Curriculum Vitae:

HOWARD BRIAN SELFE

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS

University of the Witwatersrand | South Africa
Wits is in the top 1% in the world amongst 25 000 universities and a leading university in Africa in all global rankings.

• Bachelor of Science (Applied Maths) (Honours) | Bachelor of Science (Computer Science / Applied Maths)
• Certificates of First Class | Physics, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics
• Certificate of Merit | Applied Mathematics, General Earth Science
• Scholarships | WITS University Senior Bursary
• Other Awards | Chamber of Mines Award for outstanding achievement

MICROSOFT CERTIFICATIONS 

• Certified MS Professional: Data Science
• Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Power BI
• Analytics Storytelling for Impact
• Ethics and Law in Data and Analytics
• Querying Data with Transact-SQL
• Python for Data Science
• Essential Maths for Machine Learning: Python Edition
• Data Science Research Methods: Python Edition
• Principles of Machine Learning: Python Edition
• Implementing Predictive Analytics with Spark in Azure HDInsight

RECENT PROJECTS AND KNOWLEDGE EXPANSION

• Recent courses in Google Cloud Platform | BigQuery | Power BI | DAX | Tableau | Python | Django | Data Science | Machine Learning | Apache Spark | Elasticsearch | Azure Machine Learning
• Recent projects completed in Power BI | DAX | Azure ML | SharePoint | PowerApps | Flow | Python | Django | VBA | ML | Facial, gender and age recognition

TOP-RATED & TOP-RATED PLUS UPWORK CONSULTANT : 2012 – 2023

I have Top Rated status on Upwork and I rated in the top 10% for Excel, and scored second place overall in the Upwork readiness tests. Furthermore, I have 100% Job Success Score on Upwork after 56 jobs and 10 years on the platform.I have excellent people skills, a proven track record in effective project management, the ability to work in an unstructured environment and be self-motivated, good relationship building skills and excellent writing skills. Furthermore, I have more than 20 years of experience in real world analysis and application development. Some recent projects include:

• Ongoing Projects
  • Power BI, DAX, Excel, Tableau and Python analysis and visualization
  • VBA XML, Java, SQL, SQL Server as well as database design and implementation 
  • Python, Knime, Trello, Basecamp, GIT
  • HTML, PHP, DHTML, VBScript, JavaScript, SQL, Version control (eg, Subversion), various software development architectures (eg, OO, MVC).
• JAN 2018-2023 (Ongoing) Django, Vue, MQ, AWS This ongoing project in the medical space involves a data pipeline, AI and ML and a UI showing data in real-time. 
• JAN 2018-2023 (Ongoing) BI & Automation | PowerApps, Power Automate, SharePoint This ongoing project involves creating a new service around supporting Power BI, Tableau and Domo. The project is complex in terms of number of stakeholders and independencies with other efforts. 
• AUG-SEP 2019 Python | Plotly | Dash An incredibly interesting job, we are writing an integrated predictor system for valuation of real-time streaming data from a live source.
• JAN-SEP 2019 Machine Learning | Facial recognition | Gender and age segmentation | Python | Plotly I am currently working on a POC for a customer segmentation algorithm incorporating facial recognition, gender and age analysis and Plotly visualizations for a high end vehicle company.
• JAN-SEP 2018 Data science | Python | Pandas | Excel | Data analysis In a recent project completed for a NY-based insurance company, I used Python pandas and a data injection method (integrated seamlessly into Excel) to reduce the run-time of 1,000 cash-flow scenarios from 8 seconds per case to around 2.8 seconds per case, a significant run-time saving. The client was very pleased with the result. 
• JAN-SEP 2017 Web Development | jquery, excel-vba, json, php, mysql-programming Modular enhancements to a credit check system for one of the biggest credit verification services in Australia. This project required extensive knowledge of macros, finance, mathematics, VBA, Excel, Access, PHP, JSON, MySQL, Ajax, database schemas, reporting, the principles of project management and so on.
• JAN-AUG 2017 Desktop Software Development | microsoft-access, financial-modeling, business-analysis, excel-vba
  This was a project to produce software which calculates a portfolio of funds with different financial products (funds, stocks, bonds, FX, options). We used Access to store the product parameters and the trades, and all the calculation are made in VBA under Excel and then displayed in Excel. Live interaction with Reuters provides pricing for the model.
• JAN – JUN 2017 Web Development jquery, php, excel-vba, microsoft-excel
  My client had the requirement to produce a desktop and web calculator for advanced reverse mortgage financial analysis. I built calculators both in Excel (with VBA) and online via PHP, JQuery.
• MAY 2016 Web Development
  Analysis and creation of a functional requirement specification for a potential online financial and business planning concept.

