Damian Szulakowski — Senior IT Project & Program Manager

Professional Summary

Senior IT Project & Program Manager with 18+ years of international experience in banking, defense, and digital transformation. Expert in hybrid methodologies (PRINCE2/PMP + SAFe/Scrum), managing teams of 60+ and budgets up to $9M. Track record of zero-downtime enterprise migrations and building Poland's first Combat Management System (SCOT-M).

Core Competencies

Complex IT Project Management Digital Transformation Data Center Migration Combat Management Systems (C4) M&A IT Separation Cybersecurity & Compliance (NIS2, GDPR, DORA) Team Leadership (60+) International Delivery (EU, US, Asia) Vendor Management PMO Setup Risk Management Stakeholder Management

Professional Experience

Senior Project Manager, MSS

Hitachi Cyber (Canada) · via Hitachi Europe Limited (Poland Branch)

2024 – Present

Engaged as consultant via Hitachi Europe Limited (Polish branch), delivering MSS services to Hitachi Cyber in Canada
Sole PM for the entire European market — SIEM/SOAR deployments (Microsoft Sentinel, Google SecOps)
Managing MDR (Managed Detection and Response) service engagements for enterprise clients across Poland and EU
Authored internal PM Framework for MSS engagements: deal initiation → go-live → governance
Clients in banking (ITCARD, VeloBank), manufacturing, and technology

Owner & Principal Consultant

Szulakowski.PL

Jul 2017 – Present

Independent IT consulting — project management, digital transformation, security advisory
Clients across finance, defense, energy management, technology sectors
Global delivery: Poland, EU, USA, Asia (Singapore, Shanghai)
Program management at Solwena: Energy Management Center (IT&OT), BEMS/EEMS implementation for major Polish retail chain
Active member of ISSA Polska ("Change Enthusiast") and ISACA
Certified drone operator (Sts-01, Sts-02 — drony.gov.pl) for R&D and site inspections
Active mentor on ADPList.org; organized first Gdańsk meetup (Mar 2024)
Speaker: InfoShare 2023, Warszawskie Dni Informatyki 2026, Admin Days 2024
Published author — cybersecurity column, Bank Spółdzielczy Nr 4/618 (Oct–Dec 2025, SGB)

Head of Software Engineering Department

OBR CTM S.A.

Mar 2021 – Apr 2024

Led 60+ engineers and consultants building SCOT-M (Ship COmbat Tactical – Minehunter) — Poland's first Combat Management System for Kormoran II-class warships
Managed annual portfolio budget ~30M PLN across multiple defense programs
SCOT-M: Bursztynowy Medalion (Balt Military Expo 2018, Gdynia) and Presidential Award for increasing soldier safety
Security clearance holder; represented department at conferences and business meetings
Responsible for vulnerability management and internal security processes

Senior IT Infrastructure Project Manager

Nordea

Aug 2019 – Mar 2021

Complex infrastructure projects across T24 Core Banking Platform ecosystem
Cross-border team coordination: Poland, Nordics, Singapore
Supported Nordea Liv & Pension (Velliv) operational separation

IT Infrastructure Project Manager

Nordea

Dec 2017 – Jul 2019

Data center migrations with legacy system virtualization
Zero unplanned downtime across all migrations
Agile delivery in multinational Nordic environment

Consultant

Diverse Consulting Group

Jul 2017 – Jul 2019

IT consulting and project management advisory

IT Project Manager

Alior Bank S.A.

Nov 2016 – Sep 2017

IT infrastructure project management for one of Poland's fastest-growing banks

IT Project Manager

Bank BPH / GE Capital

Oct 2011 – Nov 2016

BPH Office Park Migration: 3,500+ employees, full IT infrastructure, zero downtime
Insurance & pension business separation (pan-European M&A regulations)
Board-level reporting and regulatory governance

Lead Analyst, IT Infrastructure

Bank BPH

Dec 2009 – Sep 2011

Infrastructure optimization and analysis

Analyst, IT Infrastructure

GE Capital

Dec 2008 – Nov 2009

IT Service Desk Assistant

GE Money Bank

Sep 2007 – Nov 2008

Career start in IT; rapid progression from helpdesk to infrastructure analysis

Certifications

PRINCE2 Practitioner

PMP Project Management Professional

SAFe 5 DevOps Practitioner

Scrum Master

AgilePM

Kanban

TOGAF Enterprise Architecture

ITIL

Technical Skills

Infrastructure

Windows Server, Linux, macOS, Active Directory, Entra, AWS, Cloudflare

Security

EDR/XDR/NDR, DLP, PKI, SIEM/XSIEM, ISO 27001, NIS2, GDPR, DORA

Tools

Jira, Confluence, MS Project, Azure DevOps, Zoho, Docker, PowerShell, Bash, Python

Methodologies

PRINCE2, PMP, SAFe 5, Scrum, Kanban, AgilePM, DevOps, TOGAF, ITIL

Languages

Polish Native

English Professional working proficiency