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Martins Untals

Date of Birth: 03.07.1981
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I have been active in science-fiction readers community for a long time. Now I have less time for that, but when I do read fiction, I always pick science-fiction.
As a second major interest, I like reading and learning about economics, psychology and mix between the two in the related fields of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics. Also I closely follow all the technology trends as well as general science topics.
And for the last couple of years, I am also deeply interested in linguistics

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SKILLS

Accomplishments

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Business analytics
Software development
Team management
Product delivery

LANGUAGES

Latvian
Native
0%
English
Proficient
0%
Russian
Proficient
0%
Estonian
Medium
0%
Lithuanian
Some
0%
Swedish
Some
0%
Arabic
Some
0%

Key Competences

SERVICES

IT Complexity Consultancy

IT Complexity Consultancy

Helping your organization to assess and manage current and planned IT complexity.

Independent Board Member

Independent Board Member

Joining your advisory board as an independent director. Providing technology and innovation oversight and advice.

Cross Industry Product Ideation

Cross Industry Product Ideation

Delivering new ideas crossing industries, approaches, and business models. Together with your team or as an independent consultancy.

Vendor Evaluation

Vendor Evaluation

Evaluating proposals, doing technical due diligence towards current and potential technology vendors.

Technical Strategy Assessment

Technical Strategy Assessment

Helping leadership team with an independent assessment of the overall strategy and the details of specific strategic initiatives

EXPERIENCE

SALARIED PROJECTS

02.2020 - now
Technical Sales in MEA region
Pre-sales consultancy, preparing sales materials, client engagement
02.2020 - now
09.2020 - 07.2021
Self-service mobile app and web portal for a Smart City initiative in MEA
various roles for different sub-projects of the larger initiative - architect, scrum master, product owner and consultant
09.2020 - 07.2021
06.2018 - 02.2020
E-Services delivery project in MEA
Product owner and delivery team lead
06.2018 - 02.2020
12.2017 - 04.2018
E-Services assessment and digitalization consultancy in MEA region
Team lead and senior consultant
12.2017 - 04.2018
03.2017 - 10.2017
Revamp of Baltic online and sales system platforms
Delivery team manager and solution architect
03.2017 - 10.2017
01.2017 - 08.2017
Introducing new B2B sales pipeline system
Project Manager
01.2017 - 08.2017
01.2016 - 03.2017
Replacement of core IT systems
Receiving organization IT manager and architect for a subset of systems
01.2016 - 03.2017
01.2016 - 10.2016
In-sourcing a large set of legacy systems
Project manager, analyst
01.2016 - 10.2016
10.2013 - 12.2015
Speeding up billing processes and restoring trust in IT
Manager
10.2013 - 12.2015
09.2010 - 10.2013
Various small projects and change requests
Team leader and scrum master
09.2010 - 10.2013
03.2010 - 11.2010
Upgrade of order management system
Business analyst, working in Amsterdam, Netherlands
03.2010 - 11.2010
08.2006 - 09.2010
Nearshoring system management services
At first a team member, and then in later phases of a project a system architect and subject matter expert
08.2006 - 09.2010
01.2003 - 07.2006
Supporting bank employees in telecommunications area
Support engineer
01.2003 - 07.2006
12.2000 - 12.2002
Several projects for the Ministry of Agriculture of Latvia
Junior Developer
12.2000 - 12.2002

PERSONAL PROJECTS

06.2020 - now
Fintech startup technical delivery
CTO, analyst and delivery team lead for ongoing intiative to build a new licensed fintech startup in retail investment space in European Union - Fundvest.
06.2020 - now
03.2020 - 08.2021
Writing a book "The Invisible Complexity"
Author - writing a book about the invisible complexity that is present in any IT landscape in any enterprise. How it causes the constant tension between the business and IT sides of the company.

Diving deep into how this hard to identify complexity is making it harder and harder over time to maintain and expand the digital infrastructure and why exactly companies end up failing their large IT projects again and again.
03.2020 - 08.2021
05.2015 - 10.2017
Construction startup technical delivery
Development lead, strategist, devops engineer, analyst for a 3D customized housing startup Creatomus.

Company is doing good, helping thousands of people to configure their custom built houses, but I am no longer actively involved .
05.2015 - 10.2017
10.2012 - 04.2014
Implementing data warehouse and ETL for retail chain
Developer, Analyst, DBA - doing a freelance project to implement and maintain data warehouse with a large number of ETL jobs to consolidate and maintain the data for a large retail chain
10.2012 - 04.2014
10.2012 - 06.2013
Sports teams management startup technical delivery
CTO, Lead developer. Spent significant effort developing sport team management service in Ruby on Rails. Startup idea failed in a very classical manner - there was a lot of code written, but zero customer validation.
10.2012 - 06.2013
05.2005 - 06.2007
Publishing a book translation
Publisher, project manager. Handling rights acquisition, translation, design and distribution.
05.2005 - 06.2007
01.2006 - 11.2006
Building social network startup
Development lead, co-founder.

We had a great ambition and a good timing (there was no Facebook yet but social networks were already hot) to copy Friendster in specific European market localizing it into under represented local language - Catalan.

But startup ended in failure as we spent all our savings on development and hosting, but had no plan for the next steps.
01.2006 - 11.2006
01.2000 - 01.2005
Developing content in MUD
hobbyist developer in the online text based adventure game called Zebedee MUD (Multi user Dungeon). Creating interactive content using C-like programming language
01.2000 - 01.2005
BA Comp Science Institute of Transport and Communications – Graphic Design, Bachelor Degree​, 2013

 

• ITIL foundation, 2011
• Certification of Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA), 2012
• Certified scrum master (CSM) and product owner (CSPO), 2013
• MongoDB for Java developers, MongoDB for NodeJs developers, 2013
• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, 2021

Coursera and other MOOC courses:
• Gamification, 2013
• Developing Innovative New Ideas for Companies, 2013
• Startup Engineering, 2013
• Introduction to Financial Accounting, 2013
• The Power of Microeconomics, 2014
• The Power of Macroeconomics, 2014
• Programming Mobile Application for Android, 2014
• Introduction to Marketing, 2014
• Introduction to Operations Management, 2014
• New Venture Finance: Startup Funding, 2014
• Beginners guide to irrational behavior, 2014
• Innovation for Entrepreneurs, 2015
• Entrepreneurship, launching innovative business, 2015
• Introduction to Corporate Finance, 2015
• Competitive Strategy, 2016
• Machine Learning Foundations, 2017
• The properties of human language, 2017
• Agile Planning for Software Products, 2020
• Agile Meets Design Thinking, 2020
• Managing an Agile Team, 2020

CONTACT ME

Phone

+971 588811840

E-mail

martins.untals@gmail.com

Location

Dubai, United Arab Emirates