Public Procurement Conference 2022

Julie Welsh is Chief Executive of Scotland Excel. Julie provides leadership and strategic direction to Scotland Excel to ensure the organisation's activities and services are aligned with customer needs and that performance meets objectives. Scotland Excel is an award-winning Centre of Procurement Expertise providing a wide range of procurement, commissioning, consultancy, and learning and development services for members. She works closely with stakeholders to maximise the benefits of collaboration and champion the role of public procurement as a driver of policy, service innovation and community wealth building. Julie has more than 20 years’ experience in the public and private sectors and worked at Renfrewshire Council before Scotland Excel. Before she joined Renfrewshire Council as Head of Procurement, she held senior roles at Glasgow Housing Association and Scottish Power, and has previously worked in the manufacturing, higher education and transport sectors. Julie holds an MBA from Glasgow University and has been a Member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply since 2001.

Erika Bozzay works as a senior policy adviser at the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

She joined the OECD in early 2014. First she worked for the SIGMA programme (a joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union) and led SIGMA’s public procurement professional team. In this capacity, she worked closely with various non-OECD countries in the Western Balkans, in the Middle East and North African region as well as in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, leading projects on public procurement modernization.

She joined the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division in mid-2019. In her current position, she is supporting multi-stakeholder dialogue on emerging issues in public procurement, and working with OECD and non-OECD countries in designing and implementing comprehensive public procurement policies.

Prior to joining OECD, she was a member of the European Commission Stakeholder’s Expert Group on Public Procurement. She also worked in Hungary’s civil service for more than 12 years, in the final years as State Secretary in the Ministry of National Development and Economy. She also worked in the private sector, in law firms as an attorney-at-law. She holds an MA in law and political sciences.

David O’Sullivan is the Director of Sourcing in the Office of Government Procurement (OGP), the largest Central Procurement Body in Ireland. David leads the procurement organisation, a 140 strong team of procurement professionals, tasked with procuring goods and service on behalf of Public Sector Bodies. In 2021 OGP conducted 700 public procurement competitions with an estimated contract value of €2.5 billion. David has over 30 years’ procurement and supply chain experience in both the private and public sectors. Prior to OGP David was with the Central Bank of Ireland, and Symantec Ltd, where he was also on their Board of Directors. David is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) and the Institute of Directors (IoD).

John Swords is the National Director of Procurement in the Health Service Executive (HSE). The HSE provides all of Ireland's public health services in hospitals and communities across the country and is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the State. In this capacity, John leads procurement with a firm focus to enable a better service, with better outcomes for patients and service users in a challenging environment.

John has been instrumental in progressing the strategic procurement journey across the organisation. With a keen interest on driving transformation through collaboration and innovation, John has led on developing and improving the Procurement Sourcing Plan, Compliance Improvement, development and roll out of the National Logistics Service along with supporting the National Finance Reform and Stabilisation Programmes. During the pandemic, when there was particular emphasis on contingency planning, John was National Director of Health Business Services. The portfolio of shared services business operations included Procurement, Finance, Estates, Human Resources, SAP Centre of Excellence and the National integrated Staff Records & Pay Programme (NiSRP).

As member of the OGP (Office of Government Procurement) Reform Board, John is committed to procurement excellence and the overall public procurement reform programme. He is a member of the GS1 Ireland Board of Directors whose standards improve the efficiency, safety and visibility of supply chains across physical and digital channels in 25 sectors.

Katharina Knapton-Vierlich joined the Commission's Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs in 2010, and she currently leads the Public Procurement unit. Its mission is to assist public buyers in playing their part in ensuring prosperity and sustainability in a vibrant economy. They support especially sustainable, green, socially responsible and innovation procurement, and are committed to foster SMEs participation in the procurement market.

Before joining the European Commission, Katharina practiced law in Berlin, having started her professional career in academia. She holds law degrees from the Free University of Berlin (Ph.D.) and the University of Cambridge (LL.M.).

Claire Downey is National Executive with Community Resources Network Ireland, an umbrella body representing community based reuse, repair and recycling organisations, funded by the EPA under the National Waste Prevention Programme. In this role, she is responsible for supporting CRNI members and working toward mainstreaming community reuse, repair and recycling through policy and research.

