Thought Leader Consultant of the Year
Procurement is a misunderstood profession. Procurement teams have long been considered a purely cost-saving resource for businesses, and the sole purpose of the procurement professional is thought to be operating a process that drives down external spend at all costs. This often puts procurement at odds with the very customers that it is built to serve. Simon Geale’s thought leadership challenges this fundamental misunderstanding and helps organisations to unlock procurement’s potential.
Having started his career in-house as a strategic buyer for high-tech divisions of companies including Philips and Accenture, Simon’s experience is grounded in an understanding of the integral role that procurement plays in driving innovation, challenging internal convention and optimising business performance.
His role at Proxima is now unique to the consultancy industry. As SVP Client Solutions, he is tasked with changing the narrative around procurement at an industry level and laying the foundational thinking for some of Proxima’s most innovative thinking, including:
- Leading Proxima’s market-leading research projects including the Finance Leaders Outlook and State of Spend reports, which highlight procurement’s value to businesses,
- Featuring as a prominent voice in global media on the essential role that procurement is playing in the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, helping Proxima’s message reach an estimated 1.7m people in February alone,
- Founding and serving as Managing Director of Suppleye, a free market-intelligence tool to help procurement professionals understand their supplier base,
- Establishing Proxima’s customer-centric procurement approach and unlocking unrealised business potential with Walgreens and Siemens (amongst others)