Tom Kinnaird

Tom Kinnaird is the founder and Managing Director of Kinnaird Negotiation, a Negotiation and Coaching business he started in 2017. Tom has been a procurement leader and professional negotiator for over 30 years. For 15 years, Tom was Chief Procurement Officer at WPP, the world’s largest communications services group, with annual revenues of close to $20 billion, where he was responsible for leading WPP’s global procurement team. While with WPP, Tom co-founded the Accord initiative, designed to uplift the negotiation, commercial and pricing skills of leadership teams and individuals across WPP’s highly complex world of multiple marketing communications agencies. Tom works internationally to assist leaders with negotiation skills development, as well as coaching individuals and teams through complex and challenging negotiations. Throughout his career Tom has drawn upon real-life experience and collaborated extensively with leading academic experts and training partners in the field of negotiation. Prior to joining WPP, Tom was on the Board of a specialist procurement consulting business, advising international blue-chip clients on design and implementation of procurement change programmes. His early career was with SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (later, GlaxoSmithKline), working in development chemistry, manufacturing and procurement / supply chain. Tom’s particular areas of interest and expertise include: • helping leaders to better understand Procurement in clients • promoting game-changing moves in negotiation • negotiation dynamics in competitive pitching • conflict resolution (internal and external) • exploring innovative ways of teaching negotiation • embedding negotiation learning and behaviours into organisations