Jan Paul van der Velde (Dutch, 1964), graduated Mechanical Engineering, joint the Philips Electronics Procurement trainee program. The trainee program combined getting work experience in several procurement areas like Non Product Related, Investments and Raw Materials in both production and development environments, combined with a detailed and focused learning program, including the Dutch accredited buyers training.
After 4 years Philips, he moved to Frito Lay (the world leader in salty snacks, part of PepsiCo). The main focus has been on developing lean and agile inbound supply chains to enable to the upcoming ECR (Effective Consumer Responds) drive from the retail, which included a full ERP implementation. This major focus was on the total in- and outbound supply chain and newly developed planning processes, back integrated into the supplier base. This delivered major cost reduction, both in P&L (cost of materials, resource required) as in balance sheet terms (stock reduction driven by lead-time and batch-size reductions, also allowing shorter time to market).
Subsequently Jan Paul moved to Heineken, the famous global Dutch brewer, where he was globally responsible for all packaging materials. With a team of 7 buyers he managed USD 1.7b Packaging spend for all breweries around the world.
After 2 years at Heineken, Jan Paul decided to move to Quest International, one of the leading Flavours and Fragrances manufacturers; up to March 2007 part of ICI ltd. As VP Procurement, he was as part of the management team responsible for all 3rd party spend (USD 700mio, 64 people globally, 6000 raw materials, both chemicals as natural (crop) materials). The main achievements has been moving procurement from quite traditional to a global world class organization, having full set of specific procurement tools, driving cost out of the processes and materials as well ensuring an improved link towards product pricing and development.
After the sales of Quest to Givaudan, Jan Paul decided to leave the organization and joined Flint Group. Flint is one of the world leading ink companies, with 140 plants around the world. Flint Group was recently acquired by Goldman Sachs and Koch Industries from the previous owner CVC Private Equity. As SVP Procurement, part of the Board of the company, he is responsible for over Euro 1.8bn. Next to being responsible for Procurement, Jan Paul is also in the board also responsible for IT and Regulatory.
Ever since joining Quest, Jan Paul is a regular speaker in the “Key Account Management Masterclass” events of Insight Marketing and People. Additional he regularly gives training on subjects related to “Procurement for Sales People”, both for improving Key Account Management, but also focus on “Working with Buyer” and “How to get Price Increases”, both in open-subscriptions as in-business programs.
In 2011, Jan Paul published his first book (co-author with Peter Cheverton) under the tittle “Understanding the Professional Buyer” (ISBN 9780749461232), a book for sales professionals to better understand the new breed buyers.