Grahame joined BiP Solutions in 2003 and has held the positions of Senior Executive Officer, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Sales and Marketing Director, MD for Media and Marketing Solutions and Director of Business Intelligence and eSourcing, Now, as Content, Research and Communications Director, Grahame is responsible for driving the growth of the business through the creation and delivery of the most accurate, relevant and actionable data, content and insight available.

Simon is Director of Commercial and Procurement for the Welsh Government. He has held various senior roles in the Welsh Government, including Continuous Improvement, Covid Recovery and Restart and Brexit Strategy. Simon has a wealth of experience in commercial strategy and policy development across social policy, tax and strategic investment, an extensive track record in programme and policy design and coordination, and practical knowledge of large-scale service delivery, corporate governance and leadership. He was formerly Director of Y Lab, a public services innovation laboratory for Wales, and was Corporate Director for Wellbeing in Bridgend County Borough Council on secondment. Prior to joining the Welsh Government, Simon was a Management Consultant undertaking government strategy consulting for Accenture. In his early career he worked as a Statistical Analyst for the Office for National Statistics before joining the civil service fast stream and working in various roles across nine years in HM Treasury.

Jane is a Reader in Procurement for the Logistics and Operations Management (LOM) section of Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. Jane’s subject areas for research and teaching include innovation and social public procurement, supply chain management, and collaboration. Jane is the strategic lead for Procurement Labs in a WEFO funded project, Infuse (Innovation of Future Public Services). Jane is Programme Director for the UK Government funded ‘Help to Grow Management’ programme delivered at Cardiff Buisness School aimed at supporting SMEs with business growth. Additional Roles: Member of IRSPP (international research study on public procurement) Branch Chair of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) South Wales Associate Director (MICW) of Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW), Cymru

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.

Crown Commercial Service plays an important role helping the UK public sector save money when buying common goods and services. Paul has been with CCS for more than 13 years, and leads the Crown Commercial Service Devolved Administrations and Crown Dependencies Team. Prior to that Paul held commercial roles in organisations such as the Ministry of Defence and Scottish Procurement & Property Directorate and has worked in the profession for more than 30 years.

Head of Customer and Digital Services for Caerphilly County Borough Council. Liz has 34 years public sector experience. Liz has recently been appointed to the new role of Head of Customer and Digital Services which is responsible for the Customer and Digital transformation programme within Caerphilly. Liz heads up a team of 160 staff which covers Corporate Customer Service, Digital Services and Procurement Services. During the last 16 years Liz has developed the Procurement function within Caerphilly into a centralised approach. The organisations spend is categorised into levels of strategic importance and opportunities for collaboration. SME development and e-procurement has been a focal point for development. Caerphilly Programme for Procurement was approved in May 2018 with a strong emphasis social and environmental benefits. Appointed to the new role of Digital lead in August this year Liz is keen to embrace emerging technologies to bring the very best services to the citizens of Caerphilly.

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.

Helen has worked in purchasing & supply / procurement since 2002 and became a full member of CIPS in 2008. She is currently Head of Procurement and Contracting with responsibility for managing the corporate procurement function in order to meet the Service’s strategic and operational objectives. She is also responsible for the provision of professional expertise and the development, review and implementation of all procurement strategies, policies and procedures to ensure that the Service maintains legal and regulatory compliance during procurement activities. Helen was Chair of the CIPS West Wales branch from October 2011 to November 2013 after having been Publicity Officer for the previous two years.

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.