Shamim Akhtar

Shamim Akhtar’s Resume

Mendham, NJ | Phone (646) 239-1054 | Email: shamim316@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamimakhtar/

Technology executive with a record of modernizing network infrastructure and hardening security for organizations operating at global scale. Excels at building high-performing engineering teams, driving down operational costs, and delivering enterprise architecture. Turning complex infrastructure challenges into competitive advantages and aligning executive vision with technical execution.

Education

Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering

2002 – 2006

Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken NJ

Certifications

  • ITIL v4 Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management 2025 – 2028
  • Lean Six Sigma White Belt Certification 2025
  • Oracle Cloud Foundations Associate 2025 – 2027

Work Experience

Director of Network Engineering   

iconectiv, Bridgewater NJ 

2017 – 2021 and 2022 to Current

iconectiv is a telecommunications services company. Products include call routing, telephone number porting, and telecommunication security services at scale. The position reports to the Senior Director of IT and manages network, security and data center engineering and operations.

  • Lead the Network Engineering team to adopt automation, enhance processes, and align with business priorities.  
  • Developed 5-year technology roadmaps and managed a $5M budget covering Capex and Opex
  • Achieved 25% reduction in operational costs through strategic vendor management and technical architecture enhancements
  • Enhanced network and application performance at scale to support 2 Billion users and 5,000 customers
  • Implemented comprehensive cybersecurity strategies and disaster recovery plans following CISA and NIST Standards, reduced attack surface and ensured 99.99% system uptime
Spearhead strategic IT projects including SASE, SDN, and SD-WAN.  
  • Redesigned network architecture following TOGAF principles, NIST, ISO 27001, and CISA standards 
  • Led initiatives to improve employee technology experience, optimizing SASE deployment, integrating Zero Trust framework, resulting in a 20% increase in user satisfaction scores.
  • Redesigned a secure network edge by migrating from Cisco to Palo Alto firewalls and implemented Identity based Zero-Trust framework and SASE design using Prisma Access and Threat, Wildfire, DNS and URL filtering. Led the vendor comparison with Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto and Zscaler products
  • Designed and deployed hardware and virtual f5 BigIP load balancer and WAF to secure HTTPS and API products. Utilized LTM, AFM, and ASM modules to secure customer applications. 
  • Reduced go-to-market for a new product by spearheading new product deployment in multi-cloud environment using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Oracle Cloud (OCI) 
  • Security upgrades for the network by implementing Okta MFA, identity-based AAA services using Cisco ISE, Umbrella DNS and URL filtering. Architected staff and guest wireless using 802.1x, Identity Services Engine (Cisco ISE) and WLC’s configured in HA

1010data (part of SymphonyAI), New York NY 

01/2021 – 02/2022

Director of Technical Operations

1010data offers SaaS based high performance data analytics platform to financial and retail CPG customers. The position operated in a start-up environment and was responsible for Site Reliability, DevOps and NOC teams. Responsible for infrastructure architecture, engineering and operations for cloud, and datacenter.

Led infrastructure engineering, and technical operations teams. Supported 24×7 operations using a global follow-the-sun model with teams based in Europe, Hawaii, and US East and West coasts. 
  • Built Data Center Modernization roadmap following Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) principles. Planned for Software and Hardware Lifecycle Management, distributed storage (vSAN), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) using Equinix Cloud Exchange, and Infrastructure as Code (IAC) philosophy.  
  • Enhanced security posture with micro-segmentation for securing internal traffic. Partnered with multiple teams to implement zero trust model with RBAC for employees and contractors.  
  • Evangelized infrastructure best practices by promoting automation, adoption of monitoring dashboards, and run books. Encouraged use of Terraform and Ansible for building infrastructure and Puppet for configuration management. Incorporated CI/CD pipeline and Agile methodologies for best practices. Promoted use of Jira for project planning, sprints and reducing time to market of new features.  
  • Introduced cultural change within the department with training, staff empowerment, and supporting team decision making. Encouraged use of KPI and supporting metrics to make technical decisions.

