Neil is Head of Business Services at Hampshire County Council and has been a member of the Central Buying Consortium Management Board since 1997. He is known to suppliers and local government alike as an active supporter of initiatives to obtain greater value for money through aggregation of purchasing for the public and voluntary sectors. Neil took over as CBC Chair from Ros Aird in September 2007.

Peter is a partner, and head of Shoosmiths’ EU Competition and Procurement team. He trained and practised in the City before moving north. He has specialised in EU procurement for well over a decade and his clients include a wide range of local authority, regional, NHS and Utility bodies across the South East and Midlands. Peter advises buyers on the full range of procurement, from managing day-to-day procurement through to complex collaborative structures and frameworks, major outsourcing projects and development agreements. Peter also increasingly acts for bidders in bringing or threatening challenges. His recent work in this area includes complaints against NHS bodies and Buying Solutions. He is ranked nationally for procurement work by the legal press, who recognise his ability to deliver advice and training in a practical, useable way.

Steve leads Hampshire County Council’s Property Services team. With around 350 professional staff, the department delivers a wide range of capital projects in the public sector and manages the existing estate of around 5000 buildings on 1000 sites. Steve has taken a personal lead on a number of major projects and change management initiatives for Hampshire County Council, including the recently completed refurbishment of office accommodation at our headquarters to accommodate over 1100 staff working flexibly in a highly sustainable modern building.The department has a national reputation for the quality of design and is now recognised for procurement methods in construction, delivering significant savings to a range of participating authorities in the region.

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 £404 million in savings.

Geof Kaley is CEO of One Transport. He has built a reputation for developing start-ups into valuable services and trusted brands by using technology innovatively.  

Geof has developed a new way to contract for personal transport through a single source. Bookings are driven by profiles and user-defined Business Rules via online access through single sign-on, https or a dedicated London-based 24/7 call centre.   More than 450 transport providers nationwide have been recruited with management and control being the responsibility of One Transport. Geof maintains continuous supplier recruitment with consolidated billing and management information achieving improvements in service and savings in money and CO2.

After starting his career as a London taxi driver in 1974, Geof became the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association’s Chairman in 1990. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 1996 and gained an MBA with distinction from the Kingston Business School in 2000.    

Peter is a partner in ADR International with over 25 years’ experience in procurement and supply chain management. Peter has enjoyed a broad and varied career at ADR, leading and managing programmes within the UK and Ireland public sectors including with the NHS, police, local government and electricity generation as well as with high-profile private sector clients across a range of industries. Peter led the development of two of ADR’s key diagnostic tools – organisational effectiveness and competency profiling – which inform the shape and direction of improvement programmes. Peter has led and managed programmes related to sourcing (cost out), procurement transformation, skills assessment, training and development, sourcing process / category management design & implementation and outsourcing. Before joining ADR in 1993, Peter was the director of sourcing EMEA for Wang Laboratories Inc., based in Brussels, with responsibility for aftermarket supplies sourcing and managing the EMEA collaboration programme involving 11 subsidiaries. Peter started his procurement career at British Airways.

Stephen is Chief Officer for Procurement across Oxfordshire County Council. His role involves heading a corporate procurement team and working through a decentralised structure to manage an annual revenue expenditure of over £400m and transactional aspects of procurement such as e-procurement and the use of procurement cards as well as supporting the procurement of major capital projects. During 16 years in the private sector Stephen headed a wide variety of procurement and contracts teams in various industry sectors, primarily for SMEs. He created pioneering international supply chain management techniques in the computer industry and was a successful product marketing manager. He was recruited into the public sector in the early 1990s to help augment professional procurement practices. His public sector roles included Senior Tutor at The Post Office Management Training Centre, Commercial Manager for Royal Mail and Head of Social Care Procurement at Suffolk County Council. Stephen specialises in creating successful new teams to tackle a wide range of business challenges and working with diverse internal specialist teams to drive efficiencies and effectiveness through strategic procurement management.

David is the Programme Director for Markets and Collaborative Procurement within the Office of Government Commerce, an office of HM Treasury. This group’s remit is to support the delivery of the Roots Review and Operational Efficiency Programme’s recommendations to achieve collaborative savings of £7.7bn by 2013/14 through the effective use of government spend.

As a procurement and supply chain professional David has years of experience in the private sector, where he worked in senior roles for global insurance and life assurance providers, such as AXA plc and CGU, now known as Aviva. David has also worked within other areas of the public sector, including the former HM Customs and Excise, and is an active member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.

Richard is Programme Manager at Improvement and Efficiency South East and is responsible for the delivery of performance improvement projects across the region. He has previously worked with Berkshire Improvement and Efficiency Partnership and the National Smartcard Project. He has also worked in freelance Waste Management and was Director of a Unitary Authority. He has delivered £2.8m in cashable savings through the Berkshire Procurement and Shared Services Unit (2007-2010). He is also Chair of Connexions Thames Valley, a third sector company with a turnover of £15m a year.

John joined the NHS in 1984 to work in the West Midlands Regional Supplies Department. He worked in a number of purchasing roles in the West Midlands, Oxford and North West Regional Health Authorities before joining the National Purchasing Unit of the NHS Supplies Authority in 1992. He was National Portfolio Manager for the Rehabilitation Section before becoming Head of Strategic Supply Development and Innovation in the Authority’s Strategy Directorate. John was made Head of Research and Innovation for NHS PASA on its formation in April 2000, and was appointed a Director in January 2004, with responsibility for research and innovation and national procurement for food, domestics and textiles categories. After a spell as Director – Policy and Innovation, he recently transferred to the Department of Health’s Procurement, Investment and Commercial Division to take up a new role as Deputy Director, Procurement Policy and Research.

Paul was appointed as Head of Shared Services and Procurement at Northamptonshire County Council in 2008.,He has introduced a category management approach to procurement and made a major contribution towards improving the value from the Council’s £260m external spend, as well as increasing collaboration with other public sector partners. The Procurement team have received national recognition for their innovative approach including the 2009 Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) award for the best Public Project for their work on the Council’s highways contract. Paul leads work on the Council’s shared service agenda including the planned introduction of a Local Government Shared Service (LGSS) with Cambridgeshire County Council for the future provision of support services to both Councils. Prior to joining Northamptonshire County Council, Paul held a senior role within the Supply Chain function at Network Rail with responsibility for a £250m portfolio. He has over 20 years’ experience within various disciplines including over ten years in senior procurement roles.

In 2007 Julian was head-hunted by James Caan, serial entrepreneur and ‘dragon’ from TV’s Dragon’s Den to run Matrix SCM. Matrix SCM has been re-engineered and the vendor neutral model has evolved into that of dynamic supply chain management across a range of spend categories, including care services, repairs and maintenance, taxi services, consultancy and agency staff. Since 2008, Matrix SCM’s client base has trebled and turnover increased by £160m. Julian first held a short career commission in the Royal Navy as a Supply and Logistics officer. Thereafter he worked in the staffing industry where he expanded Securicor’s business portfolio by developing a highly successful commercial recruitment business turning over £80m per annum. Julian joined Blue Arrow in 1998 to run its large contracts division where he was responsible for increasing revenues to £100m. Three years later Julian created Comensura and was responsible for the development of its successful agency staff vendor neutral model, and the company’s exponential growth over a six- year period.