Emma Willingham

Commercial Director, Governance

Babcock International Group

Following completion of an Honours degree in 2003, Emma joined Babcock and has been in the defence industry for 20 years, gaining extensive experience in high value competitive tendering and commercial contract management in the Naval and Marine sectors. Throughout this time, she learned what makes a highly effective team and how functions can align goals to deliver quality outcomes benefitting both business and customers, whilst developing excellent relationships.

Emma now leads commercial governance for Babcock Group, focussing on developing and implementing global process improvements alongside people initiatives, to empower the team to provide an excellent commercial service to internal and external stakeholders. She leads a small, passionate team of like-minded individuals who strive to simplify commercial governance and develop a common identity for the commercial function. Alongside her governance role, she is also Babcock’s lead for the Commercial Workstream for the Strategic Partnering Programme with the UK Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office, with a joint vision based on best practice and facilitating more collaborative commercial working.

Throughout her career, Emma has benefitted from guidance and mentoring from colleagues, and she is committed to continue promoting this culture in Babcock by connecting commercial teams to share knowledge and innovations to ensure continuous growth and improvement.