Meet John Blyth

Head of Contract Management (Procurement) John tells us about his key priorities for the year (and CBeebies).

Tell us a bit about your career background...

For the past 30 years, I’ve been involved in all aspects of contract management, from running large global teams through to setting up BT’s first Contract Management centre of excellence. Much of this was around large multi £m outsourcing arrangements on both the buy and sell side. During this period, I was involved in designing and implementing contract support functions, including training and governance across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Immediately prior to joining the University, I ran the Vendor management team within the Student Loans Company.

What is your role in Team Finance?

I’m head of Contract Management within the Procurement team. My role is to build and assure a contract management practice within Procurement and enhance in-life supplier management to the ultimate benefit of our internal customers and of course the University’s strategic value objectives. 

Any big projects coming up this year?

Aside from the Service Excellence Programme, in which I am heavily involved in designing the contract management requirements, the key focus for me will be establishing the contract management practice . This entails a number of mini projects, such as implementing standardisation of processes, financial tracking, supplier landscaping and of course  driving different behaviours from our supply chain, to assure overall success in our strategic goals. All of this will be aligned to a development programme I am currently structuring which will be supported and assured by a Playbook guidance document and also assured by new controls. Once implemented, the focus will be on continuous supplier improvement, governance, greater supply-chain intelligence and looking strategically at how we structure our contracting relationships to drive long term incremental value.

What does an average day look like for you at the moment?

At the moment it’s wide and varied, which is exciting. From reviewing and working on process flows for SEP, defining new contract management procedures and, importantly, getting round the stakeholders, sharing my vision for contract management and understanding their needs and focus areas to make sure I have the direction of travel right. Aligned to this, I am currently reviewing the financial performance of contracts, (which involves lots of spreadsheet analysis!)  to identify and chase down near term value for money opportunities.

How do you keep busy outside of work?

I like to spend my time following rugby (which I may reconsider after this 6 Nations), going to exhibitions and generally socialising. I also have a beautiful new granddaughter who I’m sure will be redefining my social calendar. So getting up to speed with CBeebies and the likes,

I guess?!