Colin Cram has held senior procurement positions in the public sector for over 30 years, including in central government, higher education, scientific research and local government. He was responsible throughout for initiating and implementing innovative strategies for procurement, shared services, outsourcings and organisational re-engineering. In creating several leading edge procurement organisations and collaborations, he was responsible for securing value from third party spends of up to £7bn a year. Cash savings from his initiatives exceed £1billion pa.

When in the Cabinet Office in the early 1980s, Colin had a leading role in the efficiency drive of the Thatcher government and pioneered public sector outsourcing policies. In 1991 he pioneered an initiative to identify the scope of benefits fraud, which led to the continued drive to address this.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, Colin is a member of SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives), a guest Member of IACCM (International Association for Contract and Commercial Management), was appointed a Senior Adviser to the Office of Government Commerce and is an Honorary Associate Fellow at Manchester Business School. He is a regular speaker and chair at national and international conferences and seminars, is a regular contributor to professional journals and web-sites and a regular broadcaster. He is a regular judge on awards panels for business and the public sector.