Gary Williams Email & Phone Number

Steyning, Gb

West Sussex, England, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom

Following the sale of Orchard Valley Foods to Orkla Food Ingredients I was appointed as the NIC Group Procurement Director to develop the NIC group procurement category structure and to optimise the full scale and leverage of the Orkla Group procurement and collaborate across the business units to fully utilise the existing skills and experience.The key objectives of the role are to :-• Develop and Co-Ordinate all the NIC group ' Cost Out ' projects to deliver €1.5M annually• Improve annual working capital by €2M annually• Develop and deliver a 3 year Procurement sustainability plan across all spend categories• Support the commercial teams across the business by providing key appropriate commodity market analysis during annual price setting discussions.• . Support and Mentor the team to improve the functional effectiveness

West Sussex

After the last very successful 8 years at Burtons Biscuits I returned to my Procurement consultancy business. I focused on working with companies that want to develop their procurement strategies, enhance team capabilities and eliminate non added value costs. I actively developed a Procurement collaboration model to assist small/ medium size companies to improve their procurement leverage, improve risk management and benefit from sharing best practice.Key clients included Orchard Valley Foods as a non - executive Board appointment responsible for Strategic supplier development, Inventabrand supporting a number of their client companies to review and advise on procurement best practices and Food Strategy Associates supporting M&A Procurement due diligence .

Tenbury

Having been involved with Orchard Valley for 18 months in a consultancy capacity I was delighted to be asked to join the Board as a NED. The company is successful, progressive and extremely well managed and its focus on supporting and developing people through its strong ethical values is a key to its success.OVF's success has been recognised by professional bodies: the British Retail Consortium awarded it an A+ at its last audit; national rankings: OVF was named as One to Watch in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100, and regional bodies Herefordshire and Worcestershire Chambers of Commerce voted OVF as Small Business of the Year for 2014, Growth Business of the Year 2015 and overall winner of Business of the Year 2015. Awarded Queens award for export in 2016 as well as the Shropshire Company of the year 2016.

St Alabns

Responsible for a team of 10 people with an annual spend of £200M including volatile soft commodities, Ingredients, Packaging, Logistics, IT and business wide overhead expenditure. This was a UK board appointment to transform the purchasing function from a primes focused tactical/ service orientated department to a strategically led and high performing team optimising modern risk management tools/techniques to ensure “Value for money “across the entire purchase ledger.A key deliverable has been working with and developing the team to analyse and develop a number of key strategic value drivers which were independently endorsed by external consultants. These formed a key element of the overall business 5 year strategic plan in 2013 and are on track to deliver sustainable cost reductions of circa £8M by the end of 2016. The external capability and competence benchmarking undertaken by CIPS placed the team in the top quartile within their worldwide population which was personally satisfying and rewarding. A key challenge is to manage the £100m of volatile market driven soft commodities given their potential impact on business profitability and to work closely with the Board to both forecast and mitigate it. I have implemented a number of measurable procurement performance measures which are monitored monthly by the independent finance support team based on “beating the market, cash improvement via enhanced supplier terms and cost out programmes. In addition I led a cross business process on behalf of the Board to review both commercial and operational alignment opportunities that become either discrete strategic projects or deliver in year benefits. I am a member of the Group`s Supply Chain leadership Team and work collaboratively to deliver year on year reductions in the total controllable cost base.

Kingston Upon Thames

Successfully established a business to provide a Procurement Consultancy service to Industry building up a client base including Burtons Biscuits, Peak Ingredients, Classic Couverture, Abbey Road Tankers and Natures Table.

Hayes Middlesex

Responsibility for managing a pan European team of 40 people with a £ 250m annual spend across UB as well as representing Purchasing on the Northern European Executive Board.• Drive a minimum 5% a year sustainable cost base reduction.• Develop strategic sourcing strategies which drive out non added value costs from the total supply chain• Introduce Value Chain Analysis with selected suppliers as the key strategic driver• Ensure total alignment with the UB manufacturing footprint strategy and in-house capability• Support NPD growth initiatives in terms of speed to market at minimal UB capital risk• Lead the Advanced Procurement Programme (APP) to review current status, recommend and implement an optimised UB procurement organisational design and determine best practice for the function.

Hayes Middlesex

Responsible for managing an international purchasing team of 10 with a £300m annual spend across UB, including management of risk associated with major volatile markets (cocoa and oils) within agreed financial policy. In addition I represented the purchasing function on the UK Biscuits Executive which helped to understand my role in supporting the wider business objectives and financial growth targets.• Delivered £11m cost base reduction over 3 years via specification challenge and introduction of eProcurement.• Developed Integrated Operational Services Sourcing Process and designed and implemented 10 step sourcing strategies and risk management approach for function.• Established recognised high performance, delivery focused and successful team• Ensured all key clients serviced effectively via period reports and briefings.• Embedded Strategic Material Teams to support UB’s growth objectives.• Established use of sourcing strategies, benchmark measures, eRFPs and reverse auctions across spend area as standard working practice.

Staines Hq

Responsible for a purchasing portfolio of £300m and a department of 13 buyers, covering ingredients, packaging and services on behalf of McVities (UK) and its seven factories. Reported directly to the McVities (UK) MD.• Delivered a commercial operating plan to contribute in areas of prime cost improvement, cost drives and working capital reductions.• Designed and implemented purchasing modules and processing for SAP rollout across the UK.• Negotiated all bulk Ingredients/Packaging onto consignment stocking and “pay as you use”. This reduced working capital by £4m in 1995 via a zero stock supply chain.• Delivered business cost saving programme covering Ingredients/Packaging of £2m per annum as part of continuous improvement plan.• Improved rebates with key suppliers within a commercial framework of £900k.• Established purchasing involvement in all areas of expenditure within business, demonstrated benefits of professional negotiation in engineering, maintenance items, cars, photocopies, computer software licences and marketing services.• Successfully implemented SAP Procurement across UB.

Osterley Hq

Managed a team of seven, responsible for an ingredients purchasing portfolio of £170m.• Reduced stock holding from 9 to 5 days, improving working capital by over £2m per annum.• Delivered a technical led cost saving programme of £1m via challenging specifications in conjunction with factories/marketing.• Successfully integrated ingredients purchasing team within the operating company post de-centralisation which was a key challenge given poor customer perception existing from previous central purchasing organisation.• Implemented currency hedging scheme to manage risk associated with purchasing CAP products within the EU agrimonetary system, saving £8m.• Developed key global supplier strategy with Keebler in America saving £300k per annum via technology transfer and business investment.

Osterley Hq

Responsible for £75m spend across UK including Terry’s of York, covering a range of ingredients within the scope of EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).• Represented UK industry in Brussels on ingredient issues related to CAP policies.• Developed purchasing interfaces at factory level to develop a “services” mindset.• Design and implemented purchasing performance review documentation for senior board briefing.• Developed Dairy strategy post Ross Young’s acquisition that saved £1.2m in the first full year • Negotiated reduced sugar prices post Terry’s and Ross Young’s acquisition saving £0.4m in year one

Manchester/Ashby De-La Zouch

Several roles ranging from Line Manager and Factory Efficiency Officer to Special Projects Manager covering both McVities and KP Manufacturing sites.• Project managed all Capital and efficiency projects for the KP Managing Director• Reviewed and developed all cost-savings ideas to improve factory efficiency• Pioneered a factory suggestion scheme which won a highly prestigious award for the Group

Bachelor Of Science (Bsc)Physics

Education record