Business Analysis and Systems team

Bill Aitken

Head of Business Systems Development

• E-mail: bill.aitken@qa.com
• Personal blog

Bill Aitken is Head of Business Systems Development at QA. This role provides business direction and ownership of QA’s Business Analysis, Systems Development, Software Testing and Enterprise Architecture curricula. Bill is an experienced lecturer, author, speaker and consultant, having delivered programmes and course in all industry sectors. This extensive hands-on experience coupled with a background in education has made him well-known and highly respected in his field. Bill is a State-qualified teacher and Chartered IT Professional and has successfully undertaken training and consultancy to hundreds of learners. He currently works with a team of highly experienced lecturers and consultants helping organisations excel in all Business Systems Development.

Ed Walters

Principal Lecturer/Consultant

• E-mail: ed.walters@qa.com

Ed Walters is an experienced business systems development consultant and trainer, with a background in development for a variety of industries, both in the UK and overseas. Ed’s industrial experience covers work both as a systems analyst and as a business analyst in which roles he has been concerned with creating and maintaining major software applications. Recently, Ed has been working as a trainer in business systems development subjects, whilst also undertaking coaching and mentoring assignments for business analysis teams within major corporate accounts.

Ellis Bell

Senior Lecturer/Consultant

• E-mail: ellis.bell@qa.com

Ellis has been an educator for over twenty-five years and has spent some eighteen of them in IT. His focus is on Business Analysis, although he is also qualified in Enterprise and Solutions Architecture and an accredited SDI Instructor (psychometric tool). He specialises in the delivery of bespoke Business Analysis learning solutions to a range of industries and with a particular leaning towards soft skills and process/function/data modelling. Ellis has also led the development and delivery of QA Virtual’s Business Analysis courses. Above all, Ellis is rated by delegates as both engaging and approachable.

John Coleshaw

Senior Learning Consultant

• E-mail: john.coleshaw@qa.com

John Coleshaw looks after the Enterprise and Solution Architecture courses offered by QA. This includes TOGAF, BCS and shortly ArchiMate. He has been active in this line of training since 2002 which puts him very much in the vanguard of trainers in this dynamic, but immature discipline. Over the years he’s met many hundreds of architects, from senior to junior, and provided training to many of the largest organisations in the UK. He is an author on the subject, and contributor to various frameworks and reference models. Before entering the training environment, John spent many years in industry and commerce, during which time he was involved in architecting insurance, credit risk analysis and financial information systems. He is an early adopter of technologies – internet-based systems in the early 90s; expert systems in the late 80s; object-oriented design and development at about the same time.

Liz Magem

Principal Lecturer

• E-mail: liz.magem@qa.com

Liz Magem is an experienced business systems developer and trainer, with a background in the UK in public and private sector organisations. Liz’s industrial experience includes working as a systems analyst and a business analyst on a variety of major projects. While working for a large financial organisation Liz was responsible for the delivery of the ISEB systems analysis diploma to their graduate employees. Currently Liz delivers modules from the Solution Development and Business Analysis Diplomas, is an exam marker and is responsible for the development of two modules

Namir Sabbagh

Senior Learning Consultant

• E-mail: namir.sabbagh@qa.com

Namir is a highly experienced trainer in the field of Software Testing, Enterprise and Solution Architecture, TOGAF, as well as Project Management (Prince2) courses. Namir graduated as an Electronic Engineer back in 1986 and was a lecturer and freelance developer during his Masters degree in London. He later joined one of the largest IT training companies as a Principal consultant in C, C++, Cobol, Java & C# as well as networking, systems design/development & testing. He was responsible for the development of a number of technical training courses. In 2002, he went on to become the Data Protection Officer, IT Manager, Facilitates Manager & Purchasing Manager, before going back to training in 2007. Namir joined QA in mid 2010 as a Senior Learning Consultant, responsible for QA’s Software Testing portfolio.

Trevor Mirams

Principal Lecturer/Consultant

• E-mail: trevor.mirams@qa.com

Trevor has a long background (over 40 years) in IT and has been a trainer for 18 of the last 24 years covering Business Systems Development, ITIL and Project Management, especially PRINCE2. His focus at QA is primarily training BCS Business Systems Development for which he is also a registered examiner, but he is also still involved with PRINCE2 and was one of the first people to be awarded the PRINCE2 Professional qualification.

Eric Smith

Principle Lecturer/Consultant

Eric is a highly experienced business system developer, lecturer and consultant with over 30 years experience, operating in scientific, industrial and business environments. The majority of Eric’s experience, over 20 years, was gained with organisations within the business world, mainly companies in the financial sector although he has also been involved with retail and the public sector. The activities that Eric has been involved in range from the detailed development of IT infrastructure components to the creation of multi-million pound business cases. Currently Eric delivers modules from Business Analysis Diploma, is an exam marker and contributes to the development of business analysis course material.

Leigh Davies

Senior Principal Lecturer/Consultant

Leigh is both a highly skilled educator and business analyst having started his career as a design & technology teacher before becoming an education officer in the Royal Air Force teaching electronics. He was then selected for specialist IT training and became a programmer and systems analyst. Having been well trained in software engineering and methods Leigh joined a global consultancy firm helping its clients in banking, insurance, retail and car manufacturing to develop their systems. After several years of travelling Leigh was appointed as Head of Business Analysis to a UK based Foreign Exchange Company where, for ten years, he managed a team of sixteen BAs deliver systems to support currency trading, call centres and anti-money laundering compliance. Leigh’s career has now turned full circle, joining QA in 2007 as the Senior Principal Lecturer/Consultant to help develop and deliver the range of courses that comprise QA’s business analysis portfolio.

Sue Bailey

Senior Learning Consultant

• Personal blog

Sue Bailey has worked purely in IT for her entire career, and until joining QA as a professional trainer was a project manager working for a major insurance company. She was heavily involved in introducing CMM and CMMI to the IT development teams, delivering training to IT staff in the improved procedures and a member of the process improvement team. She worked with James Martin on one of the 1st CASE developments whilst working in a manufacturing company and did see code being delivered as one of the outputs. She has project, programme and test management experience along with all areas of systems development (programming, systems analysis, tester and methods expert).