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Karren Brady
Managing Director, Birmingham City Football Club
Karren is known as the first woman in football. She has been Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club since 1993 and has turned the Club’s fortunes around. She took over Birmingham City when it was in administration, and in her first year at the helm, the Club recorded a financial trading profit. During the past years the club has increased the average gate of the Club from 6000 to a sell out capacity of over 30,000. In 2007 her business was valued at over £60 million.
In November 2006 she won Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year, in the category of Women Who Have Changed the World.
In March 2006 she was chosen as the team leader on BBC1’s The Apprentice, for Comic Relief, where she lead her team to a resounding victory over the boys team raising over £750. In October 2007 Karren was voted Business Woman of the Year. This recognition was quickly followed in December 2008 when she was presented with the coveted Spirit of Everywoman Award at the NatWest Everywoman Awards, acknowledging her outstanding achievements in changing the landscape for women in business.
During January 2009, Karren presented a series of features for ITV1's GMTV called Just the Job, helping people back into work, and giving advice about looking for and retaining your job in this uncertain economic climate.
Following appearances as one of Sir Alan Sugar’s interrogators on the popular BBC show ‘The Apprentice’, Karren is to replace Margaret Mountford as Sir Alan’s right-hand woman in the forthcoming Series 6. |
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Gerard Chick
Head of Business Intelligence & Product Development, Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply
Gerard is Head of Business Intelligence and Product Development at the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS), where he leads the CIPS Product Development Team, which is responsible for gathering the latest thinking from academia and practice in Procurement & Supply Management and understanding its relationship to the wider business agenda. Much of his work has been to describe key trends, to challenge orthodoxy and consider future possibilities in pushing the boundaries of procurement and supply chain management. |
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Colin Cram
Managing Director, Marc1 Ltd
Colin held senior positions for 30 years in central government (including the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury), local government, higher education and the wider public sector. He was responsible throughout for initiating and implementing innovative strategies for procurement, shared services, outsourcing and organisational re-engineering. Savings from his initiatives exceed £1bn.
Colin has created and managed several pioneering joint and shared service procurement organisations, influencing spend of up to £7bn a year. He was a founder member of the Central Unit on Purchasing (forerunner of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)), created and led the Research Councils’ Procurement Organisation, the Benefits Agency Contracts Organisation and was first director of the North Western Universities’ Purchasing Consortium. Latterly he was Director of the North West Centre of Excellence, creating and delivering collaborative opportunities in procurement and shared services for 47 local authorities.
Colin is a member of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and has been appointed a Senior Adviser to the OGC. He runs a successful consultancy, Marc1 Ltd.
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Sally Collier
Executive Director of Policy and Capability, Office of Government Commerce
Sally’s current portfolio includes leading a team whose remit is to improve central government capability in procurement, project and programme management and estates. This encompasses the work of the Government Procurement Service and the Procurement Capability Review (PCR) programme.
On the policy side, Sally is responsible for the development and application of UK public procurement policy. Her team of policy experts represents the UK on public procurement at the European Commission and World Trade Organisation; they transcribe EU Directives into UK regulations, promote compliance and manage the UK’s response to any infractions brought against public authorities. Sally is responsible for OGC’s leadership across government to develop a consolidated approach to the use of public procurement in furtherance of government’s wider policy goals – environmental, social and economic.
Sally’s career started in the private sector but the last fifteen years have been spent in the public sector largely focussed on public procurement. Postings have included delivery of programmes to assist SMEs to bid successfully for government work and a strategic programme to better manage workflow and supply and demand matching in major government markets.
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Sharon Cuff
Head of Procurement Lincolnshire
Sharon is the Head of Procurement Lincolnshire, a groundbreaking partnership of all local authorities within the two-tier county of Lincolnshire, uniting a small borough council, five district councils, the city council and county council. Before joining Procurement Lincolnshire, Sharon was the Head of Commercial Services at Lincolnshire County Council, prior to which she worked in senior commissioning posts in adult and children’s services. She has extensive experience of outsourcing and developing strategic partnerships, and also worked in the health service in the North East and the East Midlands. |
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Nicola Dunne
Chief Procurement Officer, Research Councils UK Shared Services Centre
Nicola began her career at Ford Motor Company learning state-of-the-art engine procurement and joining the effort to globalise the purchasing team’s systems. Towards the end of her time at Ford, she completed an MBA and became Chartered in CIPS.