Claire holds a Bachelor of Engineering (first class honours) degree and has over 15 years of experience in the waste and resources sector. She sits on the National Waste Prevention Committee, the National Waste Advisory Group, is Vice President and board member of the RREUSE network Europe, a fellow with the Chartered Institute of Waste Management and board member of Green Foundation Ireland.

Declan McCormack is Programme Manager at the Office of Government Procurement. He has responsibility at Principal Officer level for the Office of Government Procurement’s eInvoicing Ireland programme. The eInvoicing Ireland Programme was established to facilitate and enable public bodies to comply with the requirements of the European eInvoicing Directive (2014/55/EU) and achieve benefits beyond compliance.

Prior to this appointment he held a range of technical and senior management positions in the IT/ eProcurement industry and, as a member of the National Standards Authority (NSAI), has served on the European eProcurement Standardisation task force (CEN/TC434) that was charged with drafting the eInvoicing Standard as referenced by the European eInvoicing Directive (2014/55/EU).

Emma McEvoy is a Ph.D. candidate at Maynooth University, Department of Law. Emma’s research interests revolve around public procurement legislation and the inclusion of social clauses in public contracts. Emma graduated with a BA in Economics, Politics and Law from DCU in 2007 and an MA in Development in 2009.

Emma was employed as a legal research assistant from 2011 to 2013 on the Interreg EU funded “Winning in Tendering” project. Winning in Tendering is strategic research project aimed at transforming the public sector tendering experience of small indigenous suppliers. Emma was responsible for assessing the impact of the EU Public Procurement Remedies Directive on small suppliers selling into the Irish public market. Over the last three years, Emma facilitated a variety of training programmes for public procurers and SMEs.

Emma is a co-author of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce’s “Are tenders on your Radar” report and co-author on a social-enterprise orientated How to Engage in the Public Sector Market guidance document. Emma strives to re-examine the key ideas and assumptions that shape the production of knowledge in this arena.

Dr. John Glen was a Senior Lecturer in Economics and latterly Director of the Centre for Customised Executive Education CCED at Cranfield School of Management in the UK. After 18 years at Cranfield John retired from the School at the end of September 2017 and is now a visiting fellow at Cranfield.

John has worked extensively with the Kuehne and Nagel organisation for the last 10 years. Currently he advises the boards of Kuehne and Nagel UK, Kuehne and Nagel South and Central America, and has worked on a wide range of engagements across Europe with Kuehne and Nagel. John has also advised a number of global organisations including G4S Africa and DP World (Europe).

As of November 1st 2012 John was retained by CIPS (Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply) as their Chief Economist (only economist!) . In that role John is speaking widely to procurement and supply chain practitioners about the impact of Brexit. John is also a member of the Brexit impact group that reports to the National manager of Kuehne and Nagel UK. John appears regularly on BBC radio and television commenting on the UK macro-economy, the UK banking industry and the economics and finance of sport.

John teaches on a number of international MBA programmes in Germany, Belgium, South Africa and the Netherlands and has delivered executive education programmes to a large portfolio of corporate clients including Kuehne and Nagel, Jaguar LandRover, EMC2, Sony, Vodafone, REXAM, Pfizer, BAE Systems, Trust Re, Etisalat, ARI, HSBC and Sony.

Des Armstrong is the Director of the Construction and Procurement Delivery (CPD), within the Department of Finance and Personnel. Des is responsible for developing procurement policy and best practice across the public sector in Northern Ireland. He provides specialist advice to Northern Ireland Government Departments on procurement and construction matters. Des is a member of the Procurement Board for Northern Ireland, Chair of the Construction Industry Forum for Northern Ireland (CIFNI), Chair of the Business and Industry Forum (BIFBI) and acts as Head of Profession for Programme & Project Management for the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Des is a Chartered Engineer; a fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers; a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply.

Úna Butler is a Member of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC). She was appointed as a Member in January 2022. Prior to this, she was Director of Legal Services & General Counsel at the CCPC. Úna previously worked as a legal advisor in ComReg and as a lawyer in private practice in Dublin, specialising in EU, competition and regulatory law. She was called to the Bar in 2003 with a Barrister-at-Law degree from the Honorable Society of King’s Inns. In 2019, Úna was included in a list of “40 in their 40s” Notable Women Competition Professionals in Europe, the Americas and Africa by W@, a global platform for women professionals.

