Deepu Soman
IT Specialist — National Geographic Ultimate Explorer (Salhia Group), Kuwait
20+ years · IT infrastructure · project & program management · cyber security
Focus areas
What this site is
This is my public workshop. After two decades of building and running IT for holding companies, telecoms, banks-owned investment firms and entertainment groups across Kuwait, US,Malaysia and India, I've learned that the useful knowledge rarely lives in the vendor documentation — it lives in what actually happened on the project. So I write it down: honest, first-person guides on infrastructure, project delivery, cyber security and the certifications that map them.
It's written for working IT professionals and technology leaders, and doubles as study-companion material for people chasing the same certifications I hold. If you read something here and it saves you a week, the site has done its job.
What I actually do
- IT infrastructure & operations — designing, building and running environments end to end: Active Directory, Exchange, virtualisation, backup (Veeam), endpoint and email security (Bitdefender, Proofpoint), Cisco networking, monitoring and hardening.
- Project & program management — leading IT projects and portfolios to scope, schedule and budget across multiple countries; PMP, PRINCE2 and agile in practice, not just on paper.
- Cyber security, audit & risk — the ISACA disciplines (CISA, CISM, CRISC) plus the attacker's and investigator's mindset from CEH and CHFI, applied to real estates and audits.
- Cloud & the Microsoft stack — Azure infrastructure, Microsoft 365 administration and cybersecurity architecture; migrations, cost optimisation and security baselines.
- Enterprise architecture — TOGAF-grounded thinking that keeps technology tied to what the business is actually trying to do.
Experience
IT Specialist — National Geographic Ultimate Explorer (Salhia Group)
Project owner for the IT of NGUX, a family entertainment centre under Salhia International Entertainment Center K.S.C.C (Salhia Real Estate Co KSCP). Designed the full IT infrastructure on Microsoft Azure, ran Veeam backup, Proofpoint email security and Bitdefender endpoint protection, and led the Systems Support Department — recruitment, training, policy and security hardening — to industry-standard compliance.
Consultant — Contech United Group
Developed and executed solution roadmaps across the organisation and its customers: annual budgets, investment concepts, business analysis, portfolio-management strategy and solution-implementation oversight.
Director — ExpertAims Consultancy (ISO 9001:2015)
Kerala-based technology consultancy spanning IT consulting, fintech, web & mobile development and security systems. Delivered as Technical Manager / Project Manager: the GRID Project Management System and Remote Metering (RMNMDS) programs for Tenaga Nasional Berhad, Malaysia; an Employee Reward Points system for the Amiri Diwan, Kuwait; and web/mobile portals for Kuwait Polyurethane Industries, Injaz Kuwait and clients in the USA.
Sr. IT Consultant — International Holding Projects Group
Ran IT infrastructure for the holding company and nine subsidiaries: Active Directory, Exchange, RMS, Lync, DirectAccess/UAG, TMG, Cisco IP telephony & switching, SCCM, DPM, FEP, SharePoint and load balancers — plus the IT design for an amusement-park build (servers, wireless, POS).
IT Projects Manager — Al Araab United Co.
Led the company's IT project portfolio and execution team. Supported VIVA Telecom's 2G 1800 MHz cell-expansion plan and ran an NSN network-inventory audit for Ooredoo Telecom.
IT Specialist — Development Enterprises Holding Co. (a Kuwait Finance House subsidiary)
Administered the IT department for the industrial-investment company and its subsidiaries: IT policy & procedure, network design, Windows Server / Active Directory administration, and documentation and support for IT audit functions.
Manager IT & Administration · Network Service Engineer · System & Network Administrator
Kubbar International Co. (Kuwait), Al Safat Contracting Co. (Kuwait) and Service Online (Kerala, India) — the infrastructure grounding underneath everything above.
Education & affiliations
Member of the Project Management Institute (PMI), ISACA, the Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA), the Australian Computer Society (ACS), IEEE and INCOSE.
Work with me
I take on selective consulting — IT infrastructure and security reviews, project and program leadership, and cloud/Microsoft 365 strategy. If that's useful, get in touch or connect on LinkedIn.