JetBlue unveils new procurement chief
17-05-2012
Airline JetBlue has named Mary Margaret Neff its new procurement boss.
ERG founder Ian Watmore to leave civil service
17-05-2012
Ian Watmore will step down from the civil service next month after overseeing the drive to cut waste in government spending.
Tony English is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Purcon.
Tony began his commercial career in Sales and Marketing within the construction industry followed by sales and operation planning in the one of the largest international companies in the toy industry. Here he managed the Demand and Production planning of four internationally based sites in a high volume and very fast moving environment. Firstly taking Business Studies to degree level, he then completed a post graduate course in Operations Research and joined Purcon in 1987 as a Consultant rising rapidly to Senior and subsequently Managing Consultant. Following this he was invited to join the Board taking added responsibility for Marketing. With retirement for the existing management looming, he launched a successful MBO of the business in 1996. After presiding over significant growth in Purcon through to 2001, Tony expanded the business via acquisition in to Europe (Belgium, France and Poland http://purcon.pl) and subsequently via acquisition, into HR recruitment (Resource Innovations).
Tony places most value in his 'people' whom have been recruited from both recruitment and procurement backgrounds to ensure a deep knowledge and understanding of the specialism. An average tenure of 6 years is a testament to the loyalty and commitment displayed within Purcon - unusual in a fast moving, competitive recruitment environment. This is driven by Tony's management style, to empower and encourage individuals to build effective networks amongst the most talented procurement experts.
Undoubtedly the theme he has always aspired to of unswerving customer service, a focus on consultant integrity and mutually profitable relationships still runs through the core of all Purcon stands for as it enters its 35th year.
Following an early career in Business Development within the insurance and legal services industries, Paula joined Purcon in 2003 in a Business Development Capacity, successfully building relationships with clients in a range of industries. Moved into a Senior Researcher role sourcing candidate for executive search projects. Joined the recruitment team at Purcon in 2005 and developed to Managing Consultant in 2010. Paula currently leads the Financial Services, Professional Services, IT and Electronics industry sectors for Purcon. Managing Blue-Chip clients in the UK , USA , Europe and Middle East, Paula specialises in recruiting all areas of Procurement including Strategic Sourcing, Outsourcing, Supplier Management, Procurement Operations, Procurement Change & Transformation, Category Management, Commercial & Contract Management for Sourcing Manager through to CPO level. During her time at Purcon, Paula has delivered high profile, global, multi talent projects under huge pressure of deadline and has enjoyed being instrumental in the development of many procurement professionals as they climb the ladder to CPO.
Post industrial placement as part of his Business Studies degree, Jonathan was introduced to procurement and decided to pursue a career in the profession. After graduating from his Masters Degree in Organisational Analysis at Lancaster University, he joined RHM, the leading food manufacturing business in a buying capacity. Mainly working within ingredients and packaging throughout his career in procurement, his highlight was buying fragrances and platinum for Gillette. While with P&G, Jonathan came to Purcon for career advice and was convinced to join Purcon as a Recruitment Consultant. Despite enjoying buying, Jonathan realised his passion for people was greater than that of budgets and invoices, so joined Purcon, the market leader of Procurement Recruitment with a strong reputation for quality and customer satisfaction, especially as he experienced Purcon from a candidate perspective.
"...I have always worked for organisation with strong brand, identity and expertise in what they do. This is why Purcon appealed especially as I was aware they work with most blue chip organisations and have a great reputation in the market ... It was seen as a great opportunity to learn more about the service sector and understand the nuances of organisations...I have learnt more about Procurement at Purcon than I ever did while working in the capacity myself.."
Over his six year tenure he has seen great success mainly specialising within the consumer goods and pharmaceutical sector, placing over a 100 candidates in his history. He has worked on specialist and complex roles such as key ingredients, packaging and business process outsourcing as well as recruitment campaigns. Jonathan has successfully built his international experience working on roles in USA, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and France, mainly on a retained recruitment model, applying the same quality service irrespective of location. His awareness and network is unrivalled, with his clients, candidates and colleagues alike describing him as honest, reliable and quality driven, with an empathetic yet results orientated approach.
Jonathan is an expert Managing Consultant who leads by example. He heads up the Pharmaceutical, FMCG, Petrochem, Telco's & Business Services recruitment team.
Having graduated from Oxford Brookes University in Hospitality & Tourism, Vicky decided that she wanted to pursue a career with an HR focus. A unique opportunity arose for her to join an outsourced on-site recruitment team at BMW in Oxford, where she was responsible to the client for the provision of temporary staff for the production of the new Mini. After 18 months, she made an internal company transfer to manage the temporary desk for a large high street agency within Oxford, where she worked very closely with a broad range of clients, providing temporary staffing solutions.
