Stuart Farrell

AllPoints Fibre's Chief Procurement Officer Stuart Farrell brings a wealth of global experience to his role, having spent nearly two decades at Vodafone and served in prominent leadership roles with technology giants Fujitsu and HP.

However, he admits his journey into procurement came via an unexpected route.

“The UK CFO at Vodafone came to me saying we had a major challenge with a supplier billing  platform that needed commercially resolving," he recalls. "I'd mainly worked on large scale corporate deals to that date and not any sourcing or procurement activity before with my  team around me suggesting it may  take two years to try and renegotiate the contract and find a mutual solution to the joint challenges. Thirteen weeks and two days later, we penned the deal in Luxembourg.”

That successful negotiation marked a turning point in Stuart's career.

"I was told, 'you're quite good at this' and suddenly I was running Enterprise Procurement for the UK," says Stuart. “For the last 12 years, procurement and supply chain is all I've done.”

Breaking new ground

In 2021, Stuart joined APFN (formally Giganet), one of the operating companies that sat within the Fern Trading investment group. 

Here, he experienced first-hand the traditional disconnect between finance and procurement functions.

“I have always found the finance conversation challenging in several roles because it seemed to be quite disparate,” explains Stuart, who became Group CPO at APFN following the consolidation of the four OpCos into a single wholesale operating entity.

Things changed, however, following the arrival of Natalia Merkulova as Finance Director in 2024. 

Stuart continues: "Finance would drive budgets, manage account payable, receivable and balance sheet/fixed assets and manage the ERP system, but it wasn't until Natalia arrived that we began to hatch an idea: ‘why don't we explore group procurement and OpCo finance working together, for the greater good?’.”

The potential for collaboration quickly became apparent, as Stuart notes: “Imagine what we can do when we pull in the same direction for our customers and suppliers.”

This vision for unified operations marks a significant shift from traditional departmental silos and signals a promising new chapter in cross-functional collaboration at All Points Fibre.

To read the full article in the magazine, click HERE.

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