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OUR PEOPLE

Meet the experienced team who make up Level8 logo

Having worked together when CODA employees, helping each other and delivering quality solutions, it was natural for us to come together once again as a team of independent consultants – these were the beginnings of LEVEL8 and our ethos has remained as we have grown. We support each other as a team in order to best support our clients.

This collaborative approach, with an emphasis on working closely together, also underpins our relationships with strategic partners like Unit4 and FinancialForce. These global business software leaders need expert partners who they can trust to implement solutions which deliver maximum benefit to our mutual clients, show their products in the best light and demonstrate the true power of cutting-edge business technology.

This is why they partner with LEVEL8 and you can meet the team who make this happen below.

 

Our Directors 

Balal Ahmed

Balal Ahmed

Director of Business Development & Partner Relations

Having qualified as an accountant and gained FCCA. Balal started his career in 1984 before spending several years in the profession Balal moved in to reporting software and finance system implementation in the nineties. During this time he worked for Courtaulds, Welsh Water and British Rail Infrastructure Services.

Balal joined CODA in 1997, with his financial and systems capabilities He became principal consultant working with a loyal worldwide client base, many of whom he still maintains regular contact with.

Following time then spent with Cognos, IBM, Deloitte and a leading SAP partner, Balal came back to the CODA world when he established LEVEL8 as a Unit4 partner.

Nick Maiden

Nick Maiden

Director of Operations & Systems Education

Following qualifying as an accountant and gaining ACMA & CGMA, Nick began his career at United International Pictures as a marketing cost analysis in 1989.

In 1998, following time with Crown Agents and Aptos, Nick joined Baan before the buy-out of CODA. Transitioning to CODA from the Baan training department, Nick became, and still is, regarded as the “standard bearer” for training and education in CODA.

Becoming an independent consultant in 2004, Nick also built extensive experience in implementations, upgrades and migrations, before co-founding LEVEL8 in 2014 to provide training and education capabilities unique in the CODA market.

Dan Barton

Dan Barton

Director of Software Development & Integration

Dan began his career as part of the graduate intake for British Rail computing in 1989 and worked in Nottingham until 1994.

In 1994 he became employee number 25 at Science Systems where he was a developer and later team leader.

With the Science Systems takeover of CODA, Dan moved in to the role of Development Manager of the Bespoke software department within the new CODA (and later Unit4 Financials) organisation.

In 2015, after a few years as an independent Unit4 Financials developer, Dan joined LEVEL8 to establish a software division for bespoke Unit4 Financials solutions delivery, offering software development services unrivalled in the market.

Our Associates 

Angela Head

Angela Head

Associate

Angela was a principal technical support consultant at Unit4 until October 2017 when she joined LEVEL8.

Angela came to us with a reputation as one
of the most trusted support consultants at Unit4 (as well as an IBM Iseries and MS SQL Server expert) and brings a wealth of expertise to our support function.

Sharon Watkins

Sharon Watkins

Associate

Having worked at Unit4, CODA and Science Systems it’s fair to say Sharon knows the system that is now Unit4 Financials.

An approachable, proactive, commercially oriented BA (Hons) qualified individual with 20 years’ experience of working with Blue Chip companies, implementing and supporting Business Systems on
a global basis.

Brian Westbury

Brian Westbury

Associate

Brian is a hugely experienced Technical Consultant and has spent the majority of his working life dealing with CODA products. He has over 30 years’ experience in technology consultancy, of which over 25 years have been with (what are now) Unit4 Financials products.

Brian was principal Technical Consultant at Unit4 before leaving to Join LEVEL8 in the middle of 2017 and his consultancy services are highly sought after.

David Hill

David Hill

Associate

David joined British Rail Computing in 1989 as a Mainframe Developer and since then his expertise in software development has taken him to roles within several large international organisations including Experian and CapGemini.

David’s development skillset and his deep knowledge of financial systems is something he now applies to his work with the Unit4 Financials system as part of the LEVEL8 software development team.

Scott Watkins

Scott Watkins

Associate

Having gained a Computer Science degree from Staffordshire University Scott moved in to his first Software Developer role in 1993.

Joining Science Systems in 1996, Scott first began development work on the CODA system which would become Unit4 Financials.

With the Unit4 takeover Scott moved to a software development role within Unit4 UK and went on to spend 15 years with the business, establishing himself as a system expert and a key part of Unit4’s internal development team, before joining LEVEL8 in 2015.

Desiree Marshall

Desiree Marshall

Associate

Desiree is an Application Support Analyst with a background in business finance and more than 10 years’ experience providing first class support at Unit4.

Prior to her time at Unit4, Desiree was a CODA Application Manager at a Swedish-based technology business.

Eric Jackson

Eric Jackson

Associate

Eric joined LEVEL8 in 2017 after spending over 18 years with Unit4 UK.

