Ask yourself these questions:

Over 70% of a team is in the first few years of their procurement careers. Is that a resourcing problem, or the biggest opportunity in the room? If the fundamentals used to be learned on the job, over years, what replaces that when the team is this new? When a junior buyer hits a negotiation with no easy answer, has anyone actually taught them what to do? Maritime procurement is recruiting and promoting faster than it has in years, and Fiona Kerr has built her career around making sure speed doesn't come at the cost of substance. At North Star, more than seven in ten of her staff are in the first few years of their professional procurement careers. Rather than treat that as a liability, she has made developing them her mission.

What follows is not a theoretical case for training budgets. It's a candid, practical account of what it actually takes to turn a young team into a capable one, and what changes across an organisation when that investment pays off.

Don’t always go for the person who ticks every box on paper, Look for people with a good attitude and a willingness to learn that’s just as important as experience. You can teach people the industry if they have the right mindset.

The Opportunity and the Investment Fiona's session doesn't start from a place of alarm about a young workforce. It starts from the opposite instinct: a team this early in its career is not a weakness to manage around, it's raw capability waiting on structure. But she is equally clear that structure doesn't build itself. Knowledge, confidence and commercial instinct, the things a junior buyer needs to hold their own in a difficult negotiation or a supplier dispute, don't arrive automatically just because someone has been in the seat for a year or two.

That's the gap her work addresses. A buyer can be diligent, well-supported and still under-equipped if the organisation around them hasn't deliberately built the development programme that closes that gap. Fiona's session sets out what that programme actually looks like in a busy, live procurement environment, not a classroom exercise bolted on the side, but a structured path built into the day-to-day work itself.

It's a session built to make delegates rethink what "developing people" means when so much of the easy, repetitive work has already been automated away.

People from different industries can bring valuable perspectives into supply chain. It’s important to think differently about talent. I want to share the things I’ve learned—both the mistakes and the successes.

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Fiona Kerr, Head of Procurement at North Star

As Head of Procurement at North Star, Fiona leads the supply chain function supporting one of the UK's leading maritime operators serving the offshore energy and renewables sectors. On paper, that means strategic sourcing, supplier relationships, contracts, stock management, and all the things that keep vessels operating safely and efficiently. In reality, it often means solving problems, managing the unexpected, and occasionally wondering how she has accumulated quite so many excel spreadsheets over the years.

Fiona has spent more than 20 years working in supply chain roles, building her career from the ground up. Her journey has taken her through the public sector, offshore drilling, oil and gas, renewables, aerospace, and now maritime. Looking back, it has been a varied career, but one thing has remained constant, she has always enjoyed finding better ways of doing things and working with good people to get results.

A significant part of Fiona's career was spent supporting North Sea drilling operations, where she worked closely with offshore crews and regularly travelled offshore herself. Those experiences taught her that the decisions made in an office can have a very real impact on the people carrying out the work. They also taught her that if you turn up offshore in the wrong gear or ask the wrong question, you'll hear about it fairly quickly.

Having joined North Star relatively recently, Fiona has been fortunate to receive fantastic support while helping to develop and strengthen supply chain processes across the business. What has impressed her most is the enthusiasm and ambition of the team around her. Together, they are building a modern and resilient function that supports operational excellence while continuing to evolve and improve.

When Fiona was at school, she had never even heard the term “Supply Chain”. It certainly wasn't presented as a career option and, like many people in the profession, she found her way into it completely by accident rather than some carefully thought out life plan. That experience is one of the reasons she cares so much about helping young people discover the opportunities our profession offers. Having worked her way up through the ranks herself, she knows first hand the variety, challenges, and opportunities a career in supply chain can provide. Today, she leads a team where many colleagues are in the first few years of their careers, and nothing gives her more satisfaction than seeing people develop confidence, grow their skills, and progress. One of the junior buyers she mentored earlier in her career is now her Team Lead, something she is incredibly proud of. It is also a reminder that helping others succeed is far more rewarding than counting how many years you've spent in the industry.

One thing that is particularly important to Fiona is making sure that knowledge and experience are passed on to the next generation. Technology will continue to transform the way we work, but she still believes the future of supply chain will be shaped by people, their curiosity, their willingness to learn, and their ability to build relationships. If she can help a few more young people discover a career they may never have heard of at school, then she will consider that time well spent.

.........................................................................................................................................................................................................

The Conversation Continues:

Fiona's session continues on with the leadership debate that stretches out further into the morning of the first day: Perspectives on Talent, Knowledge and the Next Generation of Procurement Professionals

The debate takes the question Fiona raises in her session and puts it directly to a panel of senior procurement leaders: as processes mature and tools proliferate, is the depth of knowledge being developed by the next generation of buyers keeping pace with what the role truly demands? What are the consequences for commercial performance, supplier relationships and operational resilience if it isn't? And what must industry leaders do, now, to close that gap?

Joining Fiona on the panel:

• Rick Ackermann, Head of Procurement, BW LPG, who opens Day One with a keynote asking whether AI-driven speed is quietly eroding buyers' judgement

• Joanne McCulloch, Global Head of Fleet Procurement & Logistics, V.Group

• Alex Drew, Group Procurement Director, FLEET Management Limited

Together, they extend Fiona's practical case for structured development into a live, unscripted debate on the industry's responsibility to the next generation of buyers, and the consequences of failing to meet it.

Why This Morning Matters

Fiona's session and the Leadership Debate form the practical counterpart to the morning's opening provocation. Where Rick's keynote asks whether speed is outpacing judgement, Fiona's session answers with a concrete blueprint: what deliberate talent development actually looks like inside a real procurement team, and why it can't be left to chance. This isn't a session about slowing down modernisation. It's a session about what leaders need to build, deliberately, so that the next generation of buyers is ready for the job, not just fluent in the tools.

In collaboration with the Global Maritime Procurement Council (GMPC)

Why This Agenda Matters

This isn't an event built around abstract industry trends, it's built around the real tension procurement leaders are navigating right now: modernising without losing institutional knowledge, hitting ESG targets with genuine accountability, and adopting AI without outsourcing judgement.

With speakers from BW LPG, North Star, V.Group, FLEET Management, Scorpio Group, ShipServ, Oldendorff Carriers, Breakwater, ProcureShip, Wilhelmsen, Closelink, and NARWHAL PROJECT all in the room, expect the debates to be just as candid as the session titles suggest.

IMPA London 2026 takes place 22–23 September at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Westminster, London.

Register now

Keep up-to-date