Nigel Owens MBE

Rugby Referee

Motivational Speaker

Nigel Owens MBE is widely regarded as one of the finest and fairest Rugby referees in the sport. Born and bred on a council estate in Mynyddcerrig, Wales, Nigel first picked up the referee whistle aged 16. He was one of the first three Welsh Rugby Union professional referees and has officiated some the most high-profile and high-pressure tournaments, including being acclaimed for his handling of New Zealand’s triumph over Australia at Twickenham in the 2018 World Cup final, Nigel is the only referee to officiate three consecutive Heineken Cup finals (2015, 2016 and 2017) as well as refereeing a record six Pro14 finals. In a courageous move, he came out as gay in 2007, one of the first sports professionals to do so. Nigel was named “Gay Sports Personality of the Year 2007” by the gay rights group Stonewall at their annual awards ceremony in London Nigel was awarded the MBE in the 2016 Birthday Honours List
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Rebecca Evans MS

Minister

Finance and Trefnydd

Rebecca Evans was first elected to the National Assembly for Wales in May 2011 to represent the Mid and West Wales region. In 2016 she became Assembly Member for Gower. Rebecca received a degree in History from the University of Leeds, and a Master of Philosophy degree in Historical Studies from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. Before being elected, Rebecca worked in the third sector. Rebecca has served on the National Assembly for Wales' Environment and Sustainable Development Committee and its Common Agricultural Policy Task and Finish Group. She has also served on the Health and Social Care Committee, and the Children, Young People and Education Committee. In June 2014, Rebecca was appointed Deputy Minister for Farming and Food, and in May 2016 she became Minister for Social Services and Public Health. In November 2017, she was appointed Minister for Housing and Regeneration, and in December 2018 she joined the Cabinet as Minister for Finance and Trefnydd.
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Lee Waters AM

Deputy Minister

Economy and Transport

Lee Waters is the Assembly Member for the Llanelli constituency. He was born and raised in Carmarthenshire. He was educated in Brynamman and Ammanford and gained a degree in politics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. His policy interests are wide-ranging, including the economy, climate change, provision for looked after children, digital policy and the media. Lee is the Welsh Labour and Co-operative Member of the National Assembly for Wales for the Llanelli constituency. Before being elected in May 2016, Lee was Director of Wales's leading independent think-tank, the Institute of Welsh Affairs. He previously ran the sustainable transport charity Sustrans Cymru in where he led the campaign for the Active Travel Act. He is a former Chief Political Correspondent for ITV Wales. On 13 December 2018 he was appointed Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport.
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Malcolm Harrison

Group CEO

Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS)

Malcolm joined Mars in 1982 as a management trainee after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Chemical Engineering. He has a broad international experience in consumer facing companies in both general management and global functional roles, particularly Procurement. In his early career he worked in Production, Sales, Procurement, Supply Chain, and HR with Mars Confectionery, Pedigree Petfoods and Bass. In 1993, he was appointed Purchasing Director of Bass Brewers where he established their first Purchasing function. From 1996 he was CEO of Bass Brewer’s UK Midlands free trade business before joining the Board of Britvic Soft Drinks in 1999 as Operations Director. From 2000 he created and led global Procurement for Interbrew, participating in the acquisition and integration of several brewers – in Europe, Asia and Latin America - including AmBev in 2004; he was subsequently Chief Procurement Officer of InBev. In 2006 Malcolm joined Nestlé SA in Switzerland as Chief Procurement Officer responsible for the largest FMCG procurement spend in the world (CHF 60 Bn across 80 countries), heavily focused on global agricultural commodities; he brought a real focus to building the capability of the function and led a step-change in involvement of the procurement function with the Nestlé businesses. He joined the Executive Committee of Rexam plc, the FTSE 100 consumer packaging company, in 2010 as CEO of the global Plastic Packaging division (turnover of £ 1.3 Bn with 45 factories located in 9 countries) serving customers in Healthcare, Cosmetics and FMCG businesses. After leading its successful disposal, he worked in beverage cans during 2013 and his responsibilities included global IT, Environment Health & Safety and Global Procurement where managing the exposure to volatile Plastics and Metal prices was a key responsibility. In 2015, Malcolm joined the Cabinet Office of Her Majesty’s Government where he held the role of Chief Executive Officer of the Crown Commercial Service, overseeing an annual spend of more than £13 Bn on common goods and services across the UK public sector. He also had responsibility for UK Public Sector Procurement Policy and for supporting the UK Government’s initiatives with SMEs. In July 2018 he joined The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) as Group CEO. Malcolm lives in the UK and has previously spent in total more than 12 years living in West Africa, France, Belgium and Switzerland as part of his professional career.
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Jonathan Irvine