Now working as part of our software development team, Eric moved in to this area with Unit4 Financials having worked across support analyst and technical consultancy roles.

Eric’s varied roles within Unit4 provides him with a unique understanding of the Financials system and the requirements of the businesses that use it, an understanding he now applies to his development work with LEVEL8.

Holly Williams

Holly Williams

Associate

As a fully qualified chartered accountant with additional experience in corporation tax advisory services, Holly has developed an extensive knowledge base for use with the configuration of financial software.

Core skills learnt during time as a consultant include CODA configuration, system support, user training and team management. These skills are not limited to the UK as she also has specific knowledge of CODA applications in Belgium, Italy and Germany.

Gaetan Yee

Gaetan Yee

Associate

At LEVEL8 we all believe that Gae must hold the record for the longest experience working with the CODA application. His CODA career started in 1985!

He comes from a technical systems background which means he has built up an unrivalled knowledge of what makes CODA (and now Unit4 Financials) tick.

Having moved towards client consultancy work he now puts that knowledge to good work by showing exceptional skill in working with the Unit4 Financials application and its configuration.

Jo Williams

Jo Williams

Associate

Jo has been bridging the gap between Finance and IT since 2004, having had CODA experience in France and Italy as well as the UK, and is now also a Prince2 Certified Project Manager.

Having previously managed a Devops team for multiple systems, no system or process is beyond her understanding and troubleshooting skills. Jo also has consultancy experience implementing other P2P systems, in addition to having a hand in the design and implementation of many bespoke solutions to meet customer requirements, including the Level8 portal, specifically SMS.

Karen Idle

Karen Idle

Associate

Since starting her 30-year career with CODA back in 1990, Karen has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience of the CODA/Unit4 Financials product suite.

Her time being an end user in CODA’s own accounting team, through to Principal Application Support Consultant in the Unit4 Financials Global Support team, has enabled Karen to gain a strong insight and understanding of product issues, along with business and configuration requirements from both sides.  This is all reinforced by Karen’s continued dedication to delivering the highest level of customer service.

Sampath Kumar

Sampath Kumar

Associate

Sampath is our resident Salesforce development guru, working with clients to maximise the potential of Salesforce and FinancialForce applications and integrations.

As an extremely experienced Salesforce technical resource, with well over a decade of implementations and support behind him, Sampath supports our Salesforce certified software consultants to scope and deliver projects. 

As you’d expect, with this depth of knowledge, Sampath holds a raft of Salesforce developer certifications including Application Architecture, Platform Development and App Building. 

Michael John 'Q' Quijano

Michael John 'Q' Quijano

Associate

Michael John – or Q to most people – brings more than a decade of experience to LEVEL8 over a wide technical background.  His expertise includes CODA Application Support for both Windows and IBMi platforms and he has managed multiple CODA projects in a number of engagements across a large client base.  

In his previous work, Q was known as the Go-To-Guy for fixing application issues and problems. Based in the United States, he started working with CODA v10 in 2008. This experience allows Q to provide expert capabilities in handling CODA installations & configurations, upgrades, production deployments, performance tuning and more! 

Julie Fidler

Julie Fidler

Associate

After completing a PhD in computation chemistry, Julie started her career in Software Development in 1996. She joined CODA in 2001 to work in the custom development team, and continued that work when CODA became UNIT4 Financials.

After a period working in software development for clinical trials, Julie is now back working on UNIT4 Financials, with the software development team at LEVEL8, bringing with her over 13 years of experience with UNIT4 and over 25 years in software development.

Julie Bradman

Julie Bradman

Associate

After implementing a finance system in her last role as a Financial Director, Julie decided that system implementation would be far more interesting than her life as an accountant. So, in 2003 she joined Coda as a Solutions Consultant specialising in Financials before joining FinancialForce in 2015.

Julie’s focus is on the design, build and enhancement of systems that make the end user’s life as seamless and easy as possible. In her own words, she’s a strange character, in that she delights not only in troubleshooting but delving into data!

Alan Osborn

Alan Osborn

Associate

After qualifying in mechanical and production engineering, Alan then started his IT career using CODA back in 1989 on the VAX/VMS mainframe product as an Analyst/Programmer.

Over the years he has worked for many global organisations, progressing into Team Management and then into Projects and Programmes, and is certified in PRINCE2 and is an advanced MSP practitioner. All the while he has stayed hands on with the numerous iterations of the application during large scale implementation projects.

More recently he has been involved as an independent Software Consultant for the Unit4 Financials and Asset modules, before joining up with LEVEL8 in 2022. Alan also holds a Masters Degree in Theology. 

Our team is growing and we’re always happy to speak with experienced and skilled people who are looking for a new challenge as well as the camaraderie and flexibility that comes with being a LEVEL8 Associate.

Find out more and get in touch from our Careers page.

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   contact@level8.solutions

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