Jon Baldaro

John Baldaro is a chartered procurement professional with extensive experience in both the private and public sectors, particularly in the defence and health sectors. Prior to forming his own company, John enjoyed a long and rewarding career in the Royal Air Force where he led major transformational programmes and managed major defence projects. More recently he has also been working with smaller organisations such as Primary Health Trusts to diagnose their procurement needs and build procurement functions from scratch.

John is a trained mentor and particularly enjoys working with cross-functional teams, helping them to improve processes. He is passionate about skills transfer. He is a Fellow with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and a member of CIPS.

Bob Bowler

Bob has 20 years procurement experience, primarily from working in the Telecommunications Sector, where he has lead both line procurement functions and major global technology sourcing projects.

Bob’s experience includes; project management of strategic sourcing processes, commercial negotiation of the long term costs of complex telecommunications technology, contract negotiation of telecommunications technology supply contracts and strategic supplier management. Equally, as a Head of Procurement he has lead the consolidation and restructuring of procurement departments, together with engaging senior business stakeholders internally and externally.

Bob is also a keen supporter of eSourcing techniques to execute procurement processes, ensuring effective competition to efficiently meet business requirements.

Jon Campbell

Jon Campbell is an experienced Purchasing Director, with 19 years experience in the profession, working for such blue chip companies as Sara Lee, JusRol, Geest and Domino's. Jon's specialities include leading organizational change projects and delivering category management strategies across large and complex stakeholder groups. As Managing Director of FPS Ltd, Jon delivers procurement projects with a wide range of clients in different sectors, and has launched the acclaimed 'Intelligent Purchasing' training course with Mintec, the market information experts.

Mark Deacon

Mark has 15 years experience in leading business transformation activities within the Telecommunications industry. He has spent the last 6 years focussed on improving the performance of Vodafone’s procurement organisation.

Most recently Mark led the delivery of the procurement best practice agenda within Vodafone’s back office transformation programme where his responsibilities included: assessment of Vodafone’s procurement capabilities, implementation of common procurement process and IT systems and migration of both strategic and operational procurement activities into internal shared service organisations.

His specialities include project / programme management, process design, internal consultancy, change management and leadership of multi-cultural, cross-functional teams.

Martin Diggines

Martin has a proven track record delivering positive bottom line financial and operational impact by transforming sourcing capability in complex and demanding organisations, drawing from the best Public and Private Sector techniques and experience. He combines strategic thinking, operational delivery and good communications skills. Martin has a range of Private and Public Sector experience, including management roles in Ford Motor Company and procurement consultancy BuyingTeam, where he headed up major projects for clients such as Thomson Reuters, HMV Group, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office focusing on savings delivery and business transformation roles.

Martin also has a business degree and is a member of CIPS.

Gaynor Edwards

Gaynor Edwards is a chartered accountant with over 10 years experience with Big Four firms followed by extensive senior management experience in commercial enterprises including TNT Express Worldwide and APL Logistics.

A champion of change management, Gaynor enjoys working with cross-functional teams to achieve excellence in systems and processes. Projects completed include implementation of financial and business applications, with consequent changes to working practices, procurement processes and commercially focused management reporting to improve performance and control.

Gaynor also has an Economics degree.

Julie Elmes

Julie is a professionally qualified Procurement Specialist with over 20 years experience of working in both private and public sector organisations. Her most recent appointment being Acting Head of Procurement for the University of Kent where she lead the Procurement function into a period of significant change and transformation.

Julie has a strong focus on identifying and delivering cost savings through spend consolidation, waste reduction, process efficiencies, sound negotiation and contract management. She has particular knowledge and experience of managing FM, HR, IT and Marketing projects.

In addition, Julie also has significant experience of implementing successful eProcurement projects across multiple sites and countries, leading to streamlined and efficient processes, substantial cost savings and total control and visibility of spend.

Julie is MCIPS qualified.

Paul Jackson

Paul Jackson is an accomplished supply chain professional with an expertise in the area of procurement, supply management and supplier development. He has consistently delivered commercial strategic benefits across a range of private and public sector markets and has positively influenced large blue chip organisations such as BAE Systems, Chevron Texaco, JP Morgan and Teliasonera International Carrier.

