Self employed consultant

Engaged as purchasing generalist but assigned to Man Group as Interim Travel Manger to write and implement a global travel policy, identify savings and introduce SLAs and KPIs to manage TMCs. Reviewed air and hotel spend, introduced specialist HBA. Total savings achieved £800,000.This was also a change management position involving significant engagement with stakeholders and travel bookers and providing training sessions in UK and Switzerland. Rolled policy out globally and initiated RFPs for TMCs in USA and Canada.In addition, undertook an opportunity assessment review [OAR] of travel at BDO Stoy Hayward identifying potential savings of £700,000. Prepared and managed RFP for HBA achieving £200,000 savings. Also participated in travel OAR for AXA and Universal.

Provide Purchasing consultancy to clients on policies, procedures [incorporating Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements], strategic sourcing, establishment of purchasing function and act as interim manager while recruiting teams across EMEA. Assignments also involved where necessary a more hands on approach researching and manipulating basic spend data to produce categorisation reports, undertaking set up and negotiation of contracts, establishing KPIs and set up contract management process and liaising with stakeholders. Clients include Cisco Systems, palmOne and Kincaid Associates in USA.

• Responsible for overall performance & operations of a print management company. Purchasing, controlling stock, storing, delivering & customer service across Europe.• Revised agreements & reporting systems resulting in improved margins.• Successfully guided company through financial difficulty. Managed cash flow daily & liaised with suppliers, customers & staff to maintain loyalty & motivation. This ensured company survival & enhanced future saleability.

• Established purchasing agreements for online system serving 100,000 members

• Responsible for all Purchasing, Catering, Office Services & Travel Management in EMEA region with a spend budget of $1.5Bn, direct staff of 40, indirect staff of 120 & operational budget of $1M servicing 23,000 customers.• Centralised purchasing function in an environment used to autonomy. Demonstrated leadership, diplomacy & a customer service approach to the change in culture. This produced creative business solutions & increased knowledge & control of cash flow.• Developed new bank purchasing processes. Devised / recorded procedures with checks & balances reconciling strategy with customer’s needs for non bureaucratic system and improved service. This controlled expenditure, increased suppliers’ and customer confidence, achieved a grade 4 [max 5] audit rating and 85% customer satisfaction rating.• Wrote specifications for a collection system, consolidating airline ticket data. Liaised with software developer resulting in reports that increased knowledge of the business thereby enabling control and enhanced negotiating position leading to significant travel cost reduction. Process also enabled Travel purchasing to be made world wide without adversely impacting local country services and sentiment. • Chaired the Global airline committee. Set up / identified travel managers in each country and informed individuals of the aims as part of the overall programme. This established global agreements saving $10m per annum. • Reengineered & centralised agency labour contracts. Analysed individual costs and worked with HR functions to successfully negotiate new terms and rates, yielding an annual saving of $8m & reduced administration for HR.

• Successfully project managed outsourcing of in-house foundry operations to tight timescale resulting in significant savings & improved quality.• Pioneered European Purchasing, working in Germany having obtained a working knowledge of the language in 6 weeks, leading to an improved purchasing function within the organisation.• Responsible for purchasing all iron casting products for UK & Spain