After a brief stint consulting in SSE locally April/May, I have decided to take a break from sitting around in an office all day or wfh in front of a screen (35 years is enough I feel) so time to do something different, for now at least. My only ‘work’ therefore is the rather enjoyable and very PT activity of helping Amberley museum maintain its site with coppicing, hedge laying and tree work, so also providing some attractive features.

May 2020 -January 2024: Head of Procurement Programmes. Mergers, Acquisitions & Disposals lead operating amongst various M&A initiatives across multiple Quilter areas. Managing a small team ensuring a clear view of third-party landscape and procurement operations, integrated with collective decisioning as we disposed of Heritage and International business areas plus onboarded a new Business entity. Also during this time I was overseeing Operational Resilience activities in reviewing and re-designing approach of mandated backup material requirements including Stress Exit Plans, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plans, RTO / RPO / SLA info etc. for critical suppliers supporting Important Business Services and in addition worked closely with a Big Four consultancy in driving insights & action activity on spend opportunity across the Dept, then working with individual Category Managers to seek ways of generating and capturing savings, reducing cost and increasing use of master vendor capabilities.Initial activity was Procurement Programme Manager for COUPA system implementation pan-Quilter. Working closely with our Big Four delivery partner (amongst wider ERP programme along with Workday for HR and Finance) achieving estate cost-optimisation. Coupa was installed successfully and delivered on time, to budget, with Go-Live in January 2021. Personally engaged in all aspects of procurement ERP Programme delivery amongst wider delivery team and Procurement Dept.

Following the managed separation from Old Mutual Wealth which has created the stand-alone Listed company QUILTER, my leadership role continues to evolve. Predominantly risk management-focused around third party provisioning in a multi platform, high spend fast moving technical environment, myself and my teams are looking to optimise opportunities for growth whilst developing suppliers and unlocking technology innovation across the Group. Vendor management is key to this evolution which is a major area of focus, alongside traditional procurement, commercial and governance aspects.

Team manager of Procurement Category Managers across all Corporate sourcing disciplines.Responsible for strategy delivery through extended Procurement team.

Contracts & Commercial Manager with people management responsibilities for UK IT Sourcing team (covering offshored Outsourcing, Hardware, Software/SAM, Telco, Network Services, Vendor Management and IT Services Projects) plus Transactional Compliance & Procurement Operations team (Supplier On-boarding/Contract Management/P2P Order Transactions).

Sub-Contract Manager (interim) – Cyber Security International bids. Providing commercial contract and negotiation support to major Bid opportunities, world-wide; Third party complex software, services and integrated solutions.

Head of Procurement for Education and Training business covering Specialist Services/Offerings, Property, FM, IT and asset management; portfolio annual spend in region of £50m+

Strategic Sourcing responsibility for all IT Hardware/Technology Procurement (Laptops, Desktops, Servers, Storage, Monitors, MFD's, Peripherals/Consumables, ad-hoc specials etc) plus related Support (Hosted Data Centre managed operations, maintenance services, desk side break/fix support etc) as well as stand-alone IT Professional Services, Consultancy and System Integration activities. I own and maintain the Sourcing Strategy for Circa £60m annual spend, aligning to the Business’ architectural roadmaps & strategies utilising Framework Suppliers, whilst also leading individual Tender activities on Project or strategy enhancement basis following stringent EU mandated procurement processes.

Contracts and Procurement Manager, large (secure) Public Sector Project

IBM: Strategy delivery pan-Europe including CEEMAS/CEMEA for IT Equipment and related Maintenance Services.

General Procurement Manager. People manager of extended team responsibile for Enterprise cluster (Indirects/ IBM Internal Commodities: FM, Design & Construction, Travel, Office consumables, Car Fleet, Education Services, Marketing Communications) plus small team of Business Transformation Outsourcing professionals.