Leading a commercial review of the Technology division with the objective to realising long term operational cost base savings without impacting services

In the senior role of Procurement Business Partner for the Connect and Platforms directorates, I was the lead procurement manager for the digitalisation and automation function, application delivery and support functions, IT infrastructure function and mobile and fixed network function. I also led 5 senior procurement specialist/managers to provide commercial services across the entire organisation.Responsibilities: • Procurement’s business partner for 2 of 5 Spark directorates• Providing commercial leadership and developing strategies to achieve business outcomes for specific projects, across Spark• Identifying opportunities for continuous improvement in the Procurement service delivery model to better serve stakeholders and maximise Procurement impact• People leadership by developing procurement specialists and the allocation of new business demands across the Procurement team• Building relationships across Spark to manage risks and resolve service resilience issuesAchievements: • Built stakeholder relationships to develop a pipeline of work and agree the level of commercial engagement required, collaborating with 3 other Procurement Business Partners• Resetting procurement engagement to focus on key business needs, through challenging and changing existing ways of working and building up stakeholders’ commercial acumen through commercial guidance and coaching• Maintaining eNPS in a very challenging and unstable employment environment• Resolution of a complex and sensitive delivery failure on a strategic security platform• Implementation of a shared risk support model on Spark’s key CRM system, delivering service enhancements and sustainable cost reductions

In this senior procurement manager position I led a team of 3 procurement managers to provide commercial services across the Technology organisation, which managed and delivered 2degrees’ capital plan and operated the organisations core assets.Responsibilities:• Providing commercial and procurement leadership to the senior Technology team• Delivery of savings, working capital improvements and continuous improvements• Senior stakeholder management• Commercial lead on complex NZ$40m BSS transformation programme• Leading the Technology Procurement teamAchievements: • Owned the commercial leadership, negotiation strategies and commercial supplier management for key suppliers on complex and challenging 3 year BSS transformation project, maintaining commercial leverage and value throughout the period• Built trusted relationships at multiple levels across the business functions and key suppliers• Implemented a business self-serve model on repeatable work to speed up project time-to-market at scale, maintaining procurement oversight through effective governance, • Positively contributed to a Procurement team employee engagement score of 93/100 • Developed 2 procurement managers to enable them to secure more senior roles and enabled a procurement officer to step into a more demanding role while maintaining their life/work balance.• Coached and mentoring junior managers and guided senior managers across the business

Provide commercial expertise to IT and Network teamsResponsibilities:• Shape and led major commercial deals ( with focus on TCO and risk migration• Commercial management of key suppliers as needed• Leverage global presence where beneficial• Provide guidance on smaller commercial deals (up to $100k in value).Achievements• Led cost saving exercise to save 16% of annual mobile network support costs following budget compression• Optimised various supplier commercials during the Vodafone/Telstra Clear merger

I was a senior category manager for IT software, leading a team of 2 procurement managers in a multifaceted and inflexible global organisation.Responsibilities• Develop, manage and deliver category plans for IT software, infrastructure and desktop services• Establishing and managing key stakeholder relationships• Shape and lead major commercial deals (£500k+).• Oversee execution of smaller commercial deals• Manage major IT suppliers within categoryAchievements• Developed 2+ year category plans with stakeholder, leveraging global presence as able• Simplified commercial constructs with key suppliers to deliver sustainable savings and greater ease of delivery for business team• Delivered 66% headcount reduction by introducing efficiencies and changes to IT software category and supplier management.

Managed the transformation of seasoned commercial managers from Technology into Procurement, ensuring adoption of new ways of working and amalgamation into new teamResponsibilities• Lead team of 6 experienced commercial professionals during a business change process• Managing the transition of commercial activities and adoption of new ways of workingAchievement• successful transition completed, including the adoption of new ways of working, without employee churn• Led large commercial activities and negotiations, including complicated RFP and eAuctions up to £70m in value

Provide clear & innovative commercial model leadership to major projects and identify and deliver commercial opportunities within the Technology supplier baseResponsibilities included providing commercial model options to major projects through researching of existing models and/or development of new models and supporting delivery of commercial management of Tier 1 Technology suppliers. Achievements included development of new commercial and operational models for IT and Network services, identification of new commercial improvements in Technology supply chain and mentoring of management grade employees to build commercial acumen

Management of Suppliers to specific service budgets and key business SLAsIdentifying and leading execution of strategic cost reduction opportunitiesEstablishing and implementing supplier management policies and processesDefining sourcing objectives, operational and commercial requirements for procurement to execute RFPsLeading on contract negotiations for Operations

Oversaw effective management of £39m IT operations support budgetIdentified and ensured delivery of major opportunitiesManagement and ownership of large commercial issues and supplier disputes to resolutionDevelopment and Implementation of operational financial governance model and processes, increasing ITIL Cost Management benchmark rating year-on-yearOversaw nurturing and delivery of continuous improvement initiativesProviding direction on, and active involvement in, the operational management of larger suppliersMentoring of operational managers on contract or dispute negotiationsMentoring of operational managers on financial managementMentoring of operational managers on commercial managementManagement of business management team

Management and resolution of major supplier issuesLed multi-million pound RFP and negotiation of agreements with external suppliers, driven to minimise the total cost of ownership, to increase quality/quantity of deliverables, minimise commercial risks to O2Proven ability to understand internal customer requirements or issues, then resolve by securing appropriate proposal or settlement from supplierDelivered additional cost savings and quality increases through pro-active ideasAttained internal customers to Director level through performance, evidenced by internal referralsResponsible for a team of up to 4 managers, prioritising the business requirements needing support