Gerard E.
Pelayo-Julien

• Engineered and maintained 24/7 infrastructure monitoring and incident response across Kubernetes, Kafka, ClickHouse, and AWS RDS environments, sustaining high availability for international clients.
• Led structured troubleshooting and root-cause analysis for complex multi-system platform incidents, reducing mean time to resolution through runbook-based workflows and real-time cross-team coordination.
• Provided technical support for high-volume transactional email delivery infrastructure — supporting clients across SendGrid, Brevo, and TurboSMTP at millions of emails per month; troubleshooting SMTP relay configuration, deliverability failures, blacklisting, bounce handling, and domain authentication issues.
• Automated operational processes across PagerDuty, Slack, and ClickUp, eliminating manual intervention and accelerating incident lifecycle management.
• Architected and delivered an AI-powered internal operations assistant — incorporating automated runbooks, incident templates, and helpdesk workflow tooling — adopted organisation-wide.
• Authored and maintained a comprehensive library of operational runbooks, establishing process consistency and knowledge retention.

• Promoted internally from IT Systems Administrator to IT Systems Manager — took full operational ownership of IT infrastructure, team leadership, vendor management, and strategic technology planning for a multinational organisation.
• Led and coordinated a team of IT staff and rotating interns — managing task allocation, onboarding, offboarding, and knowledge transfer across the IT function.
• Administered full Microsoft 365 hybrid tenant — Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams — and governed Azure AD / Entra ID, MFA, Intune endpoint management, and hybrid VPN-based remote access for a 100+ user distributed international workforce.
• Managed email security and filtering using Bitdefender Email Security; administered SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records; maintained MX and DNS configuration via Cloudflare; managed DNSBL blacklist monitoring and delisting requests.
• Administered high-volume email delivery platforms — Amazon SES, Brevo, and Mailchimp — including domain authentication, dedicated IP management, IP warming, bounce and complaint handling, suppression list maintenance, and deliverability troubleshooting.
• Administered 3CX PBX telephony — on-premise and cloud — VoIP, SIP, and IP telephony systems across all company sites.
• Designed and implemented a full IT asset management system from scratch — QR-code tracking across 100+ users, enabling real-time asset visibility, lifecycle management, procurement planning, and software licensing compliance.
• Deployed and maintained Hyper-V and VMware virtualised server environments: VM provisioning, performance monitoring, troubleshooting, and capacity planning for production workloads.
• Implemented backup and disaster recovery using Veeam Backup & Replication and Acronis, including Microsoft VSS snapshot management, ensuring RPO/RTO compliance and data replication for all critical business systems.
• Administered Windows Server including Active Directory, Group Policy, DNS, and DHCP; managed TCP/IP, VLAN, VPN, and VoIP networking across all sites, ensuring compliance with organisational quality standards.
• Configured firewall and perimeter security — Cloudflare WAF — and deployed endpoint protection including Bitdefender with encryption and DLP policies.
• Installed, configured, and managed physical security systems — CCTV (Hikvision, Dahua) and access control — across all company premises.
• Directed IT budget planning, vendor negotiations, contract management, and SLA compliance across all technology contracts; maintained stakeholder relationships at senior management level.

• Served as IT infrastructure and Azure lead for the organisation's SAP ERP implementation — the core operational system underpinning all trading, invoicing, and import/export transactions. Provisioned Azure infrastructure from scratch, administered all Azure resources throughout the project, and coordinated directly with Tokyo IT and the external SAP partner through full installation, data migration, and load balancing — achieving successful tax department sign-off on full data integrity, and independently recognised in a formal quality report as the outstanding IT team member for consistent project delivery.
• Administered hybrid Microsoft 365 and on-premise Exchange environment; managed Symantec Email Security for anti-spam and threat protection; administered SendGrid for transactional email delivery including domain authentication and SMTP relay configuration; maintained SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records; administered 3CX PBX telephony systems.
• Installed, configured, and managed physical security systems — CCTV (Dahua) and access control — across all company premises.
• Administered data and IP telephony networks, maintained complete IT asset management records, and delivered Tier 1 and Tier 2 helpdesk support; managed cloud infrastructure, corporate email, software deployments, and VPN remote-access solutions.
• Performed troubleshooting of network and systems issues, escalating to vendor support where required and maintaining full documentation of resolutions and service records.

• Served as sole IT lead — responsible for infrastructure, telecom, mobile lines, internet, T1 services, IP telephony, procurement, and full IT asset management across the organisation.
• Designed and deployed the voice and data network infrastructure; administered Zimbra and Google Workspace email platforms; managed high-volume Mailchimp and Amazon SES campaigns — hundreds of thousands of emails daily to institutional recipients including company boards and government bodies — including deliverability monitoring, bounce management, and list hygiene.
• Implemented IT security policies covering firewall configuration, external systems, and communications tools; maintained web domains and DNS records across all organisational platforms.
• Established a secure SharePoint and OneDrive cloud collaboration platform for internal teams and external agencies.
• Provided helpdesk support and end-user training across all departments, applying strong time management across multiple concurrent priorities.

• Led and technically coordinated a mixed IT team of 7–8 staff — support, technical, and administrative — across Mexico City operations with regional coordination across Argentina and Brazil, ensuring consistent service delivery through two corporate acquisitions.
• Built and maintained core IT infrastructure from startup to 500-person multinational networking, security systems, IT asset management, and helpdesk operations.
• Designed and deployed a digital media scanning and broadcast monitoring infrastructure — integrating large-format scanners with ABBYY OCR and custom audio/video monitoring systems for real-time print, radio, and television tracking.
• Managed platform migrations through two successive acquisitions — including email migration from Zimbra to Microsoft 365 (as a certified Microsoft reseller); administered anti-spam infrastructure (SpamAssassin, then Bitdefender); managed SendGrid for high-volume transactional email delivery including domain authentication, SMTP relay, and deliverability troubleshooting.
• Configured and maintained SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records; managed DNS across Cloudflare and registrar platforms; administered mail flow, transport rules, and connectors throughout the M365 transition.

• Provided end-to-end IT infrastructure design, deployment, and support services to multiple corporate clients simultaneously — covering Windows Server, Active Directory, networking, VoIP, and security.
• Certified Microsoft reseller — delivered Microsoft 365 licensing, deployment, and administration across client organisations of varying scale.
• Administered email platforms including Microsoft 365, Zimbra, and Google Workspace across multiple clients; deployed and managed anti-spam solutions including SpamAssassin and Trend Micro Email Security.
• Managed DNS, MX records, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration across client domains; provided deliverability troubleshooting, blacklist management, and IP reputation maintenance.
• Delivered 3CX PBX telephony, VoIP, and IP communications infrastructure across client sites.
• Maintained long-term client relationships with full accountability for infrastructure availability, vendor coordination, and budget management.

Earlier career history available on request