She has since gained nine years’ experience at Royal Mail in various roles. Initially in procurement, she took advantage of a fast track development programme and moved into change management. Her roles varied from re-engineering the company business units to Engineering and Commercial Director, all with a similar theme of making operations more efficient.
In 2007, Nicola became Chief Procurement Officer at the newly formed Research Councils UK Shared Services Centre, which was established to service the seven UK-based Government Research Councils. She is tasked with creating a single Procurement Organisation that provides leading-edge supply chain management and with delivering £250 million in savings. |
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David Frost
Director General, British Chambers of Commerce
David has been Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) since January 2003. Prior to this he was Chief Executive of Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce and Business Link.
The BCC represents over 100,000 businesses through a network of 55 Accredited Chambers of Commerce. The role of the BCC is to promote the interests of British business and represent the interests of the Chambers of Commerce. A subsidiary company, BCC Enterprises, develops a range of commercial activities for the benefit of Chambers and their members.
David is also Chairman of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship.
He is a Board Member of Ufi/ Learn Direct and a member of the National Employer Advisory Board for the Reserve Forces. |
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Andrew Hancox
Director, Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands
Andy has been the Director of Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands (IEWM), the West Midland’s RIEP, since 2008. Prior to that, he was the Director of the WM Centre of Excellence. IEWM provides broad-ranging support for improvement and efficiency within the West Midlands. Key themes prioritised by IEWM in the region include collaborative procurement; and building skills and capacity for transformation - both in traditional service settings, but also in a partnership environment.
Prior to this Andy worked in the Delivery Unit in the Cabinet Office. He has varied experience in a range of public and private settings. Much of his early career was in the field of economic development. He has extensive local government experience in the area of corporate performance and corporate management. His last local government role was as interim Director of Community Governance at Telford and Wrekin where he established the policy and performance framework which led to Telford being one of thee first unitary authorities to be rated as Excellent under CPA. |
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David Hansom
Associate, Eversheds LLP
David is an associate and a key member of Eversheds' firm-wide Procurement Group. He specialises in public procurement and advises central and local government departments, public authorities, utilities and leading private sector contractors on issues ranging from day to day application to the procurement management/structuring of major projects across a variety of sectors.
He advises on procurement aspects of deals conducted pursuant to both the Private Finance Initiative and traditional procurement routes (with particular experience in the relatively new competitive dialogue). He also has particular expertise in the application of public procurement to complex land and regeneration projects following the Auroux decision. |
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Peter Howarth
Chief Executive of SOPO
Peter has a long track record in procurement and local government. In October 2003 he started his own consultancy and training company (SBV Ltd) specialising in procurement and contracting matters, primarily in the public sector. He is currently the Chief Executive of the Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government (SOPO). Prior to that he had spent three years with the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) where he worked as a member of the team developing IDeA Marketplace.
Peter is also a member of the National e-Procurement Project board, a Director of the Ipswich and Sudbury Enterprise Agency, primarily working on their strategy group, and is a regular conference speaker and workshop facilitator. His earlier posts include Director of Strategic Management, Associate Director of Resources and County Purchasing Officer for Suffolk County Council. Whilst at Suffolk he led on the introduction of Best Value and was responsible for a number of cross-functional projects and departments. He has also worked for Shropshire County Council as Deputy County Supplies Officer.
Peter spent 15 years in engineering procurement, primarily with British Leyland - originally in the Automotive division working on development projects for sports cars such as the TR7, and then in the Special Projects division, mainly for Coventry Climax. Peter is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and a member of IPSERA.
He was one of the first graduates from the Birmingham University MBA in Strategic Procurement and also holds a degree in Applied Economics, but maintains that serving an apprenticeship in a Coventry car factory prepared him for most things in life!
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Collan Murray
Senior Procurement Manager, Greater London Authority Group
Profile coming soon. |
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Kevin Pritchard
Director, Commissioning Business Service
Over the past 18 months, Kevin has led the deployment of the Commissioning Business Service (CBS), which provides support to PCTs in Greater Manchester and beyond.
Kevin is a professionally qualified procurement, contracting and supply chain executive with broad industrial experience gained during his time as Director of Procurement during the set-up and deployment of the NHS North West Collaborative Procurement Hub. He also served as first Chair of NHS National Procurement Enablement Strategy Group.
