Minister for Defence Procurement

Anne-Marie Trevelyan was first elected MP for the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency at the 2015 general election.

A chartered accountant by trade, Anne-Marie sat on the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee from July 2015 – May 2017 and December 2018 – July 2019. She has previously served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence. As an MP, she has campaigned with colleagues for greater autism awareness and has focussed on the Armed Forces Covenant.

She was appointed as Minister for Defence Procurement on 27 July 2019.

Her wider interests involve spending time with her family, making the most of the incredible landscape her vast and varied constituency affords and putting her passion for singing to good use by taking part in Singing for Syrians concerts in Westminster.

UK Ministry of Defence

Chief Commercial Officer

Andrew has worked in the commercial, procurement and supply chain profession for the whole of his career, working in health, infrastructure international aid, construction and local government before joining the Civil Service. During this time he has delivered complex commercial deals, across property, infrastructure, IT categories and a range of national outsourcing service programmes in health, education and government.
He has also led transformation and improvement programmes across commercial functions including in local government where he established one of the largest procurement shared services in the UK and at the DWP, where he led a major transformation which saw them implement a new operating model and turnaround significant contracts across their IT and Estates spend. Andrew has also been a Crown Representative responsible for HM Government relationships with suppliers in the IT and Property sectors.
Andrew is currently the Chief Commercial Officer at the UK Ministry of Defence and is the senior responsible advisor across Defence for commercial and industrial issues. The role also covers the overall functional leadership of over 2,000 procurement and commercial professionals in Defence. The commercial function covers an annual spend in excess of £20bn across a diverse and complex set of programmes and categories covering major platform acquisition, infrastructure, estates and FM and IT & digital.
Andrew is also leading an Acquisition Review across Defence as part of the Departments transformation programme which is looking to fundamentally improve the way in which we acquire military capability in the future.
In addition, Andrew is one of the senior leaders of the Government Commercial Organisation and has been instrumental in helping to set the overall strategy and direction across the Civil Service. Andrew has led and championed a number of the people and capability initiatives across this new organisation to ensure they are fit for purpose and embedded effectively across government.

Submarine Delivery Agency

Commercial Director

Ruth Todd has 30 years’ experience in supply chain management, logistics and consultancy in a variety of private sector businesses.
Most recently she worked for Babcock International where she managed the Land Equipment Support Supply Chain. Prior to that she helped Jaguar Land Rover develop its inbound logistics strategy and led the programme to deliver that change.
Ruth spent 14 years in consultancy and had the opportunity to support aerospace, defence, automotive and industrial sectors, both in front line manufacturing and support services, always in complex environments. Much of her career has been in transformational management; leading teams through change to deliver practical operational improvements.
Her early career was in the automotive sector working in production, supply chain, procurement and strategy roles. She has a degree in Manufacturing Engineering and is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transportation.

Leadership and Motivational Speaker

Colonel Tim Collins OBE delivered the infamous speech to British troops of the 1st Royal Irish Battle Group on the eve of battle in March 2003. With a copy of the speech now hanging in the Oval Office of the White House, the notoriety and strength of this speech is shown by its prominence around the world. Collins’ words made him an overnight hero with world leaders and infantrymen globally. A terrific motivational speaker, Tim can utilise his vast array of anecdotal tales to intrigue and engage with guests.

Tim has served in the Gulf War, Colombia, Zaire, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. A naturally inspiring and motivational speaker, Tim combines his broad knowledge of both political and military history with tales of his active service. A pre-eminent authority on teamwork, leadership and motivation, Collins can provide clear parallels as a motivational speaker between everyday leadership in business and personal life with military problem solving tasks.

A fantastic event and conference host, Tim’s interesting approach to the delivery of his thoughts provide a great perspective to everyday problems, striking a chord with every audience member as a leadership speaker. Tim’s leadership advice is summarised in a handful of rules; Pick the right team, know what your plan and objectives are, make sure everyone has a role and it is communicated to them and understand responsibilities as a leader while trusting your team.