The Growlersworld Interviews

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The Growlersworld Interviews is an ongoing quest, bringing you closer to successful and creative people in all walks of life.

Rawle Austin presents...

A conversation with Emma Law - Procuring an Ethical and Environmentally Friendly World!

Emma Law is a growing authority in the field of Procurement. I caught up with her to learn more and find out what makes her tick. Rawle Austin: Can you introduce yourself to Growlersworld.com readers? Emma Law: My name is Emma, I am 33 and I live on the South Coast (my adopted home after moving out of London). I have two dogs and currently live just five minutes walk from the sea.

RA: You’re currently working in the Procurement field. How would you describe Procurement to someone who knows nothing about it?

EL: Put simply, I buy goods and services on behalf of who I work for – The Environment Agency. So I control larger spends, to make sure that I am getting good value for money.

I work on national contracts and I specialise in things like catering, plant hire (big diggers and bulldozers etc).

Who you work for defines what you buy; but for me, I love working where I do, because I get to spend time making sure the things I buy are as ethically sound and as environmentally sound as I can.

RA: What attracted you to this profession? EL: I had previously worked as a Facilities Manager and done a small amount of purchasing on the side, so when I wanted to move to the coast, a job came up which involved purchasing for Facilities contracts, so as I’d had experience running them before it was an ideal way in to what I do now. RA: You recently completed a Purchasing and Supply course. What and where did you study and how would you describe that whole experience?

EL: I have just qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute of Purchase and Supply (CIPS). This means I can now use the letters MCIPS after my name. It took three years for me to qualify part time as I worked all the way through.

It’s a tough course, but well respected in the industry, so I decided to do the whole thing. I self studied for the first part and then went to study away in modules for the last two sections (they get really hard).

It was really interesting as you get to study all sorts of subjects from Law to International Supply Chains and so on, so it gives you a great grounding in the field.

I’m really happy to have finished it, but I don’t think I would have been so chuffed if you’d asked me just before any of my exams! RA: What were the three most important skills you learnt during the course and why will they be useful in your future career? EL: Learning about Strategy applies to all areas of business and was a real eye opener for me, it made me look at the way I solve problems and issues. My tutor was amazing and I was lucky to spend so much time with him to learn from him, he was so dynamic.

Being a lot more aware of culture and cultural differences was critical (doing international negotiations is really hard as you need to know so much about the culture you’re dealing with).

I also learnt to really analyse questions much more than ever before, but that just might be the experience of doing so many long exams (it took 14 3-hour exams for me to graduate!).

Other than that I think I learnt a lot about how much more dedicated I was as a mature student.

With my first degree, I was never as focused as I have been in the past couple of years, I really wanted to succeed and I understood myself so much better to do it, even though my memory retention probably got worse. RA: What is your ultimate ambition in this field? EL: I’d love to be a Procurement Manager or Strategy Manager for a larger company and use what I’ve learnt in Sustainable Purchasing to make a real impact onto a company with lots of money!

Environmentally, you can make a real difference in purchasing because you’re spending more than, say, a household would. So if you’re in charge of millions of pounds of spend, you can make a real difference.

With clothing, for example, you can choose to purchase fairly traded and organic cotton – that’s a massive difference. And the more you do it, the cheaper it becomes….

RA: What advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue this career?

EL: Find somewhere to work where there is a dedicated Procurement department. If you can get in at a more junior level, lots of companies will enable you to train with CIPS and then the sky really is your limit.

If you want ideas, the trade press, “Supply Management” magazine, is a good place to start – borrow a copy from someone in the field!

RA: Who inspires you most in life and why? EL: Lots of people (and things) inspire me, it depends on my mood. At work, it’s one of my national managers, who is immensely clever and yet never talks down to those who are grades below him, and he’s taught me an awful lot. Outside work, it really depends on what day. People that are courageous through great adversity are those that really inspire me – whatever I am up against, there’ll always be someone worse off than me, so I shouldn’t be complaining.

RA: How do you keep yourself motivated to achieve your goals?

EL: I try to keep focused on things, but sometimes I do find it really difficult. I often have so much to do that I can’t see the wood for the trees.

When I get like that I either go off and do a yoga class (good meditation) or take my dogs for a walk on the Downs – either of these calms my mind and lets me re-focus on what’s important.

I try not to beat myself up on what I can’t achieve as at the end of the day, I can only do my best, so if I’m satisfied of that, I can sleep easy at night.

RA: What was the last good book you read and what made it good, in your opinion? EL: Reading is something I have just got back into as I have spent so much of my recent time reading text books (some more riveting than others!). I really like reading autobiographies and non fiction, so my favourite read in the last year would be Wild Swans by Jung Chang. It’s the story of three generations of Chinese women and their path through the twentieth century, written by the youngest daughter.

From the foot binding concubine life of her grandmother, through the Cultural Revolution, it is a fascinating tale of life for real people in China.

I literally couldn’t put it down. Books are a great opportunity for me to learn more about other people’s lives, which is what I liked about this the most, it was really moving.

RA: You’ve practiced martial arts in the past, what do you enjoy most about taking part in sporting activities?

EL: I studied karate for many years and the discipline was one of the things I liked the most about it. These days I’m not really fast enough for fighting, but I do practise yoga a lot to keep my body under control. Lots of people assume it’s easy, but it’s really hard to get it right. Doing a proper head stand was good fun last week! RA: And finally, what words of wisdom would you like to share with us?

EL: “WE DO NOT INHERIT THE EARTH FROM OUR ANCESTORS: WE BORROW IT FROM OUR CHILDREN."

I have no idea where the quote comes from, but I really like it. I see so many people who take the beautiful planet we live on for granted (especially in the “civilized” world), and I think we have to be more aware of how fragile the planet is and do all we can to preserve it, by being aware of our own personal impact.

Growler's note: The above pictures are of Streatham Common in London

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