Operations
Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co., Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan
11.2003 - 09.2007
- Provide remote support for Data and Voice Networks throughout the Asia Pacific branch offices
- Design, implemented, and project managed various data networks infrastructures
- Leading the Japan Network Operations team of 10–15
- Vendor management for business negotiations and support contracts
- Oversaw daily network operations from a Network Operations Center
- Provide executive-level support to Vice President of Technology and three direct reports
- Liaison between different technology departments supporting the mission critical company network
- Built Merrill Lynch’s Production & BCP Data Centers from the ground up (250+ racks per Data Center)
- Designed the bank’s structured cabling infrastructure for Fibre MDF & Copper UTP cabling.
Data Network Consultant /Network Operations Engineer
Datacraft Japan Co., Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan
09.2000 - 11.2003
- Bilingual support both local Japanese client networks as well as global Multi-National client networks
- Provide technical expertise & consultation in terms of network design, platform/product selection, platform configuration, and troubleshooting network issues
- Certified Network Engineer: Designing, implemented, and managed various client customer networks
- Design support & implementation of corporate network infrastructure for remote monitoring
- Major MNC accounts included: Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, AXA, Zurich, AIG, ING, Morgan Stanley.
Skills
Business Development
Story pitching
Operations management
Negotiation
Project Management
Business planning
Staff Development
Staff Management
Strategic planning
Contract Management
Business administration
Issues resolution
Financial Management
Strategies and goals
Budgeting
Verbal and written communication
Recruitment
Staff training/development
Coaching and mentoring
Employee reviews
Relationship building
Inventory management
Effective leader
Product development
Training
- 2013 ITIL version 3.0
- 2013 Six Sigma - Yellow & Intro to Black Belt
- 2013 IHP - Intellectual High Performance
Languages
English
Bilingual or Proficient (C2)
Japanese
Bilingual or Proficient (C2)
Certification
MCSE
Timeline
Head of IT Infrastructure | GTU Japan & IMETA
Nippon Boehringer Ingelhem
01.2025 - Current
Global Head of Network Services (Director)
Olympus Corporation
11.2021 - Current
Head of Infrastructure Architect (Senior Manager)
Coca Cola Bottlers Japan Inc.
12.2020 - 10.2021
Head of Network Services Japan (Director)
Mizuho Securities Co., Ltd.
03.2017 - 11.2020
Director of Network Services
American International Group K.K. (AIG)
01.2014 - 02.2017
Vice President of Global Technology & Service Ops
Deutsche Bank Group
07.2010 - 12.2013
Business Technology Infrastructure (Senior Mgr.)
Pfizer Japan, Inc.
05.2008 - 06.2010
Head of Network and IT Security (Senior Manager)
Hartford Life Insurance K.K.
10.2007 - 03.2008
CCIE - Routing/Switching (Written)
09-2005
CCNP - Routing/Switching/Security
07-2005
Assistant Vice President of Network Operations
Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co., Ltd.
11.2003 - 09.2007
CCNA
07-2001
Data Network Consultant /Network Operations Engineer
Datacraft Japan Co., Ltd.
09.2000 - 11.2003
MCSE
03-2000