IT Director & Enterprise Engineering Leader
ManuelVillarejo
19 years at the intersection of technology strategy and engineering leadership.
IT Director at Expenti leading enterprise AI transformation, cloud consolidation, and a €5M technology P&L. Three full M&A and carve-out cycles. ISO 27001 across five audit cycles. MBA with Distinction, Imperial College London.
Career
Professional Journey
A timeline of career progression and key milestones.
03/2024 – Present
Director of IT
Expenti
- ·Grew IT function from 12 to 25 engineers post carve-out across Service Operations, Security, DevOps, Engineering, and Database
- ·Cut technology costs 25% in year one on a €5M annual P&L; vertically integrated a €600K/year outsourced DevOps capability
- ·Consolidated hosting from 3 AWS accounts, 2 GCP projects, and on-premise into a single GCP tenancy in 6 months; migrated 400+ products to GitLab CI/CD with delivery timelines cut by up to 50%
- ·Led enterprise-wide AI transformation across 9 business functions; first-contact resolution up 75%, response time from 2 hours to under 10 minutes
03/2024 – Present
Director of IT
Expenti
- ·Grew IT function from 12 to 25 engineers post carve-out across Service Operations, Security, DevOps, Engineering, and Database
- ·Cut technology costs 25% in year one on a €5M annual P&L; vertically integrated a €600K/year outsourced DevOps capability
- ·Consolidated hosting from 3 AWS accounts, 2 GCP projects, and on-premise into a single GCP tenancy in 6 months; migrated 400+ products to GitLab CI/CD with delivery timelines cut by up to 50%
- ·Led enterprise-wide AI transformation across 9 business functions; first-contact resolution up 75%, response time from 2 hours to under 10 minutes
03/2024 – 01/2025
Director of IT (TSA)
The Workshop
- ·Retained as Director of IT during the Transitional Service Agreement; maintained operations for the parent company while the carve-out completed
03/2024 – 01/2025
Director of IT (TSA)
The Workshop
- ·Retained as Director of IT during the Transitional Service Agreement; maintained operations for the parent company while the carve-out completed
05/2023 – 03/2024
Director of Engineering & Architecture
The Workshop
- ·Led engineering consolidation across Europe and APAC with 100+ engineers, structured into Operations and cross-functional delivery squads
- ·Directed full technology carve-out after corporate divestiture — replicated all core enterprise services on-premise across two continents
- ·Introduced Principal Engineering, Architecture practices, and a formal Change Advisory Board with bi-weekly architecture reviews
05/2023 – 03/2024
Director of Engineering & Architecture
The Workshop
- ·Led engineering consolidation across Europe and APAC with 100+ engineers, structured into Operations and cross-functional delivery squads
- ·Directed full technology carve-out after corporate divestiture — replicated all core enterprise services on-premise across two continents
- ·Introduced Principal Engineering, Architecture practices, and a formal Change Advisory Board with bi-weekly architecture reviews
09/2020 – 05/2023
Head of IT
The Workshop
- ·Rebuilt IT function from 20 to 60 engineers under 6 managers with Agile delivery squads, follow-the-sun coverage, and OKR model
- ·Three consecutive ISO 27001 certifications; delivered multi-year infrastructure modernisation across Europe and APAC
09/2020 – 05/2023
Head of IT
The Workshop
- ·Rebuilt IT function from 20 to 60 engineers under 6 managers with Agile delivery squads, follow-the-sun coverage, and OKR model
- ·Three consecutive ISO 27001 certifications; delivered multi-year infrastructure modernisation across Europe and APAC
11/2018 – 09/2020
Head of Infrastructure
The Workshop
- ·Owned the full physical and virtual infrastructure stack across 3 data centres and 10+ server rooms globally — VMware, NetApp SAN/NAS, LAN/WAN
- ·Established change management, incident management, and DR processes; reduced unplanned downtime and formalised business continuity
11/2018 – 09/2020
Head of Infrastructure
The Workshop
- ·Owned the full physical and virtual infrastructure stack across 3 data centres and 10+ server rooms globally — VMware, NetApp SAN/NAS, LAN/WAN
- ·Established change management, incident management, and DR processes; reduced unplanned downtime and formalised business continuity
10/2015 – 10/2018
Monitoring & Corporate Tooling Manager
The Workshop
- ·Built the organisation's monitoring stack from scratch: Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, InfluxDB, New Relic, Elastic APM, and Icinga
- ·Managed Atlassian Jira/Confluence for 2,000+ users, designing workflows across HR, procurement, finance, commercial, IT, support, and engineering
10/2015 – 10/2018
Monitoring & Corporate Tooling Manager
The Workshop
- ·Built the organisation's monitoring stack from scratch: Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, InfluxDB, New Relic, Elastic APM, and Icinga
- ·Managed Atlassian Jira/Confluence for 2,000+ users, designing workflows across HR, procurement, finance, commercial, IT, support, and engineering
02/2006 – 10/2015
DevOps Engineer · Monitoring Engineer · Linux Administrator · TPM · IT Engineer
The Workshop · Riplife · IGT · Stan James · Tellonline
- ·Worked up from IT Engineer through DevOps and TPM roles across gaming and technology businesses in Málaga and Gibraltar
- ·Led the WARP programme (enterprise trading platform replacement) at Stan James; delivered IGT's first cloud service in Europe
- ·Introduced CI/CD and configuration management practices adopted across all company products
02/2006 – 10/2015
DevOps Engineer · Monitoring Engineer · Linux Administrator · TPM · IT Engineer
The Workshop · Riplife · IGT · Stan James · Tellonline
- ·Worked up from IT Engineer through DevOps and TPM roles across gaming and technology businesses in Málaga and Gibraltar
- ·Led the WARP programme (enterprise trading platform replacement) at Stan James; delivered IGT's first cloud service in Europe
- ·Introduced CI/CD and configuration management practices adopted across all company products
Education
Academic Background
2024 – 2025
MBA
Imperial College London · Imperial Business School
London, United Kingdom
with Distinction2001 – 2005
BSc (Hons) Computer Systems Engineering
Universidad de Málaga
Málaga, Spain
Competencies
Core Competencies
The domains where I create the most impact.
Strategy & Programme Delivery
AI & Agentic Engineering
Enterprise Architecture & Integration
DevOps & Platform Engineering
Compliance & Governance
Leadership & Operations
Tech Stack
Technologies
Platforms and tools at the core of my work.
Credentials
Professional Credentials
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
ISC2
IELTS Academic — Band 7.0 (C1)
British Council / IDP
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Scrum Alliance
ITIL Foundation
AXELOS / PeopleCert
PRINCE2 Foundation
ILX Group / AXELOS
Technical Foundations
MCTS 2008 · RHCSA · RHCT · CCNA Security · CCNA · MCSE 2003
Languages
Communication
Interests
Beyond Work
AI and automation — agentic tools, smart-home systems, and practical workflows for daily life.
Travel, new places, and different cultures.
The sea, trekking, and outdoor activities.
Get in Touch
Let's Connect
Available for consultation and collaboration. I typically respond within 24 hours.
mjvillarejo@gmail.com