Emily James

Head of Talent Procurement BP

My background is in building and running procurement and operational teams focused on Talent Acquisition and Management of the External Workforce. I currently lead the Global Talent Procurement organization here at bp focussed on providing innovative supply solutions to our labour-based categories of spend. As part of the Procurement leadership team for over three years, I am responsible for ensuring that the spend we put into the market is competitively priced, efficiently sourced, and inclusive to diverse suppliers.

My professional story started after qualifying from Bordeaux Business School with a Masters in International Purchasing when I moved back to London to take on a role in Indirect Procurement within an Investment Bank. Shortly afterwards, the Bank insourced the management of Contingent Workers in EMEA, and I found my first job as a team lead responsible for the recruitment and management of 1000s of external workers! Having lived through the Banking crisis of 2008, it was time for a change, and I joined bp (for the first time) to step into my first global role. Responsible for procurement of HR Products and Services, I led several key outsourcing deals involving multiple sites before joining HR for a brief period as a supplier relationship manager. Always driven towards building new solutions, I joined another Investment Bank in 2014 to take on the strategic direction and operational management of a centralized external workforce function covering the EMEA and LATAM regions, with 80,000 resources across 64 countries!

Amongst many other aspects of the job that I enjoyed, the ability to leverage my university Spanish and travel across different continents (at one point from Buenos Aires to Costa Rica in one week!) were and remain some of the highlights of my career to date. Having decided to go freelancing in 2019 and experience life on the other side, I found myself back at bp at a hugely exciting time. Our new strategy to transition to an integrated energy company had been announced, the company was reinventing itself and I was keen to play a role in what I consider to be one the greatest challenges the world is currently facing. I therefore took on the role of Head of Talent Procurement and am proud to be a small part of the change that we are making.