Main procurement specialisms:

Professional Services, Travel & Events, Facilities and Construction, Technology, P2P, Digital Transformation, Strategic Sourcing

Companies previously worked for:

Google, Novel, Microsoft

Most senior role held:

Chief Procurement Officer (Head of Source-to-Pay)

Greatest achievements in Procurement:

1. Building from scratch a world-class Strategic Sourcing function for a multi-billion-dollar global company

2. Achieving and exceeding a half-billion-dollar savings target during the financial crisis

3. Taking billions of dollars of spend out to competitive bid using online auctions as a key negotiation strategy as part of the multi-step sourcing process

Best procurement advice I’ve been given:

Ruthlessly prioritise - if you can’t add value to a project, don’t waste your time on it. There is no point ‘going through the motions’ of RFP, if the stakeholder has already done a deal. Similarly, it is much better to do one big impactful project well, than lots of small tactical ones. Sometimes it’s OK to say ‘no’. Our time is precious and where possible we should outsource administrative tasks and spend it on high-value activities

Procurement advice I’d give:

Focus on value generation rather than cost management, by better understanding and serving the needs of stakeholders. By satisfying the stakeholder's value equation, savings are guaranteed to follow

What I wish I’d known:

It is far better to focus on a few things that really matter and be truly excellent at them all. Of course, the biggest challenge is being able to identify the things that really matter