Mark Isaacson
Associate Senior Consultant
Strategic Commercial Director, MBA and MCIPS qualified
An accomplished and versatile MBA and MCIPS qualified strategic Commercial Director with broad experience in both food and agribusiness sectors. An effective and credible communicator with a track record of building strong commercial relationships, high level negotiation and account management, international exposure and experience of operating and influencing at Board level and across Global Joint Ventures. A proactive and organised individual with a logical, pragmatic and can do attitude who operates well under pressure. Excellent analytical and planning skills with keen attention to detail.
Expertise:
- Purchasing and supply chain strategy to deliver margin growth
- Leadership in a variety of projects including strategic reviews
- High level account management
- Negotiating optimum business outcomes
- Managing key commercial risks to enhance performance
- Track record of building effective cross functional teams
- Effective at building strong commercial relationships
- Property acquisition and development
Experience:
- Part of Senior Management Executive, reporting to CEO and Board
- Key input to determining and executing strategic planning process and strategic direction of company
- Head of purchasing department (c.£60M spend), supply chain responsibility for two business divisions
- Determining and implementing company risk management strategy and commercial exposure (Foreign currency risk), also Energy purchasing strategy
- Commercial lead and part of key account team supporting major end-customer (McDonald’s) via eight direct supplier customers across UK, Europe and Russia
- Key account annual contract negotiations with regular joint review meetings across Europe
Notable companies:
Elsoms Seeds, Gemcom Ltd, AHDB, Ingredion PLC, Jas Bowman & Sons Ltd, Fengrain Ltd,
Qualifications:
- Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (MCIPS)
- Masters in Business Administration (Executive), School of Management, Bath University
- Diploma in Management Studies – Kingston Business School, Kingston University
- BSc (Hons) in Agriculture: 2.1 – Wye College, University of London
Achievements:
- Carried out a thorough review of the supply chain and implemented a strategy to reduce supply chain costs, and departmental running costs
- Significantly reduced supply chain costs by £1.36M over four years
- Increased productivity through our own stores by 50% over two years
- Reduced working capital requirements from £40M to £18M in first two years
- Developed the MRP system to improve the alignment between raw material purchases and customer quality requirements
- Devised a direct sourcing strategy for 100,000t of grain, saving circa £0.5M/annum
- As Commercial lead for McDonald’s business unit (covering 8 customers in UK and Europe, t/o £21M) delivering year on year margin growth accumulating to 17% growth, £1.1M to bottom line
- As Commercial lead for McDonald’s business unit (covering 8 customers in UK and Europe, t/o £21M) delivering year on year margin growth accumulating to 17% growth, £1.1M to bottom line
Published Work/Notable Professional Positions held:
- Wheat Committee member, National Association of British and Irish Millers (NABIM)
- Arable Marketing Committee member – Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC)
- Board Director & Treasurer, AIC (Services) Ltd
- Market Development Committee member, Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB)
- Represent AIC on a cross-sector ‘Cereals Liaison Group’
- Vice-Chairman, Cereals Committee, Maltsters Association of Great Britain
