LiveWest, the largest housing association in the region, has appointed a new Head of Procurement to get the best value of service for its customers.
Maria Schingen, Head of Procurement, will play a vital role in optimising LiveWest’s procurement of goods, services and works.
LiveWest currently has over 40,000 homes with over 80,000 customers from Gloucestershire to the Isles of Scilly but, with its recent announcement of the organisations five-year plan, it’s expected these figures to grow.
Maria Schingen, Head of Procurement at LiveWest, said: “LiveWest has an excellent reputation as an employer, a provider of housing services and for their work to help our community. Personally, I find it really exciting and rewarding to provide our customers with great homes.
“LiveWest is an amazing organisation and deserves a procurement function to reflect that. One of my first tasks will be to build the function and getting the right team together to support the organisation in the best way possible.”
With the importance of quality and customer satisfaction at the heart of her work, Maria Schingen will oversee many elements of the growing organisation. As the housing association has recently announced 5,000 affordable homes will be built across the South West in the next five years, Maria will play an important role to ensure these new-builds are high quality for its customers.
Her role will manage LiveWest’s sourcing, supply chains, the products they use, services and negotiate contracts to ensure the best outcome for its customers and organisation.
Maria said: “Having had such a great welcome to the organisation, I am looking forward to meeting even more amazing colleagues.
“My job is to find the most efficient, and innovative way to benefit our customers and the whole organisation. I am focused on getting real value for our customers out of every commercial transaction we conduct.”
As Maria begins to settle into the housing association, she reveals that she is focused on using the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in her new role.
Maria added: “In terms of opportunity, the sky is the limit. We are yet to see all of the benefits of AI and modern technologies for building and procurement methods.”
With her previous experiences of working in other housing associations, Maria’s wealth of experience has put her in good stead to help LiveWest reach its fullest potential. Her previous work has seen been in consultancy, sales and marketing, imports, materials management, production control, procurement and supply chains and the private and public housing sector. From Germany to the South West of England, Maria’s career has given her extensive knowledge about the running’s of an organisation.