In 2003, Vicky joined Purcon as a Consultant into the Interim Executive Resourcing team where she was responsible for the recruitment of Interim Managers to a diverse client base. Over the years, Vicky has really enjoyed establishing client and candidate relationships; working in partnership to deliver solutions and exceed client expectations. Following internal promotions, her success across the public sector and manufacturing/engineering industries has meant that she has been able to gain a greater depth of knowledge within these industries and develop a successful network. She has a continuous aim to provide a first class service to clients and candidates alike and with a passion to ensure that the Purcon brand remains unrivalled within Procurement recruitment market.
Sarah specifically targeted a career in recruitment following a background in IT Business Development, preferring to promote a 'product' that she had personally evaluated. Beginning in 2001 in a commercial recruitment role within a very quality driven consultancy, Sarah has fine tuned her recruitment technique. Sarah moved to Purcon in 2006 to meet the challenge of a specialist industry as a consultant on the Interim division and quickly developed a passion for the procurement subject. She nurtured a large network of Interim Procurement Consultants, delivering procurement change and transformation to blue chip brands. In 2010 having returned from maternity leave, since having her first child Sarah was promoted to join the permanent division, where she made an immediate impact specialising in Financial Services and Business Services industries. Sarah is a tenacious recruiter; on initial understanding of a requirement, Sarah is relentless in her search to find that ideal candidate from within her valuable network as well as harnessing external resources - thus seeing her achieve a recent promotion to Senior Consultant.
Sarah respects client process and candidate preference, always encouraging honesty and transparency throughout the recruitment procedure, avoiding any unexpected outcomes! Her broad experience across the business has seen her succeed in delivering contingency recruitment, retained models for multi projects and interim solutions.
Chris graduated in Psychology & Sociology and began her career in IT sales for a large IT Reseller supplying Hardware & Services before taking a 'Gap Year' to go travelling. Upon her return she was 'recruited into recruitment' for a large fast paced multidiscipline High Street Agency, and then moved into an in house recruitment role for a niche Technology Services Company recruiting high level contract IT Engineers.
She joined Purcon in 2004. Following several internal promotions Chris now manages Interim recruitment for the Oil & Gas, FMCG, Pharmaceutical, IT / Telco's & Retail industry sectors within the UK / Europe.
As a 'home grown' Consultant, Chris demonstrates the Purcon Values of honesty, integrity, quality and professionalism. She has a genuine interest in Procurement & People and understands the importance and impact of 'the right hire'. After 7 years with Purcon, Chris has an extensive network and a very good memory; she is a dedicated recruiter who enjoys building and maintaining relationships.
Having obtained her teaching degree in Poland (Anna is fluent in Polish), Anna came to UK where she held a couple of office and admin roles. This enabled her to complete her Masters Degree in Bilingual Translation. Anna moved out of London in 2004 and joined ColemanParker, a niche executive search and selection practice where she gained her broad experience of recruitment and research.
In 2007 Anna joined Purcon as a Resourcer. Her main role at Purcon is to assist highly experienced recruitment consultants by proactively sourcing candidates through a variety of different means, including in-house database, job board searches, head hunting and networking. She has full end to end recruitment experience and a diverse international candidate network.
Anna believes Purcon's success is driven by our ability to find excellent candidates for our clients. She recognises the importance of research, networking and building lasting relationships with candidates and this is what she enjoys doing most.
Christine studied for her BSc in Psychology at Cardiff University and explored a range of roles in applied psychology throughout this period. After a summer spent working as an Assistant Psychologist for a Business Psychology Consultancy, gaining an insight into the world of employee assessment, selection, and development, it became clear that further study and a career devoted to ensuring that individuals are happy and thrive in their roles was what she was looking for. She returned to Cardiff University to study for her MSc in Occupational Psychology, studying a wide range of topics including employee assessment covering psychometric assessment, interview skills, and assessment centres. Christine is also fluent in French
After completing her Masters degree Christine moved into a varied role in an outsourced HR Consultancy where she got to grips with employment practice and law and gained solid experience in recruiting for a range of industries including retail, manufacturing and the charity sector.
As a Resourcer at Purcon, Christine works alongside Consultants to help source candidates for both permanent and interim recruitment assignments across all the sectors covered by Purcon.
