Cordie procurement apprentices were treated to another great ‘Employment Insights’ session earlier today, when Peter Rushton FCIPS - a former President of CIPS - presented an overview of his career journey that got him to the top of the profession.
Cordie’s Employment Insights sessions are held every 4-6 months for all of our procurement apprentices. Each session is built upon a relevant employment theme for procurement professionals and we invite along a senior procurement practitioner to give an insight to their personal career journey and any lessons they have learned along the way.
Today’s session was attended by 34 learners and the theme was: How to Succeed in the Business of Procurement. Procurement is more than just a narrow professional discipline, it requires full integration with the wider organisation. Peter’s presentation was based on his personal experience both as a former CPO, and as a chief executive and one of the former Trustees of CIPS. in particular he focused on the core skillsets required to be successful in adding value as a procurement professional.
Peter Rushton started his career as a Commercial Apprentice at Rolls Royce before moving up the corporate ladder to head up procurement functions in various organisations, including British Sugar and Caradon Group. Beyond his corporate career he switched to providing procurement services and was involved in the start-up of two highly respected global providers (Optimum Procurement and Xchanging Procurement).
Peter has been able to use the knowledge, skills and behaviours he built up through his career and apply them to expand his professional credentials. As well as a past President of CIPS, he was also the former Chair of the CIPS Board of Management.
More recently, Peter has worked as a subject-matter expert and senior trainer for the UK’s Government Commercial Function, as well as being a visiting lecturer at the University of Sheffield.
“If you want to be successful in your procurement career, you cannot escape hard work!
If you are really smart, you will get out there and find yourself a good mentor.
To continue to be successful in procurement, we need to be relevant and add-value!”
These were just some of the insights from Peter earlier today, where he highlighted the core skillsets that he believes makes someone successful in procurement today:
Managing complexity
Identifying and mitigating risk
Supply market insight
Having a commercial focus
Effective decision-making by being decisive
Showing resilience
Building relationship and influencing others.
It was recognised that many of these attributes are already built-in to the Commercial Apprenticeship in Procurement & Supply standard and are included within the Knowledge, Skills & Behaviours required to succeed.
We are planning more Employment Insights sessions over the next year. These will be open to all procurement apprentices across all Levels. The next session will involve a senior practitioner from the private sector.
If you would like to find out more about our Employment Insights sessions, or any additional information about the Cordie procurement apprenticeship programmes, do please get in touch with us via the contact form at the bottom of this page. We look forward to hearing from you!