Michael Herbst · Curriculum Vitae

01 At a Glance

6 yrs 5 mo Continuous service at Civilsoft Systems as the sole technical resource.

270+ South African offices running the engineering software supported.

Global Admin Microsoft 365 and identity administration across client and internal tenants.

Sole Admin Configured and solely administer Kouga Digital's Google Workspace Business environment.

SARAO · SARB Among the public-sector bodies whose software bids I compiled and submitted.

02 Technical Skills

The nine core rows. The full skills page carries the complete inventory, including commercial, procurement and leadership capability.

Service Desk & End-User Support:

Support-desk ticket management (Freshdesk, Zendesk, custom systems) run to structured incident, request and change workflows: triage, prioritisation, escalation, resolution and follow-up against agreed SLA targets; remote troubleshooting; client onboarding and training; technical documentation, runbook and user-guide authoring; screen-capture and tutorial production (TechSmith Snagit Certification); Sage Pastel Partner / Xpress; Sage Evolution; POS systems (GAAP, Platinum, Odyssey); translating complex technical concepts to non-technical users.

Cloud Productivity, Identity & Endpoint Administration:

Microsoft 365 tenant administration at Global Administrator level, covering Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams and OneDrive; Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) user, group and role administration; conditional access and multi-factor enrolment; Intune endpoint and device management; licensing, distribution groups and shared mailboxes; Group Policy and Registry administration; device build, imaging and rollout; joiner, mover and leaver account administration with access removal and licence reclamation on exit. Currently configure and solely administer Kouga Digital's Google Workspace Business environment, with broad capability across the Google Admin console, Gmail, Drive, Meet and Groups.

Servers, Cloud & Virtualisation:

Windows Server administration: provisioning, patch management, Active Directory Domain Services, DNS and DHCP, application deployment, monitoring, backup, restore and disaster recovery. VPS provisioning, hardening and maintenance; Proxmox VE; Hyper-V / WSL2 / VirtualBox / VMware Workstation Pro; hybrid on-premises and cloud environments; cPanel and Softaculous-managed shared hosting; multi-tenant hosting architecture review; static-site hosting and deployment; domain registration and DNS management.

Operating Systems:

Windows 10 / 11 including Commercial, LTSC and IoT editions; Windows hardening and debloating; Linux (Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, Kali Linux, Parrot Security, Paladin Linux, CAINE OS); macOS; ChromeOS.

Networking & Infrastructure:

Network configuration across production VPS and on-premises environments; firewall configuration and egress control on Windows and Linux hosts; routing, DNS, DHCP and VPN concepts; structured cabling and endpoint setup; familiarity with IP cameras, VoIP and on-site ICT hardware lifecycles.

Databases:

SQL Server, MySQL (cloud and local) and Microsoft Access: query writing, basic schema design, backup and restore, integrity checks, and day-to-day troubleshooting on live client deployments.

Scripting & Automation:

PowerShell: idempotent provisioning and scaffolding scripts written to fail loudly rather than partially create, SHA-256 hash-ledger and file-integrity workflows, and scheduled tasks. Bash with Pandoc for HTML to Markdown documentation pipelines; Git for Windows version control; single-source-of-truth document-generation tooling; local and cloud AI-assisted automation.

Information Security & Compliance:

POPIA compliance awareness and applied review; Windows and Linux hardening; network, server and endpoint security; endpoint protection and antivirus administration (Microsoft Defender); multi-tenant isolation analysis; identity and access control under a written policy; digital evidence handling to ACPO good-practice guidance and ISO/IEC 27037, with CAINE imaging and SHA-256 verification; TryHackMe practical foundations.

Front-End Web Development:

Semantic HTML5; mobile-first CSS with token-driven design systems (CSS custom properties); accessibility basics (semantic landmarks, ARIA); JSON-LD structured data; Open Graph metadata; local SEO; WordPress and Softaculous deployment. Progressing toward full-stack development through structured self-study.

03 Professional Experience

Condensed here. The experience page carries every role and the full bullet set.

