Paul Doherty
Procurement Director at Heathrow Airport
His teams are focused on delivering value for money, data-driven insights and trusted advice to both internal and external stakeholders. This focus is driven by Paul, who is passionate about empowering his teams to target continuous improvement and delivering results to advance their talent.
After graduating from the University of Huddersfield with a degree in Business Management and a HND in Business and Finance, he began his career in transportation at London Underground. He then progressed into operational leadership as a Contract Management Executive where he managed the Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly lines team for contractual compliance to the Public Private Partnership. In this position, Paul performed several key roles, including lead audit of Infraco operations while also designing the overall audit programme. He also sat as chair of the audit best practice steering group.
After a decade with London Underground, 2011 saw Paul step into the capital space as a Contract Manager at Heathrow. From there, he progressed through various senior roles including Head of Operational Procurement, Senior Commercial Manager, and Head of On-Airport Capital Procurement, before becoming Procurement Director in 2021.
Whilst operating in the capital space, he worked on projects including the London Olympics, baggage categories, and heading up the terminals, before taking on the unusual challenge of closing down elements of the capital portfolio when the pandemic arrived. He then moved into the operations’ side of the business, helping to remove costs to maintain operations during the pandemic, prior to assuming the responsibility of his current position.
He speaks of needing to be a ‘specialist at being a generalist’ in the role, as it involves a broad scope of responsibility – from working alongside algorithm developers to construction projects or cleaning procedures.
A constant focus for Paul is working with supply chain partners and the local community to ensure Heathrow’s strategic sustainability targets are achieved, thus retaining the airport’s licence to operate.
As a member of Heathrow’s senior leadership team, another duty of Paul’s is to ensure the diversity of the local community is represented in their teams and the teams of those who work alongside them. The procurement team works closely with their supply chain to ensure that they all collaborate on the Heathrow 2.0 vision, and that Heathrow itself leads on accessibility, social value and small to medium-sized enterprise engagement. Paul aspires that he and his team support Heathrow’s goal of being a leader in aviation sustainability, as well as being a great place to work and live.
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