INSITE SOLUTIONS : 2002 - 2012

In October 2002 Insite Solutions was established to formalise the partnership between M Wolfaardt and myself and to provide a node in a network of colleagues nationwide providing a broad IT service, from business analysis and solution design to web marketing. Projects have included:

• Access development for a comprehensive asbestos sample analysis database for Clearsafe Environmental Solutions, Australia.
• Project Management for a Silverstripe development project for safety instruction and checklisting on behalf of Sprout Labs, Tasmania.
• Silverstripe development for the My Money Calculator online web initiative, Australia.
• In-depth independent analysis, commissioned by Gavin Hartford, of the technological component of a Johannesburg-based business venture involving the integration of information pertaining to employees, payroll and various service providers.
• Statistical analysis for Phumelela Gaming Ltd of a “pick-six”-like game based on the NSL.
• A large suite of websites including Flash-based, graphics-intensive, CMS development., ecommerce sites
• Coronation FORMs, A highly technical and fairly comprehensive financial instrument risk management system written in VBA (employing Access and Excel) along with a financial analysis library called Financial CAD, in a seamless business solution used for years in assisting to manage the portfolios of Coronation Capital. Capable of complex risk analysis of 9 major financial instruments such as Caps/Floors, Swaps, Fixed Loans and Swaptions.
• TOTAL Fuel Centre Management System (TFC), an Access database providing a legally required alternative to TOTAL-supplied forecourt management software. TFC allows a forecourt manager to track daily sales and receipts of fuel and diesel and to do complex Access reporting for their records.
• MNET Scheduler, Software to allow the satellite TV company MNET to define and manage their programme schedules and hence their advertiser space and fees. In addition, the system uses Access information to automatically generate a colour coded programme schedule in MS Excel.
• JCCI member database, a database package written entirely in Visual Basic allowing the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce to distribute information concerning their member companies (in excess of 1000 members). The software is capable of importing data from older dbases and ‘cleaning’ it before arraying it into an Access database with full user interface as well as search and sort functionality.

Prior to forming Insite Solutions, I was a programming consultant for the R&D department, Liberty Life, Gauteng.

Languages

English and Afrikaans

References

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Client Feedback (Inter Alia)

• Fantastic, looking forward to working with Howard more in the future. Highly recommend him and his ability to think through the application and resolve potential problems up front. He acts more as a business partner in how he deals with you than any other service provider I've had.
• Howard is great to work with. He understood the project well, had terrific communication and response time, and delivered a high-quality end product. I will definitely use Howard in the future.
• I had various Data Queries to produce, but many of the queries were undefined. Howard not only help write the queries, but he helped analyze and breakdown the query qualifications. In many cases, long before I shared the next steps.
• Howard was an absolute pleasure to work with. Projects were done in a timely fashion with excellent communication.
• Howard was an absolute pleasure to work with. He knew the requirements of the project precisely (and communicated them well), understood the technical complexities that arose, and was accommodating with regard to timelines. I would very much like to work with him again.
• Howard’s work products were of the highest quality we could expect – very well designed, specified, built, tested and deployed all within time and on budget.
• His strengths include:
  • Ability to engage with client and understand business needs and objectives
  • Ability to translate those objectives into defining and designing the data views and visualization that would best support those outcomes.
  • Expertise in data manipulation, building complex queries and creating compelling visualizations.
  • Strength in explaining, guiding, mentoring and coaching our junior team members so that they could develop similar dashboards going forward.
• Howard excels in relationship building. He has a very engaging and personable demeanor, displays great patience, countermeasures and professionalism in all his engagement at various levels:
  • Junior – demonstrated great patience and respect with our junior team, taking time to coach and mentor them and support them in developing skills
  • Peer level – strong ability to understand various stakeholders, their concerns and to communicate with them in a language they can understand
  • More senior – very professional, dependable building strong relationships through focussed attention and commitment to excellent delivery
• Howard adopts a consultative approach, allowing for input and various points of view. He is adept at getting input from all stakeholders and creates an environment where people feel safe to question and contribute. He brings a calm self assuredness which allows the team to feel at ease and perform at their best.
• Howard plans well and sets expectations upfront. Where requirements are not clear or vague he provides conservative estimates to manage expectations and ensure that he rather delivers on time than over promising. When project change impacts time lines, Howard displays a very calm and re-assuring demeanor. He understand an impact of delays and adapts his approach to ensure that outcomes can still be achieved without compromising quality. He always make you feel assured that things will get done . He displays great personal accountability to ensure outcomes are achieve regardless of delays or obstacles.
• Howard is an absolute pleasure to work with and I would welcome him back on a project without a seconds consideration. He is very pleasant to deal with, very respectful, extremely talented and capable and always takes personal accountability to ensure quality delivery. He would be an asset to any organisation.

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