Brief Biography
Ian Stanley Graham
Head, Technology and Operations Strategy and InitiativesBMO Financial Group
250 Yonge Street, 17th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5B 2M8
| Tel (W): | 416-552-4230 |
|---|---|
| Email (W): | ian DOT graham [AT] bmo DOT com |
| Email (P): | ian [AT] iangraham DOT org |
| Web: | www.iangraham.org |
| LinkedIn: | linkedin.com/pub/1/299/275 |
| Facebook: | facebook.com/p/Ian_Graham/733746020 |
I run a small consulting practice in the Technology and Operations (T&O) group of BMO Financial Group - (Bank of Montreal). Our role is to develop the T&O business strategy and to deliver key initiatives and planning work to advance that strategy and to improve T&O.
Before that I was a senior consultant in an IT Strategy and Planning group, also at BMO. My (and my team's) role was to help business and technology executives figure out how to evolve their IT environments and processes to deliver their business strategy in the most strategic, cost-effective way. My portfolio largely focused on personal and commercial banking, learning and human resources, and the business side of the technology organization, including IT and business innovation.
I began at BMO in an Emerging Business Strategies group, working with senior IT leaders to provide analysis on and build business cases for emerging business models (e.g. peer-to-peer payments, small instore bank branches, wireless / mobile banking).
Before BMO I worked at the Centre for Academic Technology of the University of Toronto (UofT), where I consulted and lectured on Internet and Instructional technologies, and occasionally actually built them. While at UofT, I co-founded Groveware Technologies, a startup focused on collaborative Web applications built on top of a custom-designed XML-based applicaon server. I ran the software and product development teams (including hiring), and the end-to-end product development lifecycle (requirements to development to testing to production to customer support). I am no longer involved with the company.
I have written eight books on Web and Internet technologies, including the international bestseller The HTML Sourcebook. From 2003-2005 I was a monthly XML technologies columnist for CPU magazine. Because of my early involvement in (and writing about) the Web I have occasionally provided advisory services to legal firms involved in Web-related patent lawsuits.
I have talked around the world on these and other topics.
I have a PhD in theoretical physics (McGill) with over 20 published research papers. Before taking on a the consulting role at UofT I worked as a research scientist at the UofT, The National Research Council's Industrial Materials Institute (Boucherville, Quebec), and the University of the Balearic Islands in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. My research focus was on nonlinear statistical mechanics, and computer simulation techniques.
Current Personal and Professional Interests
- Metrics driven business strategy alignment
- Approaches for improved software lifecycle quality and productivity
- Driving IT organizational best practices; IT innovation
- Open content, open source, and open access (e.g. Wikimedia, future models for publishing)
- Cultural impacts of emerging Web and social technologies
Other Things
- Mozilla - I've been involved with Mozilla since the early days. Here is a list of bugs I have reported that, alas, remain open.
- Hobbies - You will need to look to the hobbies page to read about them.
- My Formal Resumé / CV - with all the phrases HR recruiters love. I also have a page listing my book and academic publications.