Shona Snow interviewed

Question time with Shona Snow MCIPS Chartered Head of Procurement for London & SE Region, LHC

1. Describe your career journey to Head of Procurement for the London & SE Region in a housing and construction framework provider?

I spotted an opportunity to work in procurement when I was at General Electric years back, 2001 I believe it was! I learnt the basics of being a junior buyer processing purchase orders, obtaining quotes and then negotiating the best price on behalf of stakeholders. I moved to work for private healthcare charity Nuffield Health where they applied what’s known as Category Management, meaning I was responsible for an entire category of spend (orthopaedic implants) and had to develop a strategy for this, and manage their supplier relationships and their performance.

In 2013 I made the decision to move into public sector, something I’d always wanted to do, and worked at Surrey County Council, later moving on to Southwark Council. One of the wonderful things about public sector is the breadth and depth of experience you get and exposure to complex and interesting projects. I was promoted and managed teams who were responsible for infrastructure schemes, and later worked as Commercial Manager developing a cost recovery strategy for Children’s services spend in Special Educational Needs.

I now work for LHC where I was initially brought in to deliver three regional frameworks for our London & South East business unit, and then eventually asked to cover for our Regional Director while she was on maternity. I can honestly say I have been fortunate enough to have a deeply rewarding career, having reported to some truly inspiring and amazing managers who helped me develop. And now working at LHC I get the opportunity to support and mentor others and help build the business, even recently winning a Social Innovation award at the National Social Value Awards 2022 for our Architect Design Services Framework.

2. What was your ambition when you were younger?

I remember being encouraged to pursue my artistic talents because I had a natural flair, but I wasn’t interested in this, I couldn’t see at the time how to make a living out of it –although I now realise there were an abundance of good careers I could have explored! I considered becoming a vet at one point, also an architect, then later even worked in a nursery. I tried a bit of everything before settling on procurement!

3. What are the most challenging aspects of your role?

Sometimes it’s my own doggedly high standards that make my job so challenging! But I just can’t work any other way. I often have to deal with conflicting priorities, and tight deadlines whilst wanting to take every possible opportunity that comes my way to promote our architects on the ADS framework, but knowing I have only 5 days available to me in each week.

4. What are the most rewarding aspects of your role?

When I see a tender process run successfully that achieves the strategic outcomes it aimed for, and we get positive feedback from clients or from suppliers, it’s a great feeling. More recently I’ve been working with micro-SMEs who have struggled to break into public sector – I have been lucky enough to see how talented they are, and through our framework they have won new work and are making a significant impact.

5. You do a lot of presentations at webinars and conferences? How do you prepare? Do you get nervous ahead of the time? If so, any tips on managing your nerves?

I am pretty confident and comfortable doing it now, but believe me, I was absolutely awful when I first began presenting to groups and crowds about 10 years ago. Like so many skills in life, good presentations do not happen by accident, they involve hard work, preparation and a lot of practice and mistakes over time.

I am big on preparation yes. I am also good at jotting down ideas or diagrams or images to illustrate things as they come to me, then using them later in a slide deck. I also watch videos and tutorials sometimes just to brush up and make sure I am always doing the best I can.

I sometimes do get slightly nervous but it’s nothing com-