Director of Procurement and Health Courier Services

NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership

Jonathan Irvine is the Director of Procurement and Health Courier Services for NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP). He joined the organisation in October 2019 with the vision of further developing the ‘Once for Wales’ approach to procurement within the NHS and ensuring that the nation harnesses and leverages its collective buying power. Jonathan aims to leverage NHS Wales collective influence to provide value for money products, services and healthcare systems for the patient population of Wales. Jonathan has extensive senior procurement leadership experience at a national level from his time at the Business Services Organisation, Procurement and Logistics Service in Northern Ireland where he was involved in the implementation and development of a shared procurement and logistics service for Health and Social Care across the country. Most recently, he has led the Procurement Services function for one of the largest acute Trusts in England, the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, where he delivered significant cost reduction programmes and introduced innovative and value based approaches to procurement focusing on patient outcomes.
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Huw Thomas

Leader

Cardiff Council

Councillor Huw Thomas is the Leader of Cardiff Council, a position he has held since May 2017. As Leader of one of the fastest growing cities in the UK, Huw's administration is committed to promoting inclusive growth, with major projects including a £300m school building programme, the construction of 1000 Council houses by 2022, significant transport infrastructure developments, and the delivery of a new 15,000 capacity Indoor Arena. Huw has served as a Labour Councillor for the Splott ward in Cardiff since 2012 and held a number of Cabinet roles before becoming Leader. He is a member of the Cardiff Capital Region Cabinet and Economic Growth Partnership. In addition, he chairs the Cardiff Public Services Board and is a director of Millennium Stadium Plc. He is the Welsh Local Government Association Spokesperson for Culture, Tourism & Major Events. He is also the Core Cities UK Cabinet Member with responsibility for Culture and was a board member of the Cultural Cities Enquiry, which reported in February 2019. Huw is a fluent Welsh speaker who graduated in Music from Oxford University before completing a Masters degree in International Relations at Aberystwyth University. He has worked previously in IT, transport and, most recently, international development, as the Head of Christian Aid Wales. Away from politics, Huw is a supporter of sport, culture and the arts, as well as an outdoor enthusiast and keen cyclist. He has played previously with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales and is a fan of Aberystwyth Town and Wales football teams.
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Duncan Lochhead

Commercial Sustainbility Manager

AkzoNobel

Duncan has worked in a variety of roles focused on Coatings Manufacture and the Commercial Decorating Sector over the last 25 years. His interest, and role, has moved more recently to improving the sustainability profile of painting and decorating to secure a long term future for the industry. He is passionate about providing innovative solutions to overcome the challenges faced by those involved with the Construction Industry - reducing our impact on the environment and positively impacting society.
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Tristian Jones

Sell2Wales Portal Manager

Welsh Government

Tristian is the Sell2Wales Portal Manager, responsible for maintaining the online Sell2Wales Portal service provision which is the National Procurement Portal for both Buyers and Suppliers advertising and awarding public sector contracts in Wales. With nearly two decade’s worth of experience within the Welsh Civil Service, Tristian’s previous roles have included Conservation Officer at The National Museum of Wales, Head Custodian at Caernarfon Castle, and content manager on the Business Wales digital support team, before moving on to take on the role of Sell2Wales officer and now Sell2Wales manager. For the past 4 years he has developed and implemented innovative delivery strategies to promote Sell2Wales across all social media channels and online media helping to guide development and delivery plans to improve the service to users. Recently this has included the development of dedicated project pages for key strategically important infrastructure projects across Wales to help promote contract opportunities to suppliers. The Sell2Wales service also provides advice and guidance to internal teams and colleagues, provides training for large contractors, suppliers and other public sector buyers using the Portal.
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Emma Waldron

Risk, Procurement & Governance Manager

Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA)

