RSRichard StainforthGet in touch →
Available · UK · Remote & hybrid · Open to new roles

RichardStainforth. — Hands-on IT Leader · Microsoft Cloud & Security

Hands-on IT leader. 20+ years running Microsoft estates in regulated industries · from PowerShell on a Friday to board papers on a Monday. CISM, AIGP, DORA. Service-first, evidence-led, plain English.

NowFounder & Director, Westgate Sentinel Consulting
BasedHuddersfield, West Yorkshire
AvailabilityUK travel · remote · hybrid
Richard StainforthAvailable for hire
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0%
Azure spend cut
£400k → £179k · zero consultancy cost
0%
Service desk SLA
4,556 tickets · 2,000+ users · 559 deflections
0
Runbooks authored
From zero · ITIL/Scrum + WAF aligned
£0M
Board platform case
151% ROI · 36-month horizon · CAF aligned
Career · three decades

From frontline service to boardroom technology.

Combat medic. Engineer. Service desk lead. Infrastructure architect. Head of Cyber & Infrastructure. Founder. The thread through all of it: stay hands-on, ship reliable systems, and make people's lives easier.

I.

Service

1993 – 2004
Army & NHS · operational discipline forged under pressure.
II.

Engineering

2004 – 2013
Hands-on craft · networks, servers, datacentres.
III.

Leadership

2013 – 2023
Teams & P&L · ITIL ops, security uplift, M&A.
IV.

Strategy

2023 – Present
Board, vision & business cases · still shipping.
19939 yrs
I · Service

Combat Medical Technician

British Army · Bosnia · N. Ireland · Belize

Service-first discipline forged in operational deployments. Nine years in uniform set the foundations: high-pressure decision-making, calm under fire, and a habit of being useful when things break.

20022 yrs
I · Service

Emergency Medical Technician

TENYAS / NHS · Frontline 999 response

Civilian frontline. Triaged, treated and transported across Yorkshire. Trained First Aid Instructors · the start of a habit of writing things down so others can do them.

20046 yrs
II · Engineering

Systems Support Engineer

Masternaut / Michelin Connected Fleet · Field & telematics platforms

First IT specialism. Field engineering on a national telematics platform, deep into hardware, networking, and 24/7 platform support.

20103 yrs
II · Engineering

Service management step-up

Legend Club Management → GCI Communications · First management roles

First people-management role at Legend Club, then 24/7 NOC ownership at GCI Communications. ITIL operations at scale · incident, change, problem · with shift patterns and major incident process.

20134 yrs
III · Leadership

Lead Infrastructure Architect

Restore Document Management · Multi-site growth-by-acquisition

Multi-site datacentre build & M&A onboardings. Led the US → UK operational migration whilst Restore was itself the target of acquisition · separating tenant, identity and mail from the US parent with zero service interruption. Onboarded several acquired businesses post-deal.

20173 yrs
III · Leadership

IT Manager

Xiros Ltd · Award-winning medical devices manufacturer

Sole IT leader, hands-on everything. Operated within a GAMP 5 validated environment with zero CAPA events raised against IT-managed systems. Led the digital transformation that retired legacy on-prem in favour of mobile-first cloud platforms.

20206 yrs · 2 roles
IV · Strategy

IT Ops Manager → Head of Cyber & Infrastructure

SimplyBiz Group / Fintel PLC · AIM-listed financial services · 600 staff · 12+ brands

Promoted from IT Operations Manager to Head of Cyber & Infrastructure during the SimplyBiz → Fintel rebrand. IT Director-equivalent role. Hands-on across the full Microsoft estate while owning strategy, operations, security and board reporting as Data Protection Officer. 55% Azure cut · 94.3% SLA · £3.67M board case · 151% ROI.

2026Present
IV · Strategy

Founder & Director

Westgate Sentinel Consulting Ltd · Boutique Microsoft cloud & security

Founded UK boutique Microsoft cloud and IT consultancy. Productised model for professional and financial services clients. Hands-on engineer, founder and consultant in one · I still build the runbooks, write the scripts and ship the migrations alongside the strategy.

The estate I run · end-to-end

Six domains. One operator.

Infrastructure to AI. CISM to AIGP. Windows Server 2008 to Azure OpenAI. I've stayed hands-on across the whole Microsoft stack while growing the leadership remit around it.

PILLAR · 01

Infrastructure

Depth20+ yrs
Windows ServerActive DirectoryHyper-VVMwareSAN / NASLAN/WAN/VLANDNS · DHCP · PKIVeeam · ASR · DR
PILLAR · 02

Cloud & identity

Depth8+ yrs
Azure CAF / WAF / ALZM365Entra IDIntune · PIMConditional AccessHybrid identityBicep · ARMFinOps
PILLAR · 03

Security & compliance

Depth12+ yrs
CISMDefender XDRSentinel SIEMPurview DLPKQL · SOARZero TrustISO 27001 · NIST CSFCE+ · GDPR · DORAGAMP 5
PILLAR · 04

Service & operations

Depth15+ yrs
ITIL v4ServiceDesk PlusSLA governanceCAB · CMDBRunbook authoringVendor mgmtCapacity planning
PILLAR · 05

Automation & AI

Depth10+ yrs
AIGPPowerShellTypeScriptMicrosoft GraphLogic AppsGitHub ActionsAzure OpenAICopilot StudioMulti-agent orchestration
PILLAR · 06

Regulated industry

Depth9+ yrs
Qualified DPOFCA SYSC 21UK GDPRDORAGAMP 5 · MHRASRA · RICSM&A diligenceBoard reporting
Sectors served

Where I've shipped.

2020 – 2026

Financial services

AIM-listed · FCA · SYSC 21 · DPO accountability to board.

2017 – 2020

Medical devices

GAMP 5 validated · MHRA · zero validation incidents.

2013 – 2017

Government, nuclear & insurance

Air-gapped networks · secure data processing · HM Passport Office, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Aviva.

2013 – 2017

Document management

Multi-site · datacentre · US → UK migration · acquisition onboardings.

2004 – 2013

MSP & telematics

24/7 NOC · field engineering · first IT specialism.

Notable projects
HM Passport Office

Air-gapped processing enclave

Designed and built isolated network infrastructure for handling identity documents at scale — physically segregated from corporate networks, with controlled data ingress/egress and chain-of-custody auditing end-to-end.

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Secure records digitisation

Delivered a high-assurance scanning and indexing environment for sensitive nuclear records. Hardened endpoints, segmented storage, and tightly scoped operator access aligned to public sector security expectations.

Aviva

Bulk insurance data processing

Stood up a dedicated processing line for confidential policyholder data — air-gapped capture, validated workflows, and resilient handover into Aviva's systems with full reconciliation.

Transcontinental infrastructure @ Cintas Document Management
UK – US multi-site estate

Managed transcontinental infrastructure

Ran IT across a multi-site UK operation that was part of Cintas Document Management. Coordinated infrastructure with US counterparts — aligning standards, tooling, and security posture across time zones whilst keeping UK ops responsive.

Need a Microsoft estate that works on a Monday morning?
Let's talk.

Tenant migrations, infrastructure assessments, Cyber Essentials Plus, M365 hardening, vCIO advisory. Reach out on LinkedIn and I'll come back within one working day.