Matt Buckley

Why I founded Caventis

I founded Caventis to bring the discipline of large-corporate procurement and cost reduction to global businesses. They need senior operators who have delivered before, who understand commercial pressure, and who are prepared to be measured on outcomes rather than activity.

My background

Over the last 16 years I have led procurement, supply chain and cost transformation work at bp and General Motors, across the UK, Australia, America, Asia, and the Middle East. My roles have spanned strategic sourcing, indirect category management and capital-project procurement on major EPC/EPCM programmes: the kind of environments where sourcing decisions carry real balance-sheet consequences and where governance has to hold up to serious internal and external scrutiny.

Academically, I hold an Executive MBA, two PG Diplomas in Senior Leadership and Finance, a Bachelor of Business in Supply Chain Management and MCIPS.

The services I deliver

Caventis offers five services. Each one is built on work I led during 16 years at bp and General Motors.

• Cost reduction. Spend reviews, retendering and renegotiation of the contracts that cost too much. Cost transformation programmes were a central part of my corporate roles.
• Product sourcing. New suppliers in the UK, China, India, Vietnam, Turkey and Eastern Europe, compared on landed cost. I have sourced across Asia, Europe, America and the Middle East.
• Services offshoring. Independent advice on which processes can move, to which location and provider, drawing on global outsourcing initiatives I have directed.
• Sustainable supply chains. Supplier emissions data, carbon reduction plans and Modern Slavery statements, drawing on my past role as Supply Chain Taskforce Director at the Sustainable Markets Initiative, during a bp CEO Office secondment.
• Interim procurement leadership. A senior procurement director for a sale, an acquisition or a cost programme, including building procurement functions from the ground up.

How this experience helps global businesses

Procurement and cost work is only useful when it moves the P&L and the cash line. My experience across bp and General Motors was built in environments where every pound of committed spend was scrutinised, where supplier decisions had multi-year consequences, and where operational performance mattered as much as the paper savings. That is precisely the lens PE sponsors and company boards need: commercial rigour, credible supplier engagement, and an ability to see a plan through to realised savings rather than a signed contract.

The international dimension matters too. Operating across the UK, Australia, America, Asia, and the Middle East means I have worked with suppliers, tax regimes, logistics networks and cultural norms that most in-house teams never see in-house. For businesses considering offshoring, nearshoring, or supply-chain diversification, that lived experience shortens the learning curve considerably.

Capital-project procurement on EPC/EPCM programmes has shaped how I approach governance. On those programmes there is no room for loose commercial hygiene: contracts, change control, claims management and supplier performance all have to be tight. I bring the same standard to engagements, with work shaped around each client’s goals.

How I work with clients

Every engagement is different, so I do not work to a standard rate card. We start with what you want to achieve, then agree the scope and the commercial terms together before work starts. Progress is reviewed against the outcomes we agree.