Emma is the Risk, Procurement & Governance Manager at Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA) and has over fifteen years’ experience working in procurement in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Achievements to date include a major project transformation from a procurement to a grants process and the successful negotiation of securing e-procurement tools free of charge to process grant applications, resulting in significant savings for WCVA and wider benefits for the voluntary sector. Emma is a chartered procurement and supply professional with MCIPS and provides general advice and guidance on procurement to charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises in Wales. She is also a data protection specialist and a British Computer Society (BCS) accredited GDPR Practitioner and has worked closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to help prepare organisations for the GDPR. Her hard work and commitment resulted in WCVA becoming a finalist in the Sustainable Procurement category at the 2017 Go Awards Wales.
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David Madge

Project Manager

Social Business Wales

David Madge is a project manager for Social Business Wales, an ERDF and Welsh Government funded project delivered by the Wales Co-operative Centre. He is a Chartered Marketer with twenty years of experience marketing in the leisure, arts, professional services and social business sectors. He has worked with the Wales Co-operative Centre since 2011 promoting the benefits of employee ownership and social businesses.
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Simon Griffiths

Head of Commercial Innovation

Welsh Government

Simon is a highly experienced commercial manager, with more than 25 years employed in both private and public sector roles. The range of commercial projects that Simon has led on value between £1m and £2bn. He is now employed as Head of Commercial Innovation within Welsh Government, and he is currently developing and delivering a number of policy objectives, one which has a relevance for today is his role as commercial lead for the Foundational Economy, and in his talk he will be discussing how to think commercially different. Simon is passionate about improving systems, methods, and processes, by stripping out bureaucracy and waste, to maximise the value that the citizen receives from the public sector services in Wales. He is qualified to Masters Level and one of the main strengths considered through his work is his ability to deliver careful, considerate, change management – or ‘getting the job done correctly’, as he often describes this!’.
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Simon Haston

Chief Technology and Information Officer, Regions and Devolved Government

BT

Simon Haston is the CTIO for Devolved Government, BT Technology. Simon’s role is to be the ‘voice of the customer’ within BT, working with its business development, commercial and technology teams to make sure BT’s propositions and solutions are meeting current and future digital needs of customers. A graduate of the University of London, Simon has more than 15 years’ experience in change and transformation programmes, particularly in digital and IT solutions. Previous roles with Aberdeen City Council, Scotland Excel, The Improvement Service and the City of Edinburgh Council have seen him lead complex, multi-agency digital change programmes across the public sector.
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Gareth Browning

Senior Manager - Challenge-Led Innovation

Wesh Government

Gareth has a track record in developing, leading and managing successful multi-million pound innovation Programmes. With 18 years experience working at strategic and operational management levels, he has developed and implemented innovation initiatives across regional and national governments. Since 2014, Gareth has been responsible for leading the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Innovation Accelerator Programme. He has developed opportunities for high impact, public sector challenge-led innovation projects and large scale R&D demonstrators between public sector bodies and businesses. This programme is cited as best practice and has since been replicated by other countries. His high profile role has involved working across a broad range of government departments spanning UK government, devolved administrations, local government, NHS, blue light services and government agencies to drive culture change, service improvement and product and process innovation. Gareth sits on the Steering Board for the UK GovTech Catalyst working collaboratively with Cabinet Office/GDS, BEIS and HM Treasury.
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Eddie Regan

Principal Consultant

Procurement Advice and Support Service (PASS)

Eddie is BiP Solutions’ Principal Procurement Consultant and working alongside the Client Services team, he frequently assists public sector organisations with clarification and interpretation of EU Directives and a wide variety of legislative issues. For the last 21 years Eddie has lectured regularly on procurement policy and processes at conferences and events, both on behalf of BiP and for a variety of other organisations. He also provides in-house training on the tendering process to personnel in both the public and private sectors.
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Phil Kinnell

Senior Consultant

Procurement Advice and Support Service (PASS)

Profile coming soon.
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David Nicholson

Head of Commercial and Procurement – Digital, Data and ICT

Welsh Government

David Nicholson is the Head of the Welsh Government Commercial and Procurement – Digital and ICT team. He holds Chartered status with both the British Computer Society and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. His responsibilities include sourcing and managing the Welsh Governments Digital and ICT Contracts and responsibility for the Digital and ICT category of the National Procurement Service. He is also responsible for the eProcurement platforms managed by the Welsh Government for use by the welsh public sector. David joined the Welsh Government in 2004 and has held several senior technology and procurement roles. Prior to joining the Welsh Government, David worked for the systems integrator EDS / Hewlett Packard and for British Steel.
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