Stephen Dickinson

Prior to joining the South West London Procurement Alliance, Stephen was the Head of Purchasing for Kingston Hospital NHS Trust since 1991, and has implemented considerable development in procurement management. He was a member of, and secretary to, the former NHS Trusts Federation's Standing Committee on Supplies and Purchasing since its formation, and has been at the centre of many initiatives to raise the profile of a professional supplies function within healthcare. On behalf of the Federation, he worked to develop a service for benchmarking procurement costs and product prices. He is a member of the Healthcare Technical Committee of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and an officer of the Health Care Supply Association. He lectured on supplies management for a number of years within both Diploma and Post-graduate/MSc courses in healthcare management, and presents at conferences and seminars on strategic purchasing and supplies matters.

Peter Howarth

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. He 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!

Eddie Regan

Eddie is BiP Solutions' Senior Procurement Consultant. Working alongside the Client Services team, he frequently assists public sector organisations with clarification and interpretation of EU Directives and a wide variety of legislative issues. Eddie is lead consultant on BiP's PASS Mark Health Check, an evaluation technique that helps identify how organisations in both the public and private sectors can develop more effective processes in respect of all aspects of public sector contracting. A member of the International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association (IPSERA), Eddie is also the senior adviser on BiP's unique Tender Support Helpline team, which provides advice on contracting matters to hundreds of clients. For the last 13 years Eddie has lectured regularly on procurement policy and processes at conferences and events, both on behalf of BiP and for a variety of other organisations, including the Society of Procurement Officers in Local Government (SOPO) and the Institute of Directors. He also provides in-house training on the tendering process – law and practice – to personnel in both the public and private sectors, including several multinational organisations.