
Collaboration and Partnership Zone
Focus: Building strong relationships between buyers and suppliers.
- For Suppliers: Networking opportunities to connect with potential buyers, understand their needs and establish long-term partnerships. Workshops could cover effective communication, negotiation skills and collaborative problem-solving.
- For Buyers: Learning how to foster mutually beneficial relationships with suppliers. This could include strategies for supplier engagement, creating win-win contracts and maintaining transparent and open communication channels.
Zone Speakers
Alice Horn
Sustainable Development Advisor

Alice Horn has been working at the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales for the last six years. In her role as a Sustainable Development Advisor, she supports public bodies and regional partnerships to achieve meaningful impact, drawing on skills she developed as part of the Future Generations Leadership Academy Alumni.
She also works on the well-being economy mission, ensuring Wales transitions towards an economy that prioritises people and planet. Within this, Alice’s priority areas include economic development strategies, Real Living Wage and AI. She also leads on the Commissioner’s work around procurement policy and implementation of recommendations from the first Section 20 Procurement Review.
Catherine Lund
Procurement Director

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.
Catherine Proudlove
SME Lead, Defence Commercial

Catherine is the SME outreach and Policy Lead for the Ministry of Defence. Always keen to talk and hear about experiences first hand, Catherine is committed to supporting industry and government in overcoming barriers commonly experienced by micro, small and medium sized enterprises. In support of this work, Catherine has responsibility for helping suppliers to access opportunities in the supply chain through Doing Business with Defence. She is looking forward to meeting suppliers at the event and encourages you to drop into the MOD stand and make contact.
Ian Evans
Procurement & Information Governance Manager

Ian Evans is the Procurement & Information Governance Manager at Caerphilly County Borough Council, with over 25 years of public sector experience. He leads the Council’s approach to Procurement, Information Governance, and Cyber Security, driving innovation, transparency, and smarter decision-making through data and collaboration.
Ian manages a multidisciplinary team of 60, fostering a culture of positive teamwork, continuous improvement, accountability, growth and putting policy into practice. A trusted leader in high-profile, cross-sector projects, he champions partnership working and service excellence. As a Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), Ian is committed to the highest standards in public procurement.
Liz Lucas
Director of Transformation, Digital and Procurement

Liz is the Director of Transformation, Digital and Procurement. Previously Head of Customer and Digital Service and Head of Procurement at Caerphilly Liz leads a team of 160 FTE’s who is responsible for the delivery of all services in relation Customer experience, Digital transformation, Procurement and Information Governance. Liz is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply with a keen interest in social and economic regeneration through the effective use of procurement.
Paul Griffiths
Head of Commercial Delivery

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.
Rhian Rogers
Capacity & Capability Lead

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.
Richard Dooner
Programme Manager

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.
Sue Hurrell
Head of Fair Work Procurement

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.
Collaboration and Partnership Zone Agenda
Agendas are subject to change

Director of Transformation, Digital and Procurement
Caerphilly County Borough Council

Procurement & Information Governance Manager
Caerphilly County Borough Council
Driving Value: Co-Creation and Communication in Procurement Partnerships - 10:40 - 11:05

Director of Transformation, Digital and Procurement
Caerphilly County Borough Council

Procurement & Information Governance Manager
Caerphilly County Borough Council

Head of Commercial Delivery
Welsh Government

Programme Manager
Welsh Local Government Association

Procurement Director
University of South Wales
Better Together: Building Stronger Buyer–Supplier Relationships - 11:35 - 12:00

Head of Commercial Delivery
Welsh Government

Programme Manager
Welsh Local Government Association

Procurement Director
University of South Wales

Capacity & Capability Lead
Welsh Government
Cyd in Action: Progress, Impact and What’s Next - 12:05 - 12:30

Capacity & Capability Lead
Welsh Government
Building a Career in Public Procurement - 13:25 - 13:50

Sustainable Development Advisor
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales
Procurement’s Place in a Wellbeing Economy - 13:55 - 14:20

Sustainable Development Advisor
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

SME Lead, Defence Commercial
Ministry of Defence
Doing Business With Defence - 14:25 - 14:50

SME Lead, Defence Commercial
Ministry of Defence

Head of Fair Work Procurement
Welsh Government

Sustainable Development Advisor
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales
Setting Socially Responsible Procurement Objectives - 14.55 - 15.20

Head of Fair Work Procurement
Welsh Government

Sustainable Development Advisor
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales



4 November / Tachwedd 2025
