Editorial Board

Introducing the procurement leaders on our editorial board.

Adrian Turner is European head of corporate procurement for Apple Computers. Prior to this position he worked in a number of senior interim procurement executive roles in the telecommunications, manufacturing and retail industries.

Adrian completed his MBA in 2000 and spent a short period in management consultancy, before being lured into rolling out a procurement dot com in the manufacturing industry. His first degree was in engineering and much of his procurement, negotiation and contract experience was hard won in a variety of public sector, contractor and consultancy roles - ending up in 1995 with responsibility for the south-east region at a multi-disciplinary consultancy

Dr Antonia Wanner has been European purchasing group manager at Nestle's German division in Frankfurt since 2002. She joined the company as a lawyer in 1996 and moved to corporate purchasing in 1999 as a buyer of various packaging materials.

She was the given responsibility for the company's corrugated board team and went on to develop it from a local sourcing operation into an entity covering Europe.

In 2003 Antonia moved to her current position, finalising and implementing the new role for a local purchasing department within a global and European purchasing organisation at Nestle for packaging, raw materials and services and indirect materials.

Dennis de Jong has been senior vice president, global procurement development, at ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam since 2002. He joined the bank in 1999 as head of strategic sourcing and became senior vice president, strategic sourcing, for the Netherlands.

Previously he held various roles at Compendium Resource Management, Fokker Aircraft and Aircraft Financing & Trading. He has an MBA with a specialisation in procurement from the European Institute of Purchasing Management, a post -graduate diploma in airline management, marketing and transport economics and a BSc in aeronautical engineering.
Dennis speaks fluent Dutch, English, French and German, moderate Spanish and basic Arabic.

Guy Allen joined Abbey in March 2002 where he holds the post of director, group procurement. He has worked in purchasing and supply-chain roles in major blue-chip companies for more than 20 years. Although primarily involved in mainstream purchasing, he has always been interested in the opportunities provided by rapidly developing technologies and how they impact on the work place.

He has designed and implemented purchasing systems for Ford, IBM and GlaxoSmithKline, where he led the introduction of world-class purchasing systems, incorporating on line bidding, e-procurement and online training. Guy has spoken at a number of conferences, colleges and companies in Europe and the US on purchasing strategy, e-auctions and e-procurement.

Meryl Bushell has spent more than 20 years in the telecoms industry in the UK, USA and the Middle East, working in sales, service, marketing and commercial roles. She became chief procurement officer for BT Group in January 2001 and has successfully enhanced the role and scope of procurement across the organisation. She has a particular interest in corporate social responsibility and has championed the introduction of BT's Sourcing with Human Dignity initiative.

In her spare time Meryl is a director of The Communications Network, a non-profit making organisation dedicated to the training and deveiopment of people interested in communications. She also sits on the board of Gateway to London, which helps businesses to invest in the UK capital.

Roland Verdon has held the poSition of procurement director at the global biotechnology company Serono International since late 2003, where he has established a procurement policy and function from scratch at the company's headquarters in Geneva.

He was previously procurement director worldwide for marketing, general services and IT at JT International (formerly Reynolds Tobacco), and purchasing manager at Medtronic Europe. This followed a range of roles in customer service and purchasing with Tetra Pak International and chemicals and healthcare company DuPont de Nemours International.
Roland is a Swiss citizen and speaks Fnanch, German, English and Spanish