Equinox, New York NY  

2015 – 2017

Senior Manager Network and Telecom

Equinox is a luxury fitness company operating five separate fitness brands. The position manages network and telecom engineering and reporting to the Senior Director of IT Infrastructure.

Direct and oversee Network, Security and Telecom policy of Equinox and administer and manage IT Infrastructure and Application performance. Manage architecture, engineering and operations teams consisting of employees, vendors, and partners.
  • Partner with executive management on annual budget and determine Capex/Opex spend plan. 
  • Develop the engineering team by recommending technical training sessions, and by empowering individual members to make independent decisions and take ownership of project lifecycle. 
  • Manage router, switch, firewall hardware lifecycle project for 90 locations. 
  • Lead VoIP rollout across the organization – moving from legacy PBX systems to Microsoft Lync. 
  • Architected Cisco Wireless solution using 802.1x, ISE and Prime Infrastructure and 8540 Controllers 
  • Implemented Zscalar Internet Access for secure internet access for remote users

Express Scripts, Franklin Lakes NJ

2014 – 2015

Senior Manager – IT Engineering (Network Infrastructure)

Express Scripts provides integrated pharmacy benefit management services and patient-care services. This is a hands-on manager position reporting to the Senior Director of IT Engineering (Infrastructure) and manages network, security and datacenter operations teams.

Managed 12 member Network Operations Center and 4 member Datacenter Support teams.
  • NOC provides 24×7 network monitoring across the organization and subsidiaries, responds to network events, implements changes and manages performance based on SLA’s.
  • Responsibilities of the position cover a variety of network hardware and tools including: Cisco routers from ASR 9K at Datacenters to Cisco 2851 at branch offices, Cisco switches from Nexus 7K at DC to 6509 and 3750 (stack) at remote sites, F5 Big IP load balancers, ASA and Checkpoint firewalls, Cisco Prime for wireless controller and AP management, SNMP based Solarwinds NMS, StealthWatch Netflow aggregator, Infoblox NetMRI configuration management and Grid Manager for IPAM and DNS/DHCP management.
  • Responsible for infrastructure performance, reliability and availability, production datacenter support and act as 24×7 on-call escalation manager.
  • Review and improve department policies and SOP’s by enhancing workflow for incident response, trouble and recovery trees, escalation procedures, network operations metrics and monitoring procedures.
  • Streamline network operations and improve SLA by cross training team members and encouraging collaborative projects with network architecture and security peer groups and review network standards.
  • Align team focus to reflect business objectives on efficient problem resolution.
  • Communicate regularly with internal and external business groups and vendors to ensure infrastructure meets expectations and review performance, outages and repair activities.
  • Implement policies to encourage personal and professional development of staff including building professional confidence and reward for outstanding performance.
  • Determine required staffing level, conduct interviews and set up onboarding for new employees and contractors with appropriate training and conduct performance reviews.

Outfront Media (CBS Outdoor), New York NY

2010 – 2014

Manager of Network Engineering

CBS Outdoor, which until recently was a Division of CBS Corporation, provides out of home advertising using digital billboards, transit displays and other media formats. Reporting to the VP of IT, the position focused on business objectives to expand and support digital advertising network, corporate LAN, WAN and Datacenter.

