Paul leads Welsh Government Procurement, overseeing a spend of circa £700 million. He also steers the delivery of a collaborative procurement pipeline for Wales with over 30 national frameworks. Prior to this Paul has held a variety of procurement roles across the Welsh Public sector including Head of Category Management of the National Procurement Service (NPS) and the Strategic Procurement Adviser to the Welsh Government’s Economy Department. An advocate for inclusion of Welsh SMEs and Social Enterprises in public sector supply chains, Paul’s team have won multiple awards at the Go Awards Wales for their work to embrace and deliver social value.

Carl has a wealth of public procurement experience, having previously led the award-winning procurement team at one of Wales’ largest housing associations. Before joining Welsh Government, Carl worked for the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS), where he taught procurement and contract management best practice to public and private sector organisations across the globe. Carl also played an important role in CIPS’ work post-Grenfell, and supported the work of Working Group 11 to agree specific procurement competence levels for people involved in the construction of new higher risk residential buildings. In his current role, Carl is responsible for developing Welsh Government’s wider Procurement Reform engagement activity, working closely with stakeholders across the Welsh public sector to ensure that they are ready to maximise the opportunities arising from procurement reform.

I have been working in NHS procurement for over 30 years with the majority of my career spent in Northern Ireland Health and Social Care national procurement organisations. In recent years I have worked at a senior level in Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and my present role in leading Procurement Services within NHS Wales. I hope my experience over many years of working within different political and operational environments in the NHS has allowed me to develop a keen sense of what works well (and not so well). I look forward to continuing the work with my procurement colleagues across Wales and beyond to help meet the many current and emerging challenges where our profession can make a real difference for our patient population and wider society.

Richard from Pontypool and is Managing Director of Pro Steel Engineering and National Chair of the Institute of Directors. In addition to his patronage of the Prince's Trust, Richard also holds a key role as Chair of The Prince’s Trust Cymru Development Committee, was appointed Deputy Lieutenant in Gwent in November 2021 and has co-established the Torfaen Strategic Economic Forum. He has earned significant respect and recognition as an influential figure within the business community in Wales. Furthermore, Richard extends his influence as newly appointed Co-Chair of Cwmbran Futures Board which aims to identify how the UK Government’s £20m Long-Term Plan for Towns grant for Cwmbran should be spent.

Jane is a Reader in Procurement for the Logistics and Operations Management section of Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. Her subject areas for research and teaching include innovation and social public procurement, supply chain management, and collaboration. Jane is Programme Director for the UK Government funded ‘Help to Grow Management’ programme delivered at Cardiff Business School aimed at supporting SMEs with business growth. Her additional roles include being a Member of IRSPP (international research study on public procurement), Branch Chair of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) South Wales and Associate Director (MICW) of Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW), Cymru.

With a career spanning the retail, hospitality, FMCG and Higher Education sectors, Catherine is not your typical procurement professional - she began her career in sales, before moving into training, product marketing, category management and then, as many do, ‘fell’ into procurement, and more specifically indirect procurement. With a passion for adding value and making a difference be it commercially or through developing procurement talent, Catherine’s mix of private and now public (HE) sector experience enables her to bring change and a different lens to procurement at USW, balancing commerciality with the legislative requirements of the sector.

Commercial Contract Management Contrary to what many think, the real work starts after contract award. Turning the freshly-signed 5 year contract into a living tool to deliver excellent services, improve standards and reduce costs over the life of the agreement requires more than conformance to a series of contractual obligations. Understanding when a complaint is a specification miss or quality fail and putting in place performance metrics and measurement techniques to drive performance and not just to react to failure is at the heart of great contract management. Do we really know the difference and what it means in a complex procurement? Rob Maguire Rob is a 40-year procurement lifer. He has worked in the automotive industry, FMCG and Pharma as a procurement leader and led teams in big 5 global consultancies. For 20 years he has supported large procurement initiatives and contract execution in FM, Construction and PPP/PFI delivery. Rob works with procurement and sales teams to identify, quantify, capture and reward value creation. He is a globally recognized speaker and contributes to the MBA programme at London Business School on value in commercial agreements.

Huw is a Business Account and Project Delivery Manager at WRAP Cymru. WRAP is a climate action NGO working around the globe to tackle the causes of the climate crisis and give the planet a sustainable future. They were established in the UK in 2000; and now work in 40+ countries. Part of WRAP, WRAP Cymru delivers a Wales-specific package of work to support the Welsh Government’s environmental goals.

