December 13, 2019
A new Hawke’s Bay regional
strategic procurement director has been appointed by the
region’s five councils, the first such role to be created
in the country.
Current Air New Zealand manager
procurement Simon James will start in the role in February
next year, and brings significant experience, says Hastings
District Council chief executive Nigel Bickle.
In his
current role Mr James leads the airline’s supplier
relationship management programme, but his time with the
company has also seen him lead a number of strategic
programmes, in addition to managing relationships with the
airline’s key supplier partnerships across the aircraft
programmes, and food and beverage portfolios.
Before
joining Air New Zealand in 2012, he held a number of senior
procurement and management roles with Vodafone, Spark, PwC
and Coca Cola Amatil both in the UK and in New Zealand.
He holds a MSC in Geographical Information Systems and
MCIPS from The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply.
Mr Bickle says between them, the five councils are likely
to be spending $1.6 billion in capital over the next 10
years and that they had operating budgets of $300m per
annum.
“We are committed to moving over time from a
tactical approach to procurement to a more strategic
relationship management approach.
“We think there are
opportunities to get better value on some of our big
categories of spend and to also explore how our investment
can support better outcomes for our region – such as
social procurement, growing local firms, building Maori
enterprise.”
Although he will be reporting to all five
council chief executives (Central Hawke’s Bay District,
Hastings District, Napier City, Wairoa District and
Hawke’s Bay Regional), Mr James will be based at the
Hastings District Council civic building.
Mr James says
he’s looking forward to the opportunity of working with
the region’s five councils, to lead and develop a
sustainable procurement model that supports them to meet
their collective objectives, which is expected to have an
immensely positive impact on the Hawke’s Bay
region.
“My family and I are excited to be moving to
Hawke’s Bay from Auckland in the next few months. My wife
Kate is originally from Havelock North and we know we’re
lucky to be joining the wonderful Hawke’s Bay
community.”
ends