Sharon Smyth has been involved in public procurement since November 2001 and has been the Director of Supplies and Services Division within the Northern Ireland Department of Finance’s Construction and Procurement Delivery (CPD) since June 2013. Her Division looks after a wide and diverse range of contracts for the NI Departments and their sponsored bodies. Each year around 450 contracts are awarded with a total value of up to £500 million.

Most recently Sharon has taken on the role of Commercial Director for the Department of Finance and has been appointed as a member of the reconstituted Procurement Board. Sharon is an advocate for the professionalism of public procurement and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply.

Colin Jess is the Director of Social Enterprise NI, the representative body for the sector. Prior to this he worked in local banking in Belfast for over 30 years. Colin leads on building awareness of the sector across private, public, and educational sectors. Colin is heavily involved in lobbying political parties for their support and has built many relationships with government departments. He is a Council Member of NI Chamber of Commerce.

Noleen Bohill is the Head of Commercial and Procurement at Belfast City Council having been appointed in February 2019. She is responsible for the delivery of the whole commercial procurement activity across the organisation and acts as the Corporate Advisor to Council on all commercial and procurement matters. Noleen is responsible for developing and embedding the corporate approach to commercial and procurement activity, with an emphasis on maximising the Council’s commercial position by driving the effectiveness, efficiency and improvement of procurement processes; deriving value from all third-party expenditure and all income generation opportunities. From this month, how Belfast City Council contracts with its suppliers changing. Earlier this year, members of Belfast City Council approved a new Social Value Procurement Policy. Belfast City Council are the first Council in Northern Ireland to implement a social value procurement policy that has at its heart, the aim to grow local supply chains, increase the capacity of the local market and boost the local economy.

Ronan is the Finance and Regulation Director and a member of the Executive Committee. He is responsible for all financial and regulatory matters within the organisation. Ronan has previously held commercial and financial roles in various organisations in the UK and Ireland.

Tomas Wilkinson is Audit Director at the Northern Ireland Audit Office. He is responsible for leading financial and value for money audits with particular focus at the moment on the Department for Communities and the Department of Justice. He led the production of the NIAO’s report on Major Capital Projects which was published last year and liaised with the NI Assembly’s public accounts committee in the production of their report later in the year. Tomas trained as a Chartered Accountant with PwC before joining NIAO in July 2001. He has been a Director in NIAO since 2011.

Stephen provides leadership for Scotland Excel’s business and customer teams, and champions a culture of engagement, consultation, communication and customer service across the organisation. He ensures that the appropriate structures, systems, policies, processes and skills are in place to deliver customer satisfaction and a sustainable future for the organisation. Prior to this, he was Programme Manager for Scotland Excel’s reform team providing procurement capability assessment and change management services to local authorities. Stephen has worked in a broad range of roles in the public and private sector, including 8 years running his own award-winning SME business.

Philip Gurnett is EPS Director and Head of Sourcing Education. Philip has a successful track record of achievement as a leader and senior manager in the public and private sector. In 2013 he was appointed to the OGP executive as head of sourcing education with responsibility for implementing and operating the centralised procurement model within the new DES sector sourcing hub, EPS. Within the Education Sector, Philip is responsible for sourcing a procurement spend of approximately €900 million annually. In his role as director of EPS, he has established and developed a business model and change management strategy to on-board the model and has delivered savings of over €13 million to date.

Craig joined Oracle almost 4 years ago as a SaaS Commercial Director, and has since progressed to managing a team of 7 Commercial Directors across Western Europe.

Prior to joining Oracle Craig worked within Central Government heading up a department’s IT Commercial function, enabling the organisation to deliver a digital transformation and move to SaaS ERP. Craig is active in supporting the procurement community as demonstrated when he became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (FCIPS).

Louise Masterson is the Head of Procurement at An Post. Louise is a professionally qualified, highly motivated and enthusiastic Procurement leader who is responsible for setting a transformative procurement strategy and leading a core team across a wide spectrum of categories.