Westpac’s Lardner takes top procurement award

The second New Zealand Procurement Excellence Awards last night saw Westpac’s Nick Lardner take out the top award.

Lardner was named Young Procurement Professional of the Year earlier in the night before being named the overall winner.

The judges described him as being the “perfect procurement professional” with a good balance of both IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence).

The awards, hosted at EY’s offices in Auckland last night, were created to raise awareness of the benefits of good procurement practices to New Zealand and to celebrate excellence.

According to the judging panel, Lardner’s passion for procurement was demonstrated through his “Procurement Sprint” sessions, which he created to encourage knowledge sharing within his Westpac team, to develop tactics, strategies and objectives to support team members with current projects or issues. Sustainability was also celebrated with a new category — Sustainability Project of the Year — taken out by Auckland Transport’s City Rail Link team.

ASB Bank also had a successful night, winning Procurement Team of the Year and its general manager for Group Procurement Mark Jones being named Procurement Professional of the Year.

Advisory Partner at EY Scott Blackwood said the awards recognised the significant value that good procurement practices could deliver. “Every year New Zealand’s government and private sectors spend billions of dollars on external goods, services and works,” Blackwood said.

“A well-established and effective procurement function ensures this money is utilised wisely and delivers real benefits in the form of better economic, environmental, social and Mana Whenua outcomes for our respective organisations and our country.”