Formerly Director of National Collaborative Commissioning in NHS Wales, having led transformational work for the Commissioning of Welsh Ambulance Services; Welsh Emergency Departments; and the Welsh Access Model which was part of the National Urgent and Emergency Care Programme, and previously Finance Director across NHS Wales (Acute & Community NHS Trust; Ambulance NHS Trust; Local Health Board – of the former type). Julian’s key achievements include: leading teams which won GO Awards & a HSJ (Health Service Journal) Efficiency Award for procurement; establishment of the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership through leadership of the Welsh Government Programme; delivery of significant financial savings alongside service improvement for an NHS Trust within financial turnaround; and the funding award & then successful delivery of a range of Welsh Government Invest to Save projects – including the pan Principality (award winning) Mental Health & Learning Disability Services outsourcing change which had a positive impact on patients and their families, ensured consistency in the quality of care and generated significant financial benefits. Since stepping aside from NHS Wales, Julian has established his own consultancy – JB Commissioning Finance Improvement and has been working with the PSTA (Public Service Transformation Academy) which delivers the Cabinet Office Commissioning Academy; a (CSU) Commissioning Support Unit; a Pharmaceutical Company and most recently in partnership with Sirius Partners supporting a Welsh Regional Partnership Board’s strategic capital and outsourcing agenda. Julian believes in bringing together planning and health & social care professional leadership to collaborate in the co-production of future health & social care services. Transforming health & social care, putting policy into practice, and improving the patient / service user experience.

Rhian Rogers works as part of the Welsh Government Commercial Procurement Directorate, which supports procurement for both the wider public sector and the Welsh Government.

Warren is one of the commercial and procurement specialists working as part of the Welsh Government sponsored Cyd service (formerly the 'Procurement Centre of Excellence'). He has almost 30 years experience across private and public sectors, leading transformative projects to introduce new ways of thinking and working in procurement. Warren joined the UK Government Digital Service (GDS) in 2012, with responsibility for ensuring the UK government’s Digital Marketplace directly supported digital transformation. He introduced user-centred, design-led, data-driven and open approaches to public contracting – the foundational step-change in procurement envisioned in the UK Government Transformation Strategy. Between 2018-2021, Warren led the GDS Global Digital Marketplace Programme, helping emerging economies make their public procurement more transparent, improve systems that govern public spending, improve scrutiny through better quality open data, and build institutional capability and capacity to ensure sustainable change. In addition to co-leading the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 'United for Smart Sustainable Cities' (U4SSC) Thematic Group on ‘Procurement for Smart Sustainable Cities’ and Working Group on 'Intergenerational Procurement for People-Centred Cities', Warren has also led a Thematic Group of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Working Party of Senior Digital Government Officials, focused on ‘GovTech Commissioning’, supported the OECD Working Party of Leading Practitioners on Public Procurement as a peer reviewer, and contributed to the development of the OECD ‘Integrating Responsible Business Conduct in Public Procurement’ report.

Sue has worked in procurement policy, in Welsh Government and in Whitehall, for most of her career. She has worked on projects to improve competition for public contracts, and opportunities for SMEs and consortia bids.

Ian Schollar is the Head of CIPS Business Study Centre at CIPS and has had a progressive career in procurement and commercial roles spanning over 30 years in both public and private sectors. He started his career with Mallory Batteries (Duracell) in 1983, before spending 15 years working within both central and local public sector organisations. He was responsible for procuring a diverse range of categories from breathing apparatus for fire fighters to high tech radar systems for air traffic controllers. In 1998, Ian became a Senior Advisor for Crown Agents, an International Development Agency. He was project lead on numerous capacity building projects working in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Eastern Europe and headed up the procurement and supply chain training at their Training Centre. Ian has worked at CIPS since 2005 and has a particular passion for professional development. Ian is a Fellow of CIPS and holds a Master’s Degree in Management, Learning and Leadership from Lancaster University Management School.

Tristian Jones is the Sell2Wales Programme Management Co-ordinator. Sell2Wales is a free online service to help you find information about contracts and opportunities with the Welsh public service and Buyer-Contractors.

WLGA’s lead officer for procurement. Richard came into public procurement “From a background of Logistics, Branch Management and B2B Sales in the private sector.” Initially as one of Cardiff Councils operational procurement team where he ran the County Supplies Catalogue and a delegated suite of procurement frameworks; then to a joint Welsh Government & WLGA initiative, the Welsh Local Government Procurement Support Unit; from there to the WLGA core team. A champion of social value and the wellbeing of future generations; he's taking a pivotal role in central/local government relations, coordinating the National Procurement Network for councils in Wales and much more. Army of one and fiercely loyal to his procurement officer network, he is coordinating local government responses to consultation and participating in the Government's reform programme. In 2021 Richard initiated the NPN Market Intelligence Expert Group and currently acts as researcher, editor, publisher. He says that he’s just a middleman; the value comes from the people on the group and the knowledge they have; but that’s what Richard does, he brings the good from the people he’s with. Richard has been speaking on the National stage, at the National Local Government Procurement Expo about Procurement in Difficult Times, about the Local Government Showcase at the National Social Value Conference and about Digital Transformation in a Gov News Masterclass. Wales representative to LGA's National Advisory Group for procurement, he's providing a weekly bulletin to an extended network of 114 procurement stakeholders and is credited in the Social Value Roadmap 2023, an important document nationally. So far, in 22/23 he's appeared in 10 separate external (non-WLGA) searchable and public facing digital media events. There were at last count 21 separate live events online featuring interviews, presentations, keynotes and reports where Richard is recorded or credited as a contributor.