Focus on Procurement interview: Sarah Cotgreave, Managing Director Globaltraid

Sarah Cotgreave, Managing Director of Globaltraid Photo: Supplied

Where are you from?

Originally from the UK – although I spent most of my childhood moving around as my family worked in the air force. I went to 15 different schools, including five in one year!

I moved to Manila in 2009 to work at the Asian Development Bank headquarters, which was a wonderful adventure, and eventually landed in Wellington in 2012 seeking more fresh air, so you really should be careful what you wish for. I’m proud to have become a New Zealand citizen.

What did you train in and where did you study?

My journey has been “lifelong”. It started with a BA in Business Studies at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, followed by the CIPS Diploma and then an MBA in Financial Services at London Guildhall University. I later completed a Master of International Trade and Development at Victoria University of Wellington, while working full-time at MFAT. I strongly recommend coffee. Lots of it.

What attracted you to a role in procurement?

I must be one of the only people who chose procurement as a career. I had a stint in contracting for National Gas as a student and quickly realised procurement sits right at the heart of how organisations actually work. I was hooked by the mix of strategy, negotiation, law, finance and human behaviour that procurement demands every single day. I also loved the opportunity to visit different suppliers and find out how goods and services are manufactured or delivered.

What advice would you give anyone considering a career in procurement?

Jump at the opportunity. Procurement uses far more complex and strategic commercial skills than people realise and forms a great foundation for other commercial and management roles. I have benefitted from a very wide range of procurement roles, from investment banking, news media, building energy plants and office buildings, defence contracting and designing and delivering training as an employee, public servant, facilitator and consultant.

Get your CIPS qualification early; it gives you a globally recognised foundation and opens doors internationally – it helped me get my first work visa to come to New Zealand.

Network. And don’t be put off by process. Behind every contract is a real outcome for real people and keeping that in mind makes all the difference. I would also recommend a stint in marketing or sales so that you can appreciate how the other side feels, especially when confronted by complex tender documents and negotiating for the other side!

What are 3 things the public do not know about the role of procurement in their lives?

• Everything you touch has been procured or commissioned. The school you attended, the road you drove on, the medicines in your pharmacy – someone negotiated and contracted for all of it. Public procurement is the invisible infrastructure which allows the government to deliver public services, and it’s everywhere.
• Government procurement should drive social outcomes and value for money. Modern procurement can require suppliers to provide local jobs, pay living wages, support environmental goals and demonstrate ethical supply chains. It is one of the most powerful policy levers governments have – and most people have no idea.
• Poorly done, procurement costs everyone. When public procurement goes wrong, whether through corruption, weak specifications or poor contract management, taxpayers ultimately foot the bill or are faced by delays in vital services. Getting it right is essential!

Can you please detail your top 3 achievements from your time in procurement?

• While working at the Office of Government Commerce in the UK, I worked on reform of government both by putting in place consolidated back-office functions and transforming public procurement and services using Lean techniques and digital transformation. The programme won a number of awards, was featured as a successful IT project in UK government by the National Audit Office and led to the award of FCIPS in 2008. During this time, I also worked on several critical national projects including as a member of a ‘blue light committee’ that allowed UK emergency services to respond when the national telecoms network fails – such as during the 7/7 terrorist bombings in London.
• Drafting Fiji’s Procurement Regulations in 2024–25. Working with the Fiji Procurement Office in the Ministry of Finance to write the country’s procurement regulations, guidelines, code of conduct, and delivering train-the-trainer courses was deeply satisfying. When enacted, it will shape how Fiji spends public money for years to come with the addition of sustainable procurement guidance to increase impact for local businesses and communities.
• The many wonderful people who are equally as passionate about the profession and work tirelessly to improve capability and share good practices.  This includes the staff and volunteers at CIPS, WCC, PASA, Asian Development Bank, MBIE, World Bank, WTO and many other governments worldwide.

What is the most unusual procurement project you’ve had to undertake?

I’ve been lucky to work on many diverse procurement and Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects on nearly every continent, including a solar array installation in Afghanistan and an electric tricycle programme where the vehicle was designed to carry 2 passengers and a pig.

While at MFAT, we were privileged to bring Sir Dave Dobbyn to sing at the 100th year anniversary commemorations of the Third Battle of Ypres in Passchendaele in 1917.

How did you get into your specialty field of helping countries develop their approaches to procurement?

While working at the Office of Government Commerce in the UK, as a director of the then UK Central Procurement Agency, I got caught up in the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and had to run off the beach. I then wanted to help developing countries to recover from similar emergencies.

My first real taste was working at the Asian Development Bank in Manila (2009–12), where I led capacity building for ADB staff and Asia and Pacific governments in procurement, project management and construction supervision. I quickly realised that countries at very different stages of development all face the same fundamental challenge: how do you spend public money well via procurement and PPPs fairly and transparently? From there, the work snowballed — Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, Tajikistan, Vanuatu, Timor-Leste, China, Vietnam and more. Each country teaches you something new, and no two assignments or challenges are ever the same.

Are there common challenges that countries face as they go through this work? What are they? And how do you help guide people through those challenges?

Absolutely. The top 3 I encounter time and again are:

• Political will vs technical reality. Reforms often look excellent on paper but stall when they hit entrenched ways of doing business. Governments must sequence reforms realistically and build champions inside the bureaucracy. The best policy in the world is useless without people who believe in it and inspire others to give it a go!
• Digital systems without digital capacity. Many countries procure eProcurement or financial management systems without the skills, training, change management, data or connectivity infrastructure to use them well. I spend a lot of time on the human side of digital transformation and ensuring the right stakeholders are involved early enough so that their needs are covered.
• Integrity and trust. In many environments, procurement processes have a reputation (not always undeserved) for corruption. Trust requires transparent processes, good data and real accountability. My role as a Director of Transparency International has been based on seeing both good and poor practices in many countries.

What is the most exciting thing happening in procurement right now?

AI, unquestionably. I have been working on AI at the government level and speaking at procurement conferences over the past 5 years as Big Data, AI, digital sovereignty and cybersecurity have converged for governments, The pace of change is extraordinary. The sector is experiencing genuine transformation, from AI-assisted contract risk analysis to predictive spend analytics to simulation-based negotiation training and real-time integrity monitoring. The key is making sure we use these tools ethically and don’t create new risks while solving old ones – and that countries aren’t left behind.

In an ideal world where you were not confined by a budget, what would you introduce to procurement that could help the industry function and develop?

A global, open-access procurement intelligence platform: real-time data on public contracts, supplier performance, pricing benchmarks and outcomes across every country – with data available to the public so that they can see how their tax dollars are spent. Right now, governments are reinventing the wheel. If we could learn from each other at scale, combined with AI-powered analysis, procurement decisions would be better and public money would go much further.

I would also invest heavily in procurement education and training in developing countries, because the gap between what is written in law or textbooks and what actually happens in practice is widest where capacity is thinnest.

In your opinion, what is New Zealand’s greatest contribution to the procurement community here or overseas?

New Zealand punches well above its weight internationally in procurement reform, and I say that with genuine pride. The integrity and relative simplicity of our public procurement system and policies are admired overseas.

But I think our greatest contribution is the people. New Zealanders who go out into the world – to multilateral development banks, to Pacific governments, to international organisations – bring a practical, no-nonsense, collaborative approach to procurement reform. There is something distinctly Kiwi about focusing on what actually works, rather than what looks impressive in a policy paper. Long may that continue.