Guardian Financial Services were undertaking a four stage migration over a three year period from a number of old mainframe systems to a new consolidated solution. Wave 1 was an annuity book and had a number of delays before the final go live and was delivered a year late. A week before the migration a £19m discrepancy was found in actuarial reserves between the old and new systems and the migration was almost pulled. In the event the migration went ahead but actuarial reserves were increased to cover the worst case. I was approached to do two things

• Assure the Wave 1 migration and come to a solid position on the Wave 1 outcome
• Ensure that subsequent waves were not affected by similar issues and work to bring them in on time.7

The Wave 1 review was undertaken and a release of the £19m reserves plus a further £3m were identified with a positive risk and audit outcome.

For the subsequent waves a series of reconciliation and controls was introduced based on our Baseline Migration Approach identifying based heavily on analysing the data, providing feedback MI and liaising with the actuarial, risk and audit departments to ensure a solid convergence to migration go live meaning the migrations wen in on time. The burn rate on the old systems was over £1m per month meaning the cost of delay was severe and we were instrumental in meeting that timescale