Derek Cooper
Sydney,Australia
Summary
Strategic and results-driven FinOps Analyst with over 27 years of experience in diverse commercial functions within leading financial services organizations. Recently served as Performance Lead on a five-member FinOps team, successfully delivering approximately $18 million in cost savings for FY2025 through targeted optimization initiatives. Recognized as a specialist in IT recharge transformation and highly proficient in Power BI reporting, an essential tool utilized in the last three roles. Known for fostering trust-based relationships through exceptional stakeholder engagement and interpersonal skills while combining a logical, forward-thinking mindset with collaborative leadership to drive impactful and sustainable outcomes.
Overview
28
28
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Performance Lead – Cloud FinOps
Commonwealth Bank Australia
Sydney, AU
01.2022 - 10.2025
- Collaborate with the user of Cloud Services to ensure that consumption is optimized.
- Deliver presentations and insights to senior leaders and stakeholders on Cloud cost optimization opportunities.
- Educate cloud tenants on the application of FinOps practices.
- Advise on the usage and implementation of the Cloudability tool.
- Drive good practice around Cloud cost budgeting, forecasting and tracking.
- Use cloud cost management tools to visualise spending trends and insights as required.
- Stakeholder management including vendor relationships.
- Embed a FinOps maturity program to identify how we can strengthen the FinOps culture within the organisation. Within 1 year many Business Units had progressed from a crawl status to walk as defined by the FinOps Foundation.
- Developed a benefits tracking process which allowed FinOps as a centralised team to report on FinOps initiatives happening independently in Business Units throughout the organization.
- Driving an initiative to implement quarterly forecasting throughout the organization. This allowed technology to understand how demand from the business impacts cloud consumption spending and subsequently drive down budget variances.
- Create a program of work to increase the adoption of Spot Instances to 10% of available hours in non-production environments which was achieved.
Senior Commercial Service Analyst
Commonwealth Bank
01.2020 - 01.2022
- Provide insights and analytics for successful delivery of commercial management services within the compute & networks services.
- Measure the delivery against target performance.
- Produce reporting which will support the optimisation of cost and track the benefits from the resulting initiatives.
- Technology simplification SME support.
- Represent consumption data in the Apptio cost monitoring tool to provide commercial insights.
- Review and transform recharge methodologies.
- Managed a comprehensive cost optimization initiative focused on storage and backup usage across high-cost applications, delivering impactful results. Key achievements included reducing storage consumption by 350TB on a trading application and achieving annual savings of $250,000 by migrating data on the payment’s platform to a more cost-effective storage solution.
- Developed dashboard reporting for executive level forums specifically around KPI’s associated with data storage. These reports were also handed over to the engineering teams to provide insight into their unit cost.
- Initiated a project to review network assets of $50M NBV which were not allocated accurately to the correct users. I improved the accuracy of these allocations which contributed to a more accurate Total Cost of Ownership view in our billing recharge tool.
Business Analyst
Macquarie Bank
Sydney, AU
01.2015 - 01.2020
- Process design and implementation
- Provide reporting to project managers and technical staff
- Stakeholder management
- Gathering and managing requirements
- Introduced Power BI reporting to the department which transformed the way we reported on inventories and project tracking.
- Lead a project to review the asset register to identify desktop assets which were not in operation. This resulted in the organization recovering over 500 assets which could be re-used.
Project Co-ordinator
Macquarie Bank
01.2012 - 01.2014
- Coordinate high priority projects for program delivery team by providing reporting, workforce management and budgeting support
- Requirements management
IT Business Manager
01.2010 - 01.2012
- Develop and maintain the enterprise PMO in a team of four members
- Workforce Planning
- Business case Development
IT Infrastructure Transformation Analyst
01.2005 - 01.2010
- Provide monthly Service P&L support to Infrastructure Technical Services Division
- Review and transform 40+ IT service chargeback methodologies
- Implement Activity Based Costing System to improve accuracy and transparency of IT recharge
IT Infrastructure Management Accountant
01.2003 - 01.2005
- Cost centre management reporting and budgeting to Infrastructure Technical Services
IT Costing and Chargeback Analyst
01.2000 - 01.2003
- Build and maintain an IT Chargeback system for IT Services
Costing Analyst
National Australia Group (Europe)
Glasgow, UK
01.1998 - 01.2000
- Financial management Services - IT and Retail Services Costing Team
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Commerce
Robert Gordon University
AberdeenSkills
- Process Improvement: Identifying inefficiencies and implementing streamlined solutions that enhance operational effectiveness
- Report Development: Designing and delivering insightful, data-driven reports that support informed decision-making
- Data Interpretation: Demonstrated success in translating complex datasets into actionable outcomes that drive stakeholder value
- Stakeholder Management: Ability to drive strategic alignment and deliver clear, effective communication across diverse stakeholder groups
- Managing Cost Reduction Initiatives: Strong focus on implementation of initiatives which drive down unit cost
Certification
- IIBA – Business Analysis (CCBA)
- Project Management Institute – CAPM
- FinOps Foundation – FinOps Certified Practitioner
- Amazon Web Services – AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials
- Amazon Web Services - AWS Cloud Financial Management for Builders
Timeline
Performance Lead – Cloud FinOps
Commonwealth Bank Australia
01.2022 - 10.2025
Senior Commercial Service Analyst
Commonwealth Bank
01.2020 - 01.2022
Business Analyst
Macquarie Bank
01.2015 - 01.2020
Project Co-ordinator
Macquarie Bank
01.2012 - 01.2014
IT Business Manager
01.2010 - 01.2012
IT Infrastructure Transformation Analyst
01.2005 - 01.2010
IT Infrastructure Management Accountant
01.2003 - 01.2005
IT Costing and Chargeback Analyst
01.2000 - 01.2003
Costing Analyst
National Australia Group (Europe)
01.1998 - 01.2000
Bachelor of Arts - Commerce
Robert Gordon University