Ammar Al Halabi عمّار الحلبي

Program rescue and delivery leadership

Out ofthe red.

I get stalled technology programs moving again. I have done it for government, health and fintech clients in Australia and the Gulf.

  • 15+ years
  • PMP® · CSM® · SAFe
  • English and Arabic
  • Sydney
The Questacon rescue, in one line 2 OF 8 MILESTONES MET 8 OF 8 MILESTONES MET RESCUE BEGINS 1 · DIAGNOSE 2 · RE-BASELINE 3 · RUN THE CADENCE 4 · LAND AND SUSTAIN STALLED DELIVERED
Questacon, Australian Government. A multi-channel program that was close to failing went from 2 of 8 milestones met to 8 of 8.

Before and after

I measure my work by the state I leave things in

Four more examples, each drawn to scale.

Team utilisation

Managed services practice, Publicis Sapient
Before60%
After85%

Booking cycle time

Commercial operations, GE Healthcare, Riyadh
BeforeBaseline
After26% shorter

Trade-in cycle time

Process improvement, GE Healthcare, Sydney
BeforeBaseline
After30% shorter

Program budget

Stride Mental Health Transformation
BeforeOriginal
AfterExpanded by 40%

Method

How I recover a program

Four steps, in this order. The first one decides whether the other three work.

  1. Step 1

    Diagnose

    A health check across scope, plan, team, vendors and commercials. I talk to the people doing the work to find the real cause of the slip.

  2. Step 2

    Re-baseline

    A plan the sponsor and the team both believe: what is in, what is out, which milestones, and in what order.

  3. Step 3

    Run the cadence

    Weekly status with honest RAG reporting, a live RAID log, a clear escalation path, and a steering committee that makes decisions.

  4. Step 4

    Land and sustain

    Go-live and hypercare, then a post-project review. The lessons go back into the delivery framework so the next program starts stronger.

Selected programs

Four programs, one rescued and three built to last

Australian Government · Rescue

Questacon Multi-Channel Rescue

A multi-channel program covering ticketing, membership, retail and outreach that was close to failing. I reset the plan, aligned the delivery streams and a third-party vendor, and brought every milestone home.

ResultFrom 2 of 8 milestones met to 8 of 8
PlatformsSales, Service, Marketing and Experience Cloud, MuleSoft
Health · National provider

Stride Mental Health Transformation

A multi-stream program that moved a national mental health provider onto Salesforce Health Cloud and Experience Cloud, with MuleSoft integration and data migration across four brands.

Scale750 staff, 15,000 clients
Result40% budget expansion and an ongoing managed services partnership
RecognitionPartner Innovation Award, Project of the Year, Project Manager of the Year
Fintech · Platform

Zip Co Enterprise Platform Transformation

Delivery lead for a portfolio of five initiatives at a buy-now-pay-later fintech: architecture simplification, account and statement management, hardship management, platform stabilisation and target-state architecture.

Scale5 initiatives, 3 squads, about 20 people
Managed services · Practice

Elastic Services

Ran a managed services practice for a portfolio of six concurrent clients, covering vendor governance, contract negotiation and renewals, service levels and team performance.

ResultTeam utilisation from 60% to 85%

Services

Where I help

  • Program rescue and recovery

    Find out why a program is slipping, reset scope, governance and cadence, and get milestones landing again without losing the client's confidence.

  • Program leadership

    End-to-end delivery of multi-stream programs: planning, commercials and forecasting, vendors, change requests and executive stakeholders.

  • Delivery governance and PMO

    Steering committee cadence, RAID logs, stage gates, health checks and executive reporting. I have built the delivery frameworks, playbooks and templates for a Salesforce practice.

  • Salesforce program delivery

    Twelve years in the ecosystem: Sales, Service, Health, Experience and Marketing Cloud, Field Service, CPQ, MuleSoft and Data Cloud, through release, go-live and hypercare.

