Ronnie Fleming

With more than 15 combined years dedicated to SSE, Ronnie Fleming, Chief Procurement Officer and Chris Platts, Head of Procurement Operations, have deep roots in the procurement industry working for the likes of Wimpey Construction, Leighton Contractors (Malyasia / Middle East ) Mace Group, Accenture and DHL Group. 

“I am a Chartered Quantity Surveyor by profession,” says Fleming. “I have been in the construction and utility industry for over 40 years, the last 12 have been with SSE. As well as overseeing the procurement for all third party spend across the SSE Group (around £3bn per annum), I’m also responsible for a team delivering post contract commercial support across our large capital projects portfolio. In addition, I look after property &FM, logistics, fleet, and travel with a team of c460 highly talented people.”

Over the years, Fleming has had the privilege of being involved in some of the largest infrastructure projects on the planet. “Projects like Dogger Bank, the largest offshore wind farm in the world; and Viking, in Shetland, one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world,” says Fleming.

Chris Platts, on the other hand, heads up the procurement operations team at SSE, “I have the pleasure of looking after about 80 people across UK and Ireland which includes our sourcing teams, purchase to pay, data analytics, system support, sustainability, SRM, and innovation. I also lead our large change programmes for Procurement & Commercial, such as digital transformation and some broader group change programmes.

“Nothing gives me greater pleasure than seeing the team developing and progressing; seeing individuals flourishing and taking on more responsibility and being rewarded for it. We spent a lot of time considering how we support team growth and promotion opportunities and learning development pathways to help the team on their respective career journeys,” says Platts. 

Echoing Platts comment, Fleming adds: “During my time at SSE I would say that overseeing the design of our departmental transformation & re-structure, its subsequent implementation and integration with a wider group reorganization and building a team that is recognized across group as a centre of excellence in the services we provide, is a particular achievement I am proud of.”

Similar to Fleming, Platts concludes: “Since joining SSE in 2015 and leading the procurement transformation programme, which is a fundamental change to the operating model and reorganisation (new teams, new systems, new capabilities and a learning development programme), this is something that was delivered on time and to budget and sets us up for the future ambitions of the group, both in UK and Ireland and internationally. So this is something that I am proud of.”

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