Our people are the core of our business. The Faculty Team are all Masters-trained with unique specialisations. Hand-picked from a strategic cross-section of industries, we believe that they are the very best minds available to analyse, assess and assist you in making informed, intelligent decisions.
Tania Seary - Founding Chairman
Tania has a great depth and breadth of experience in procurement, marketing and eBusiness, working with leading global companies in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. She founded The Faculty over six years ago.
Immediately prior to establishing The Faculty, Tania worked for Alcoa Inc. in the USA. Within the centralised procurement group, she worked to develop:
- A global cost reduction reporting system
- The implementation of an on-line electronic catalogue system
The management of a US$100M pipeline for electronic auctions - Leveraged buying processes and templates
Prior to moving to the USA, Tania was the Market Development Manager for the Alcoa Inc. & Kobe Steel joint venture, Kaal Australia. In this role, she was responsible for successfully increasing the rigid can sheet manufacturer's share of the Australian market.
Tania has an MBA and a Bachelor of Business.
Michael Kirk - Managing Director
Michael Kirk is the Managing Director of The Faculty and has experience in Procurement, Technology, Strategy and Logistics across a range of industries.
Michael is recognised as a trusted advisor to the commercial leaders of many of Australia’s leading companies. He is regularly featured as a conference speaker and frequently conducts public and tailored training courses.
With The Faculty since its inception, Michael has delivered many of The Faculty’s landmark projects including:-
- Designing and conducting The Faculty's procurement benchmarking study for over 25 large Australian organisations
- Developing and writing the Federal Government's Strategic Guide to E-Procurement to advise Government agencies on how best to implement E-Procurement
- Managing the implementation of an SAP SRM Source to Contract software across the operations of a large resources company
- Developing procurement and procure-to-pay strategies for leading Australian and international corporations
Michael joined The Faculty after an extensive career with BHP Billiton, the world’s largest resources company, including roles in Corporate, IT, and Transport and Logistics. He has an MBA from Melbourne Business School and an Honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Adelaide.
Robert Pease – Principal Consultant
Robert is a highly experienced procurement practitioner with extensive global experience having recently returned from several years based in Europe where he led the strategy, capability development and compliance function across the global procurement organisation of FMCG company, Cadbury Schweppes, influencing a spend of multiple billions.
Robert’s experience includes:
- The management of a wide range of spend categories in direct materials (packaging and ingredient commodities), strategic marketing spend, and indirect spend including, MRO, CapEx, and facilities management
- Program management of a multi-wave strategic sourcing program delivering benefits of multiple tens of millions of dollars
- The development and deployment of a ‘world class’ Supplier Relationship Management program across Cadbury’s global supply base
- Leadership of a multi wave pan-Asian eSourcing program
- Supply chain risk management including the development and implementation of quality management and ethical/environmental management programs
- Leadership of a global review of eSourcing technology providers including the negotiation and implementation of a partner agreement with a major ERP provider, and
- The development and delivery of a global people capability assessment program including the delivery of web based and experiential training interventions.
Robert has lived and worked in both Asia and Europe, has a Bachelor of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering from The University of Tasmania and a Masters Degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Georgette Chadraoui – Accounts and Office Manager
Georgette has extensive experience in business management specialising in financial control. Georgette has worked across a range of industries including automotive and FMCG and brings considerable knowledge to The Faculty in the areas of financial analysis, process re-engineering and facilities management. Georgette is currently completing a Diploma in Accounting.
Sheila Schaefer
Sheila was recruited from the USA as The Faculty's eSourcing specialist. She has sourced more $350 million dollars worth of spend with more than 50 electronic auction events.
Since joining The Faculty, she has worked on many client projects including:
- Structuring a services related buying strategy for an FMCG that resulted in $3 million dollar cost savings
- Designing contractor management, category management and supplier relationship management programs and frameworks across multiple industries
- Undertaking strategic purchasing planning to ensure yearly targets were reached
- Introducing sustainability corporate programs to the procurement process
Sheila was previously with Alcoa Inc where she was a commodity analyst and managed various sourcing projects in services such as human resources, maintenance, legal, construction, and telecommunications. She was also a team member of Alcoa's Oracle implementation.
Sheila is currently completing her MBA and has a Bachelor of Science in from the Pennsylvania State University.
Lisa Malone
Lisa is a procurement specialist who brings her considerable legal insight, particularly in the areas of contractual rights, opportunities, risks and obligations to her consultant role at The Faculty.
Lisa has experience in both the private and public sector in Commonwealth and Victorian government procurement environments. As a procurement specialist, Lisa has:
- been an advisor in the development of tender documentation, probity issues, legislative and purchasing policy requirements.
- developed and delivered a range of training initiatives on procurement guidelines and best practice, contract management and stakeholder engagement.
- conducted risk assessment analysis across a range of major government procurement projects.
Lisa has a Bachelor of Law and was recently accepted to study for her Masters in Strategic Affairs.
Sandy Carveth
As both a qualified human resources professional and an accomplished financial controller, Sandy Carveth's background allows her to take a truly holistic perspective to procurement.
During her time at The Faculty, Sandy has managed all the company's open-learning programs including Pathways to Procurement, Supplier Relationship Management and Strategic Cost Management Courses. She is responsible for The Faculty's Procurement Roundtable, which includes mentoring, workshops, research and CPO Forums for thirteen of Australia's leading companies including AXA, BP, Santos, Cadbury, Schweppes and Parmalat.
Sandy has also been responsible for developing The Faculty's balanced scorecard and internal people performance and development processes.
Prior to joining The Faculty, Sandy spent more than eight years working in a boutique financial services firm, where she was responsible for management of the organisation's accounting, development and implementation of HR procedures, as well as sales.
Sandy has a Bachelor of Arts (specialising in Psychology) from Monash University, is a member of the Australian Psychological Society, a Certified MBTI Practitioner and is currently completing her Masters in Human Resource Management.