  • Managed services

    Service delivery under ITIL, service levels, vendor governance, utilisation, and the contract and renewal conversations that keep a managed service healthy.

  • AI governance and adoption

    I have facilitated AI sessions for delivery teams, work hands-on with agentic AI tooling including Agentforce pilots, and am completing the ISO/IEC 42001 Senior Lead Implementer certification.

Career plan

Twenty years, two regions, drawn to scale

Engineering and medical technology in Riyadh, then commercial operations, delivery and consulting in Sydney.

Based in
Riyadh Sydney
Project EngineerSINANCO · 2005–2008
Project ManagerOriginal Medical · 2008–2010
Product SpecialistCardio Medical Company · 2009–2012
OTR Project Manager, OperationsGE Healthcare · Jun 2012–Apr 2015
Commercial Operation SpecialistGE Healthcare · May 2015–Jun 2016
Commercial Excellence AnalystGE Healthcare · Jun 2016–Jan 2019
Senior Technical Project ManagerGE Healthcare · Jan 2019–Jun 2021
Manager, Agile Program ManagementPublicis Sapient · Jul 2021–present
Manager, Elastic ServicesPublicis Sapient · Jan 2023–Apr 2024
  1. Publicis SapientManager, Agile Program ManagementJul 2021–present · Sydney

    End-to-end delivery of multi-stream programs for health, government, fintech and retail clients. Program governance, commercials and forecasting, statements of work and change requests, proposals, and executive stakeholder management.

  2. Publicis SapientManager, Elastic ServicesJan 2023–Apr 2024 · Sydney

    Led the managed services practice alongside program work. Six concurrent clients, contract negotiations and renewals, and a team whose utilisation rose from 60% to 85%.

  3. GE HealthcareSenior Technical Project ManagerJan 2019–Jun 2021 · Sydney

    Large-scale transformation projects across APAC, product portfolio and lifecycle planning, and client-side management of implementation partners with blended internal and external teams.

  4. GE HealthcareCommercial Excellence Analyst and Process ImprovementJun 2016–Jan 2019 · Sydney

    KPI dashboards and reporting for executives, and quote-to-cash improvements. Cut trade-in cycle time by 30% with Lean workflow changes and added $3M to the sales funnel by mapping installed assets to opportunities.

  5. GE HealthcareCommercial Operation Specialist, then OTR Project Manager before itJun 2012–Jun 2016 · Riyadh

    Managed a sales funnel of more than $80M, improved booking cycle time by 26%, and took the region to first place for CRM adoption.

Credentials

Certifications, education and awards

Certifications

  • Project Management Professional (PMP®)
  • Certified ScrumMaster (CSM®)
  • SAFe AgilistLeading SAFe
  • Lean Six SigmaTraining

In progress

  • ISO/IEC 42001 Senior Lead ImplementerAI management systems
  • FinOps Certified Practitioner

Education

  • MSc, Biomedical Engineering and Medical ImagingUniversity College London, UK
  • Graduate Certificate in Digital HealthLa Trobe University, Australia

Leadership programs

  • Foundation of LeadershipSingapore
  • Building Essential Leadership SkillsTurkey

Awards

  • Partner Innovation AwardStride Mental Health program, Salesforce and Publicis Sapient
  • Project of the Year and Project Manager of the YearStride Mental Health program
  • Commercial Excellence AwardGE Healthcare
  • Above and Beyond AwardGE Healthcare
  • External Focus AwardGE Healthcare
  • Said Foundation Scholarship

A quick check

Five signs a program is in the red

  1. Milestones keep moving but the end date never does.
  2. Status stays green until the week it turns red.
  3. The steering committee receives updates and makes no decisions.
  4. Nobody can say what is in scope without opening the contract.
  5. The vendor and the delivery team describe two different plans.

If two or more sound familiar, the program is recoverable, and sooner is cheaper.

Talk to me about your program

Email amhalabi@gmail.com
Location Sydney, Australia · Australian citizen
Languages English and Arabic