Chrys Ngwa

Silicon & Software Systems (S3) - Group Manager, digital design and Projects Manager

For 13 years with S3, I've held several positions with varying levels of responsibilities.

Leadership Experience - Group manager, Digital Design, Cork Design Centre
As line manager for the digital design team in Cork, my responsibilities and achievements included the following;
• Management and development of the team including the ability to attract and mentor top talent and develop technical leadership skills in all aspects of digital design.
• Define and review responsibilities, set expectations, provide feedback and guidance, and participate in annual performance review and goal setting.
• Formulate and drive best practices within the business line and where applicable, escalate such practises through out the company.
• New business procurement for IC design services (digital and mixed signal) for all global design centres within the business unit. This includes presales activities, budgetary proposal generation leading up to Contract/SoW document development.
• I have achieved numerous project wins from new clients and repeat-business opportunities.
• Working with senior management to formulate business strategies and value propositions for one of S3’s businesses including the deployment of such strategies.
• Worked closely with the Design centre manager to ensure the smooth operation of the site office including and when necessary, act as deputy to design centre manager.
• Health and Safety officer, with responsibility of formulating all health safety guidelines for the office and making sure that the guidelines are adhered to and at the same time, in-line with those set at corporate level but relevant to the local site.

Program Manager Experience
My key responsibilities as Projects/Program manager include the following;

• Coordination of RFI/RFQ responses and of R&D efforts in initiation and execution phase. Consolidation of program-level requirements for key / strategic roadmap and management of key internal and external customers.
• Managing multiple cross functional teams in the development and execution of strategic programs or complex projects.
• Identifying and allocating resources from across several development centres to ensure deliverables are met.
• Direct contact with foundries, IP partners and Supply Chain management partners during all phases of ASIC development.
• Developing, defining and leading the execution of projects from concept and specification to silicon qualification.
• Establishing and monitoring project/program goals and objectives. Evaluation and implementation of best practices and techniques.
• Interfacing with functional organizations and businesses as a source of advice and counsel in program issues Adherence to accuracy and integrity of data.
• Maintaining documentation on program/business practices and procedures.
• Communication of program status, program readiness, and business issues and risks across the organization and to senior management and executives.
• Influencing and managing continuous improvement of project/program process, practices and initiatives.

LCD Display Driver Development Program Highlights

• Eight years managing a series of repeat business project for a very important key account for S3 generating significant revenue for the organisation with a very stream line team. In one year of the engagement, the program generated more than 25% of the gross revenue for the S3 business line, achieving this with a team made up of 12% of the overall engineering head count.
• Consistently requested by customer to run their programs within S3 and in their organisation and also travel on behalf of the customer.
• This account had the highest gross revenue per Engineer in the business line for several years. The customer subsequently reduced its fixed costs (40% head count reduction) but retained the services of S3 to continue the development of their products for more than a year after their re-organisation. This decision was strongly influenced by my ability to manage not only my colleagues in S3, but also the rest of the design team within the customer’s organisation. One of the customer’s strategic projects that I led from concept to volume production involved 28 engineers located in five different design centres spanning several times zones
• The program involved the development of a whole roadmap of display driver mixed signal IC used in low to high end mobile phone, LCD monitors and automotive applications.
• 35 projects with tight schedules and turnaround times, some very significant for the customer with visibility up to EVP level. One of the products sold more than 450M pieces, achieving gross sales in excess of USD 500M throughout its life time for the customer with penetration into the top three global phone makers at the time.
• The current digital design flow in S3 originated from a flow I put in place as program manager for the LCD development program. This led to a significant reduction in development times thus increasing time to market for my customer. I also lead a product value optimisation program that resulted in a 45% area reduction for a new IC with the same feature set as the one replaced. My work was noted by senior executives in the customer organisation and their feedback is currently used on S3 corporate slides.
• My functions on this program included managing S3 and customer engineers for the complete development of each IC. Writing of external datasheets, interfacing with module makers, end customers and senior management within the customer organisation.
• LCD drivers are complex mixed signal IC and the skills I learnt and developed are transferable to any type of IC development work.

UWB PHY IP program Highlights.
• S3 senior executives had taken a strategic decision to develop higher value Intellectual Property (IP) as part of its business offering. The first of such high value IP’s was a UWB PHY baseband based on the WiMedia alliance standard. The transceiver would only contain the analog and digital baseband sections of the PHY. S3’s solution will therefore work with RF circuits developed by potential partners or off the shelf RF circuits
• I lead a team of senior staff engineers and senior managers through a six months initial phase of the program with the following three main goals;
I. Develop key differentiators for S3’s offering and validate S3’s technical competence at developing such a complex IP
II. Identify potential customers and partners for early engagement and carry out a market validation to determine whether there was a business case for a UWB IP for SoC integration
III. Develop a product management plan for the UWB IP which will include a detailed business and marketing plan for the product.
• One of the main achievements of this work was the creation of a Product Creation Process which has since been further enhanced and is now used for new product development in S3. Prior to this work, S3 did not have a structured product creation process.
• The team met all the goals set by senior management. However, the investment capital was re-directed to other ventures within the organization.


Selected Miscellaneous Highlights
• In business development, I’ve have achieved numerous project wins from first time engagements to several repeat business opportunities with a global client base. Design wins include full SoC programs, strategic IP development programs, mixed signal IC’s or secondment type project where engineers are located at customer sites.
• I was chosen as one three people in the whole Silicon organisation to negotiate new commercial terms for leasing CAD tools from EDA vendors. I successfully negotiated a better deal from both a cost and services perspective than the existing one.
• Initiation of the company-wide Projects Manager Forum in which PM’s discuss and plan project resources such as CAD, CPU and engineering staffing levels.

PhD/Doctorate - Electronics Engineering

The University of Liverpool

Links

• LinkedIn - http://ie.linkedin.com/in/chrysngwa

Awards

• Applied Project management program course. I have also attended several effective management courses
• Synposys and Cadence EDA tools
• Verilog / VHDL
• Effective Time management
• Use of Salesforce.com for opportunity pipeline management
• Linux, UNIX (Solaris) and Windows OS (Word, Excel, Visio, Project, Powerpoint etc).
• First Aid trained