Jeffreys Bay, South Africa · May 2026 – Present

Founder Current · Kouga Digital

Independent IT, Infrastructure, Managed Services & Web Practice · www.kougadigital.co.za

Independent practice delivering IT support, infrastructure and web work for South African professional-services clients, run solo end to end from scoping through to handover.
Configured and solely administer Kouga Digital's Google Workspace Business environment, including ongoing maintenance.
End-to-end engagement: requirements gathering, content strategy, hand-coded HTML and CSS, accessibility basics, JSON-LD structured data and local SEO, draft regulatory pages (POPIA, ECTA), and WordPress-to-static deployment for cPanel and Softaculous environments.
Apply production and security checklists to every deployment, and maintain a living snags-and-gotchas record so a fault that has cost time once cannot cost time again.
Use AI-assisted development and operations tooling to accelerate solo delivery while keeping hand-written, readable production code and configuration.

St Francis Bay, Eastern Cape, South Africa · December 2019 – May 2026

Client Support Administrator · Civilsoft Systems CC

Sole technical resource for proprietary .NET engineering software used in over 270 South African offices, across six years and five months of continuous service.
Sole compiler and submitter of the company's public-sector software bids throughout the role, to South African municipalities, provincial departments, the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) and the South African Reserve Bank: MBD documentation, Central Supplier Database registration and PPPFA scoring compliance.
Administered Windows Server and VPS infrastructure as the scope of the role expanded: provisioning, patch management, user and access management, application deployment, monitoring, backup, restore and disaster recovery.
Ran Microsoft 365 and identity administration across client and internal tenants as the sole administrator: account creation, group and licence management, conditional access and multi-factor enrolment, Intune-managed endpoints, and access removal on exit.
Ran day-to-day helpdesk operations on Freshdesk: ticket triage, prioritisation, escalation, resolution and follow-up for clients across Southern African and international markets.
Managed cloud-hosted MySQL and on-premises Microsoft Access databases for client deployments: query support, backups, restores and integrity checks.
Built PowerShell and Bash automation and Git-based versioning to streamline support, reporting and documentation tasks.
Authored and maintained technical documentation, runbooks, training material and user guides; delivered remote and on-site training to non-technical clients.
Proposed and received approval for an updated video-training and user-guide programme, while continuing primary support duties.
Owned client onboarding across the full product life cycle, and provided remote and on-site IT support for related companies.

Port Elizabeth, South Africa · 2018 – 2019

Assistant Manager (promoted from Internal Sales) · Teleray CC

Trained new staff, ran the business in the owner's absence, and oversaw day-to-day operations and key-holder responsibilities.
Handled inventory control, trial-balance bookkeeping, and marketing.

Port Elizabeth, South Africa · 2017

IT & Sales Consultant · Irislink SA / The Media Genius SA

Provided regional IT support for optical character recognition software and associated devices, including deployment, configuration and end-user troubleshooting.

Earlier roles:

Sales Manager, The Student Advisor (2018); Sales Consultant, Wayne Pheiffer Cycles (2018); Event DJ/MC and Sound Technician, Lutiek Promotions & Sound (2014 – 2015).

04 Certifications in Progress & Continuous Learning

In progress: CompTIA Security+, with practical work toward eJPT, PNPT and OSCP.
Working knowledge of ITIL service management practice.
Active self-directed study covering Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud ecosystems, full-stack web development, and the AI / LLM ecosystem.
Actively developing hands-on coding skills (Python, Node.js and client-side JavaScript) through project-based self-study.
Entirely self-taught across the technical stack, with a record of learning fast and delivering in production without formal training or courses.

Full learning record, including what is applied and complete, and what comes next.

05 Education

University of Pretoria

B.Eng. Computer Engineering (2015 – 2016, changed direction); B.Com. Law (2016 – 2017, discontinued).

National Senior Certificate (IEB), 2014

St Dominic's College, Welkom

3rd in Matric · Full Academic Honours. Distinctions: English HL (A), Afrikaans FAL (A), Life Orientation (A), Business Studies (A), Physical Sciences (A); Mathematics (B); Accounting (B).

06 Languages & Additional Information

Languages:

English (Home Language) · Afrikaans (Proficient) · Sesotho (Basic)

Other:

South African citizen · Code 08 driver's licence · Available immediately.

References:

Available on request.

IT support specialist and system administrator.