Simon Richards | Dubai, UAE
I have spent more than 25 years helping organisations make better technology decisions and deliver complex change.
My career has taken me from application development and enterprise systems into major ERP programmes, Head of Group IT and General Manager & CTO roles — giving me experience on both the customer and vendor sides of technology delivery.
Today, through SIRICTECH, I provide fractional, interim and ad-hoc CIO, CTO and project leadership to organisations that need senior capability without permanent executive headcount.
25+ years in technology and transformation | PMP certified | Former GM & CTO | Former Head of Group IT | Dubai, UAE
I am most useful where business priorities, technology decisions and delivery reality meet.
That might mean helping an owner or leadership team establish a clearer technology direction.
It might mean challenging a vendor proposal before the organisation makes an expensive commitment.
It might mean stepping into an ERP implementation or transformation programme that needs stronger control.
Or it might simply mean providing experienced CIO or CTO-level leadership for a few days each month rather than hiring another permanent executive.
I do not operate as a traditional consulting firm with layers of account management and rotating consultants.
When you engage SIRICTECH, you work directly with me.
My career has developed across several different perspectives of enterprise technology.
That matters because technology problems rarely stay neatly inside one job description.
A strategy decision can create a delivery problem.
A technical decision can create a commercial dependency.
A programme issue can expose a governance weakness.
A vendor problem can become an executive problem very quickly.
Having worked across those boundaries, I can move comfortably between them.
I established SIRICTECH as a vehicle for technology advisory, fractional leadership and senior delivery work.
My focus is on helping organisations access experienced CIO, CTO and project / programme leadership in a flexible way — whether that means ongoing fractional support, interim leadership, a defined transformation assignment or independent executive advice.
As GM & CTO, I held executive responsibility for technology strategy and delivery across large greenfield programmes.
My remit included strategic direction, technology platforms, vendor contracts, delivery governance, operational readiness, financial management and multinational teams.
This role strengthened the executive side of my experience: balancing technology decisions with business outcomes, commercial commitments, operational risk and organisational capability.
I led group-wide technology strategy and transformation for a multinational manufacturing organisation.
A major part of the role was sponsor-side leadership of the transition from Microsoft Dynamics to cloud-based Infor M3 SaaS across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the US, alongside BI and broader technology rationalisation.
This gave me direct customer-side experience of the same type of enterprise programmes I had previously led from the software-vendor side.
I spent more than nine years with Infor / Lawson leading complex enterprise technology programmes.
My work included new implementations, upgrades, roll-outs, mobility programmes, integrations and highly modified ERP environments across industries including equipment service and rental, manufacturing, distribution, food and beverage and other asset-intensive operations.
Assignments ranged from early solution shaping and Statement of Work development through mobilisation, governance, testing, go-live and transition.
Major programmes included Zahid Group in Saudi Arabia, PON CAT in the Netherlands and global mobility delivery for Aggreko.
Earlier in my career I worked much closer to the application and operational side of technology.
My experience included WMS, BI, EPOS, SAP ERP, systems integration, application development and high-volume e-commerce environments.
That technical and application background remains useful today because it helps me understand what sits underneath executive-level technology and programme decisions.
One of the most useful things I bring to an engagement is perspective.
I have worked for a major enterprise software vendor responsible for delivering complex customer programmes.
I have also been the customer executive responsible for selecting technology, managing suppliers, controlling budgets and making sure transformation succeeds inside a live business.
And I have held broader executive responsibility where technology was only one part of the commercial and operational picture.
That means I understand the tensions that often sit between:
My role is often to help bring those perspectives back together.
I do not believe senior technology leadership needs to be made more complicated than it already is.
Before proposing a framework, product or transformation, understand what the organisation is actually trying to fix or achieve.
Important choices should have clear owners, clear reasoning and clear consequences.
Bad news does not improve with age. Sponsors need the real position while there is still time to act.
Suppliers are important delivery partners, but they should not be the only people defining the client's technology agenda.
Strategy is only useful if it can survive implementation.
Governance should improve control and decision-making, not create process for its own sake.
Where possible, I leave clients with stronger leadership, clearer governance and better ways of working rather than dependence on a consultant.
Based in: Dubai, UAE
Citizenship: UK
Residency: UAE Golden Visa
Assignments: UAE, GCC and international; remote and on-site
My experience spans:
I do not position myself as a specialist in every industry or every technology.
The value I bring is the ability to understand a complex operating environment quickly, ask the right questions and provide experienced leadership across the decisions and delivery that matter.
SIRICTECH is deliberately small.
I am not trying to recreate a large consulting firm.
The model is straightforward: clients who need senior technology or delivery leadership can engage me directly, for the period and level of support that makes sense.
That may be:
The engagement should fit the problem — not the other way around.
Business-aligned technology strategy, governance, investment prioritisation, vendor management and executive IT leadership.
Technology direction, architecture, platforms, integration, automation and senior technical decision leadership.
Senior delivery leadership for complex implementations, programme recovery, ERP, migration, cutover and operational readiness.
Specialist Project Manager / Project Director support for Infor customers and implementation partners.
If you have a technology decision, transformation or programme where senior experience would make a difference, get in touch directly.
Email: enquiries@sirictech.com
Corporate mobile: +971 52 479 4310