"Having recently joined Purcon I have been so impressed with the level of mentoring and support I have received from my highly professional colleagues who are clearly passionate about providing an unrivalled and personal service to clients and candidates alike."
Catherine joined Purcon in 2001 in the position of Customer Service Advisor after 4 years working for one of the largest Furniture and Fabric Manufacturers as a Credit Controller. After 6 months she progressed into the role of Account Coordinator within the Interim Team, she was keen to become involved in the fast paced recruitment at Purcon. This involved supporting a team of two Consultants with all recruitment activities as well as developing a sound understanding of the Contract Management side of the business. Over the last 10 years Catherine has developed excellent knowledge of the Interim Contractors and Client base within Procurement. Once the department grew Catherine moved solely into the role of Recruitment & Contracts Coordinator and took on the challenge to improve the Contract Management process at Purcon.
Catherine understands that deadlines are vital to contractors regarding payments and contracts, as is transparency and clarity. Over the years her role has evolved with the ever changing legislation that impacts recruitment - particularly contractors. I ensure we are ahead or at least on time with any market changes and that we and our contractors are compliant. Catherine has become a key advisor and point of contact to our contractors.
"Purcon is the longest established in it's field, a small but proactive Company working with a diverse range of clients on a UK and Global basis. Internally Purcon has a fantastic team spirit which I enjoy being part of"
Louise joined Purcon in 2001 from earlier roles in the Technology sector, where she gained some experience in graduate recruitment. Having enjoyed working with people and assisting with their career path, she had the opportunity to join Purcon as a Recruitment Co-ordinator, supporting 3 Consultants in the Permanent Recruitment team. Promoted to Senior Co-ordinator, she also became involved in the recruitment, training and mentoring of new Purcon recruitment co-ordinators and gained BPS Level A and B qualifications in Psychometric Testing, providing psychometric testing support & administration for key accounts - verbal, numerical ability testing and personality profiling.
Louise moved into a Resourcer role in 2008, supporting experienced Consultants in the identification of potential candidates, at all levels, building a strong international network. Her organisational skills have been utilised in the advertising, response management and management reporting for large recruitment campaigns with Met Police, RBS and AstraZeneca.
"Joining Purcon was a good opportunity to be part of a niche Consultancy, with a great team atmosphere, working with blue chip clients across all industry sectors."
Phil rejoined Purcon in 2011, bringing with him extensive Search experience within Supply Chain and the Consumer sector across the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas. Having most recently spent two very successful years building the international supply chain search practice for a competitor, Phil returns to Purcon to further cement Purcon's reputation at Executive level within international supply chain management search.
Phil is a business graduate from the University of Surrey. He has conducted several board-level and sub-board supply chain searches for leading International FMCG organisations across EMEA, Asia-Pacific and the Americas as part of supply chain search career that has spanned fifteen years.
'This is a fantastic opportunity to leverage the strong brand and reputation that Purcon already has locally, regionally and internationally as a specialist recruiter within Supply Chain Management. There is real capability, ambition and enthusiasm amongst the consultants and aligning that attitude to an unrivalled knowledge of supply chain management means we have a very exciting journey ahead of us.'
Anna graduated from Royal Holloway College, London University in 2010 with a degree in Biomedicine, and from there moved into a Sales and Account Management role for a global travel management company, where she gained invaluable commercial insight and experience working with procurement teams from large blue chip organisations. Anna joined Purcon in September 2011, working as a resourcer in the permanent recruitment team. In addition to supporting the consultants, Anna's continued focus is on building a strong network of passive procurement executives.
'I am very pleased to be part of Purcon; working alongside such skilled and experienced consultants and resourcers has provided me an excellent opportunity to learn and progress. I was initially drawn to the scale and complexity of procurement as an industry sector, and feel motivated by the challenges it represents.'
Joanna graduated from the University of Southampton in 2010 with a degree in Spanish Linguistic Studies. After travelling around the Americas for six months she joined Purcon in October 2011 as a Resourcer, supporting three consultants in sourcing quality candidates for permanent procurement roles. Joanna works on initiative to ensure that the right people are submitted to the right organisations, and that solid relationships are built and maintained. Through various headhunting techniques Joanna is rapidly developing a vast international network, and as the only Spanish speaker on the team she is responsible for any direct contact with Spanish or Latin American clients.
'I was so lucky to find such a professional, friendly company so quickly after returning from my travels. Having only just started out in the recruitment industry I feel completely at home amongst the capable team, and I am now very keen to progress to a consultant role in which I can use my interpersonal skills to further effect. I look forward to taking on any new challenges that may come my way!'
