2 December 2010 | Angeline Albert
Bupa will have
a new global group purchasing director in 2011 following the promotion of Sally
Ward.
Ward has been the
healthcare provider’s UK head of group purchasing for the past five years. She joined
Bupa 11 years ago.
She begins her new role
on 1 January, following the retirement of Mark Ralf at the end of the
year.
Ralf said: “When I joined
we were a £1 billion organisation focused in the UK. We are now a £6 billion
operation with a large amount of business in the US, Spain and Australia.”
He said the restructure
of Bupa’s organisation into geographical-based divisions has led to a greater
chance for his successor “to focus on global contracts and regional contracts
than ever before”.
The company has acquired
companies at a fast pace, and Ralf said “there are opportunities for
procurement to make efficiencies in this larger organisation”.
Ralf retires after 13 years with Bupa. He was
previously group purchasing director at what was then SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) where he spent seven years.
Prior to that he was at British Airways for
14 years.
