Jonathan O'Brien

Jonathan O’Brien is the CEO of the global procurement and negotiation digital platform, consultancy and training provider, Positive Purchasing Ltd (positivepurchasing.com). Jonathan has over 30 years experience working in Procurement and negotiation. He has worked all over the world to help global organisations increase their capability through training, education, working directly with practitioners and executive teams, and equipping teams with the digital tools to enable the adoption of Category Management, Supplier Relationship Management, Negotiation, and other strategic procurement and supply chain methodologies.

Jonathan is an electronics engineer who ended up in Procurement. His career in engineering soon moved into supplier quality assurance, and it was the hundreds of supplier audits undertaken involving detailed examination of business practice and process that provided a sound understanding of how organisations work, and thus began the process of working with companies to help them improve. A move to senior buying role in a large utility company shifted the focus to the commercial aspects of purchasing and this career path in culminated in a Global Category Director role for an airline business. Jonathan moved to an internal consultant role and helped lead a series of major organisational change programs. A subsequent move into consultancy, initially with a large global strategic purchasing consultancy and later with his own business provided Jonathan the opportunity to work with some of the biggest and well known companies in the world to help improve procurement and negotiation capability and gaining a rich experience along the way.

Jonathan holds an MBA from Plymouth University Business School, a Diploma in Marketing and an HNC in electronics, is an NLP Master Practitioner and a former registered Lead Assessor of quality management systems.

Jonathan and his team at Positive Purchasing Ltd have developed and created the 5i® Category Management process, the 5S and 5ATM Supplier Relationship Management process and the Buyer’s Toolkit. They have also created the OMEIA® Sustainable Procurement methodology along with the Red Sheet® negotiation tool that has become the way many individuals and corporations approach negotiation.

Jonathan has published five books so far. He is also an accomplished broadcaster and artist and lives with his family in Plymouth, UK.