Linda O’Hare is Assistant Director – Procurement, at Business Services Organisation (BSO), Procurement and Logistics Service (PaLS), in Northern Ireland (NI). PaLS is the sole provider of professional procurement and logistics services to all Health and Social Care (HSC) organisations in NI. BSO PaLS manages £1.3bn of expenditure per annum, has circa 420 staff, with procurement offices and warehouses situated across NI. BSO PaLS manages procurements and contracts across all categories of goods and services - clinical, non-clinical, social care and ICT. Linda has 23 years Public Procurement experience, in the Health Services in both Ireland and NI. Prior to this she headed up the purchasing department in the 5-star Merrion Hotel in Dublin, and in her early career held a number of management roles in the hospitality industry. In her spare time, Linda takes long walks in the countryside, spends time with family and friends and likes to travel extensively.

Chris is the CEO of the Irish Social Enterprise Network (Socent.ie), Managing Partner of Collaboration Ireland and a Teaching Fellow of Trinity Business School. Chris also volunteers as Chair of Far and Wild social enterprise and is President of the Irish US Alumni Association. Chris is a former Country Partner for the BCorp community in Ireland and the former Director of Social Enterprise NI.

Chris’ work focuses on leading and managing European and nationwide projects on Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Responsibility, Social Impact, Startups, Cooperatives, Exporting, SMEs in Ireland and leading a life of passion and purpose.

Ossian Smyth was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with responsibility for Public Procurement and eGovernment, in July 2020. He was given responsibility for Communications, Circular Economy, and Cyber Security at the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, in May 2021.

Ossian served as a County Councillor on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council from 2014 to 2020. He served as Cathaoirleach of that Council between 2018 and 2019. During his time on the Council, he introduced a new levy on vacant shops; new insulation and ventilation rules for future planning developments; banned the use of chemical weedkiller; and introduced an electric vehicle policy for council vehicles.

Prior to his election as TD he worked as a Technical Project Manager in Saint Vincent’s Hospital.

John Swords is the National Director of Procurement in the Health Service Executive (HSE). The HSE provides all of Ireland's public health services in hospitals and communities across the country and is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the State. In this capacity, John leads procurement with a firm focus to enable a better service, with improved outcomes for patients and service users in a challenging environment.

John has been instrumental in progressing the strategic procurement journey across the organisation. With a keen interest on driving transformation through collaboration and innovation, John has led on developing and improving the Procurement Sourcing Plan, Compliance Improvement, development and roll out of the National Logistics Service along with supporting the National Finance Reform and Stabilisation Programmes.

The HSE Corporate Procurement Plan 2022-2024 sets out the key priorities to improve and enhance procurement activities within the health service. John’s procurement leadership across health incorporates strong emphasis on the importance of sustainability as being critical to our collective obligations to provide safe patient care and contribute to reducing our collective carbon footprint. John is a member of the HSE Climate Action Steering Group and is leading on two key programmes of work in relation to Green Procurement and Procurement Decarbonisation Trajectory.

Cross border collaborative working in health and social care is a high priority for John and in this regard he chairs the Procurement CAWT (Cooperation And Working Together) Group, a partnership between the Health and Social Care Services in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is EU funded. As a member of the OGP (Office of Government Procurement) Reform Board, John is committed to procurement excellence and the overall public procurement reform programme. He is also a member of the GS1 Ireland Board of Directors whose standards improve the efficiency, safety and visibility of supply chains across physical and digital channels in 25 sectors.