Ian Heptinstall is a UK-based consultant whose procurement experience has seen him sitting in most of the seats around the buyer-supplier table. He has in-depth expertise in indirect and CapEx procurement, and has led significant organisational change projects. As a chartered engineer, working in the chemicals industry, early procurement experience was as a project manager in ICI and Zeneca, selecting and managing suppliers with little professional input. It was in Zeneca that he moved into his first procurement role. After 15 years with ICI and Zeneca, Ian then moved into the supplier’s seat working at the engineering consultancy Eutech. Ian and his team managed capital projects for clients in the process industry, and he also designed and delivered training and development assignments in project management and procurement. One of his major projects used an innovative project alliance approach to its management and contract. As well as winning an award for Supply Chain Excellence, the project brought significant benefit to the client Rohm and Haas. He returned to procurement as Engineering Procurement Manager for Glaxo Welcome, leading teams at the four main production facilities in the UK and Singapore. When Glaxo merged with Smithkline Beecham he moved to the central Capital Procurement team as Sourcing Group Manager. From GSK he joined a small global management consultancy, initially working in the USA on a major procurement change programme with Sears. Back in Europe Ian worked on a number of short analysis projects across several industries, before joining a 12 month assignment with steel manufacturer Arcelor. Immediately prior to joining PMMS Ian was Supply Chain Director at NG Bailey, a leading UK construction company, where he led the transformation of procurement from a distributed, inconsistent and transactional overhead, to a centrally-led, integrated, value-adding part of the business. The training part of this work was recognised with a UK National Training Award in 2007. Ian enjoys all aspects of procurement improvement, from strategic operational and organisation design, to training and coaching. Particular interests include procurement of capital projects and commercial awareness training for non-procurement staff. Ian can work in French as well as English.
He can be contacted at pmms.uk@pmms-group.com.