Prior to joining the NHS, Kevin built up extensive experience of leading change and delivering organisational development during his 20 years’ experience in operational supply chain functions, including procurement, contracting and logistics in oil and gas, construction, automotive and international manufacturing. |
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Claire Smart
Director of Strategic Procurement, Gloucestershire County Council
Profile coming soon. |
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Corin Taylor
Senior Policy Adviser, Institute of Directors
Corin is a Senior Adviser in the IoD Policy Unit, covering economic policy, taxation and public service reform issues.
He sits on the Economic Dependency working group at the Centre for Social Justice and has written a number of opinion pieces on tax for the Financial Times. He was formerly Research Director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, where he commissioned a dynamic model of the UK economy, showing the benefits of reducing the tax burden.
In 2006, he was Political Secretary to the Tax Reform Commission, prior to which he worked for the think tank Reform for two years as Economics Research Officer. Here his work included drawing up Reform's ‘growth rule’ for sustainable public spending and co-authoring a pensions reform plan with Tony Blair's former economic adviser, Derek Scott.
Corin has also spoken on public spending and public service reform at the European Parliament in Strasbourg and to think tanks in Canada. |
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Ian Taylor
Commercial Director, Department for Children, Schools & Families
Ian is the Commercial Director for the Department of Children, Schools & Families and is responsible for improving the performance of procurement across the education sector. This covers the department itself, Higher and Further Education, schools and the children’s services sector. Ian is actively involved with his team in collaborative procurement across government and in developing the capability of procurement in the public sector as a member of the Public Sector Faculty Board (a joint OGC and CIPS initiative).
Before this role, he was Head of Procurement at HBOS for 10 years and has particular practical experience of change management in both the public and private sector. Ian was President of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply from 2004 to 2005 and as a lifelong procurement professional having worked with Unipart, the Post Office and BT across a wide range of procurement challenges. He has been particularly engaged in the use of technology in procurement and the supply chain and is promoting better corporate and social responsibility in procurement practice. |
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Councillor Michael Wilkes
Lord Mayor of Birmingham
Councillor Michael Wilkes was born in Brierley Hill, Staffs in 1941. He attended primary school in Stourbridge and, at secondary level, St Philip’s Grammar School in Edgbaston. Entering The University of Birmingham in 1959, he specialised in Economics, graduating in 1962. He joined the academic staff the same year, subsequently gaining a PhD in 1977. While mostly at The University of Birmingham until his retirement in 2002, he had secondments to Aston University and Northwestern University in the USA.
He moved to Birmingham in 1968, living for two years in Moseley. He married Vivienne in 1970 and they set up home in Hall Green where they have lived ever since. They have three sons and one granddaughter. Always interested in domestic politics and international affairs, intermittent helping out with the Liberals at election time turned to major commitment with the formation of the SDP/Liberal Alliance in 1981.
He went on to win the Hall Green seat in 1984, remaining on the Council until 1992. During the period off the Council, he became Head of the School of Social Sciences at The University of Birmingham from 1988 to 1991 and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce and Social Science from 1991 to 1995.
He returned to the City Council in 2000 and chaired the Co-ordinating Overview and Scrutiny Committee from 2004 to 2006. He led scrutiny reviews including the Highways PFI, the Role of Members and the Full Council, Mobile Telecommunications and Devolution. He has served on numerous council committees and groups, most recently Public Protection, Trusts and Charities and the Electoral Matters Members Forum, which he chaired until 2009. In Hall Green, he has served on many local groups and is a governor at four schools including Hall Green School, where he has been a governor for over twenty years.
Michael is immensely proud to be a citizen of Birmingham – and a Brummie by adoption! Both he and Vivienne, a Brummie by birth, consider it to be the greatest of honours to have the opportunity as first citizens to promote and serve the people of Birmingham, their industry and culture.
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Kay Williams
Team Leader, Defra Sustainable Procurement
Kay has been a Team Leader in Defra’s Sustainable Products and Consumers (SPC) Division for three years. She specialises in developing and promoting Sustainable Procurement in Government, with particular focus on two EU initiatives: Green Public Procurement and Ecolabel.
One of Defra’s aims is to spread best practice across the public sector and influence EU initiatives in procurement so that they deliver challenging, achievable and coherent improvements in product sustainability standards by 2011. In her role with Defra, Kay has been involved in research into the embedded carbon emissions of products and services, as well as in establishing targets for sustainable procurement in central government.
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| Please note presenters may be subject to change |