Managed team of network engineers to support a network environment for 2,000 users in 50 branch offices and 2 Datacenters.
  • Provide 3rd level escalation support for technical issues on Cisco ASR’s and 3945 routers, Cisco 3850 to 2960 switches, Cisco 5508 WLC and Aironet 1100 APs and ASA 5510 firewalls.
  • Implemented scalable method to manage a network of high-visibility 600 CDMA EVDO 3G/4G LTE wireless advertising displays including Billboards, Street Furniture, Transit Media and prototype displays in US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil.
  • Managed network and datacenter vendor relationships and reviewed new solutions and services. Project proposals were recommended to senior management with budget, timeline and ROI analysis.
  • Lead technical review of datacenter design and migration as part of CBSO IPO and separation from CBS Corporation. Worked with subject matter experts, consultants and Professional Services providers to align Datacenter design with business and applications requirements.
  • Virtualized Omnivex CMS, an ad scheduling and reporting application in a live environment for nationwide advertising networks. Leveraged EMC SAN and VMware ESX with High-Availability and Fault Tolerant cluster with vSphere for deployment.
  • Developed redundant network architecture for ad displays in iconic locations such as Grand Central Station, Times Square (Roadblock Display), Penn Station, New York City Subway Stations, Mall of America, Hawaii Malls and large format Digital Billboards.
  • Upgraded advertising network architecture from 3G to 4G to support additional bandwidth requirements for streaming media applications and remote camera monitoring. The redesigned network supports real-time advertising campaigns and 1080p HD video streams.
  • Architected Solarwinds network monitoring and management systems based on SNMP and WMI monitoring of servers, routers, switches and firewalls, Netflow ingress and egress traffic analysis to the network and change management.
  • Administered project to upgrade IP addressing scheme, network equipment and bandwidth at 50 branch offices and move to Sprint MPLS WAN network.
  • Deployed 802.11a/b/g/n Wifi using Cisco 5500 wireless controller, Avaya PoE GigE switches and Cisco 1100 and 3600 series Access Points supporting 350 users. This design is being used as a template and replicated across other offices.

Exenet, New York NY

2006 – 2010

NOC Engineer (Lead)

Exenet, now renamed AlphaServe IT, is a Managed Services Provider delivering technological solutions to large financial institutions utilizing Cisco, Windows and VMware technologies. The position reported to the Network Operations Manager and served as the technical team lead in a 24×7 NOC environment, monitoring and troubleshooting client networks.

Worked on resolution of MPLS issues, BGP & EIGRP routing issues, PIX / ASA access list, IOS upgrades, Fiber, T1 & Frame-relay circuit activations and site-to-site IPsec VPN.
  • Visited clients for quarterly reviews and discussed customized solutions for potential projects.
  • Evaluated and upgraded network monitoring system from CA Unicenter to Spectrum.
  • Documented existing network-server infrastructure and technical procedures and processes.
  • Lead monitoring enterprise networks for more than 30 national and international clients with 600 network devices and servers using CA Spectrum, Dell Silverback and eHealth Reports.
  • Analyzed device logs on routers, switches, firewalls and servers, CA Spectrum, eHealth, and InfoVista – Network Monitoring Systems as part of NOC operations.
  • Deployed VMware ESXi virtualization and migrated physical to virtual servers using P2V.

Lehman Brothers, New York NY

2005 – 2005

LAN Engineering Intern

Lehman Brothers was a global financial services firm operating multiple datacenters and offices. The position operated out of the Neuberger Berman division and reported to the LAN Manager.

Led the troubleshooting of trading floor network issues and provisioned new connections as needed.
  • Resolved local area network issues using Sniffer Pro, Fluke OneTouch and NetTool.
  • Ran cabling and patched new IDF connections for add/move/changes to the network.
  • Recorded incidents and documented progress of incidents in the Remedy ticketing system.
  • Wrote and executed IOS and CATOS scripts on Cisco distribution switches and routers.
  • Monitored, maintained, and administered VLANs, speed/duplex settings, and switch-port descriptions for more than 30 Cisco 6500 and 3750 series switches.
  • Installed IP TV and VOIP phones and assisted with maintenance.

Bergmann Associates, Jersey City NJ 2004 – 2005

Computer Aided Design Technician

Bergmann Associates is a civil engineering firm working on various projects in the NY Metro area.

Identified and resolved software and hardware issues like printer configuration, email support, network connectivity
  • Designed runway lighting renovations electrical plans using AutoCAD and Microstation
  • Prepared cost estimates, specifications, submittals, RFI’s and project directories for several projects