Paul is an enthusiastic team player and is equally comfortable working within a team as he is leading from the front. He has exceptional change management skills and has the experience and personality to lead large teams successfully through periods of transition. Paul is also a member of CIPS.

Ioannis Marangos

12 years international strategy and management consulting experience in reorganisation, business improvement and procurement with Accenture, Curzon and the Department of Trade and Industry. Advised Bluechip and FTSE 100 companies in the Telco-Media-Entertainment, Financial Services, Energy, Utilities, Public and Healthcare sectors. Successes include: leading the implementation of the first Business-to-Business (B2B) marketplace for the petrochemical industry (Trade Ranger-Houston), overseeing the organisational restructuring of the procurement department of Greece’s largest telecommunications provider while leading the first eAuction in Greece, transforming the procurement department of a major utility company to a shared service operation and succesfully completing multiple initiatives on strategic sourcing reducing costs at an average of 5%. Ioannis has an MBA from IMD, an MSc in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College and a Degree in Electronic Engineering from UWCC.

Judith Russell

Judith has over 20 years experience in procurement across both the public sector and blue chip private sector organisations, such as Nissan and British Airways. She has worked in the Higher Education sector setting up a procurement operation from scratch, engaging key stakeholders and devising and delivering procurement strategy. She has recently worked for the Department for Education implementing an e-procurement solution for schools and delivering procurement expertise to the education sector.

She is a skilled trainer and is committed to communicating the value to be gained from best practice procurement. She combines a strategic perspective with insight into operational needs, whilst working to empower and up-skill others involved in the procurement cycle. She is keen to make most effective use of collaboration to maximise the value from the supply chain.

Judith has an economics and business degree and is member of CIPS.

Charles Stuart

Charles is a hands-on delivery focused Procurement professional with extensive experience, primarily in the private sector gained in multiple industries and businesses, large and small, including the likes of Unilever, Speedo, Phillips and Reckitt & Colman. He has a proven reputation for helping organisations to deliver improved value and performance both through leading procurement teams and delivering procurement projects.

Specifically he has developed procurement strategies and managed sourcing projects, but is particularly strong in assessing, improving and implementing procurement processes. He has operated internationally for many years which has given him a range of perspectives on procurement.

He is also a member of CIPS.

Giovanni Tepidino

Giovanni has over eleven years of full procurement transformation project life-cycle experience with blue-chip companies in several private sectors in the UK and most European countries. He also helped establish the first Collaborative Procurement Hubs at the NHS and has recently completed a procurement organisation review at the University of Hertfordshire.

He has led and contributed to multiple successful client engagements where the role involved identifying process and organisational improvements in the Sourcing and Procurement area, establishing imperative for change supported by robust business case, selecting and implementing enabling technology and running strategic sourcing initiatives.

Giovanni is a visiting lecturer on innovation and project management as part of post-graduate and Masters courses at Palermo University, Italy.

Joan West

Joan has extensive experience of Public Sector procurement working in both the NHS and a number of Local Authorities. At a strategic level she was a member of the Scottish Executive working group to review and define the definitions of the Best Practice Indicators being introduced by the Scottish Executive for 2008; utilising information uploaded on local and national level to Spikes Cavell. At an operational level she led on the McClelland Procurement Capability Assessment to increase performance rating for the NHS Dumfries and Galloway, from Conformance to Improved Performance.

Most recently she has acted as the Programme Manager for Business Transformation in a unitary authority. She likes to focus on organisational development and the introduction of a sustainable approach to performance improvement through process re-design and stakeholder engagement. Joan is a natural leader with a proven track record in transformational change management and strategic procurement. She is a qualified procurement specialist, a member of CIPS and holds a post graduate qualification in business management.

Sue Williams

Sue is an experienced supply chain professional who has worked with a range of blue chip organisations such as Lola Cars International, BMW Group, Aston Martin and BAE Systems. She has delivered a wide variety of Supply Chain projects, ranging from demand and inventory management, to process improvement to strategic procurement.

She has experience in acting as an interim manager, a consultant and a coach, and in whichever capacity is committed to the energetic pursuit of opportunties to drive improvements which will deliver real and measurable success.

Sue has a first class honours degree in Business Studies and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management, she is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Transport and Logistics and the Interim Managers Association.