Guest Lecture by David Smith

 

On Thursday 10th November Dr Alex Gillett hosted David Smith, CB, FCIPS, as part of the Public Sector Leaders seminar series at University of York School for Business and Society. David's talk had the title 'Procurement is the new rock n' roll'.

The talk mostly focussed on the history and development of Government Procurement and its professionalisation within the civil service.

The relevance to Soccer Mad Boffins is that David is a former football referee with the Surrey FA and he made some comparison between refereeing football games and overseeing procurement as part of the presentation.

David is also frontman of the band Gypsy's Kiss, a forerunner of Iron Maiden, which reunited in 2018 to play live gigs with a new line-up based around David as an original member.  They have music on CD and streaming services such as Spotify, t-shirts and more: https://www.gypsyskiss.net

David gave a fascinating talk and afterwards took many questions from the enthusiastic audience. At the very end he presented Alex with a Gypsy's Kiss t-shirt.