Trish Robinson

With 20 years of global procurement and strategic sourcing experience under her belt, including with Fortune 100 companies like American Express, Target, Accenture and Best Buy, Trish Robinson's true love is procurement.

So, when she was given the opportunity to join Hagerty and build a department from the ground up, she jumped at the chance.

Now responsible for all facets of category strategy, cost savings, procurement transformation and leadership coaching, Trish is at the forefront of procurement innovation – pushing the function to the forefront of the business.

"The true beauty of working in procurement is that there is never one day the same as the next – you just can't get bored,” Trish enthuses.

"I've worked for Fortune 100s within their procurement, strategic sourcing and vendor management organisations my entire career and loved every second of it.

"Each of those companies taught me something valuable that I was able to take to the next role as my career continued to advance – whether that be negotiation tactics, contract writing, building and conducting sourcing events, auctions, building strategies, processes and policies, people leadership and executive presence.  You take away key learnings from great leaders and mentors, and also from the not-so-great ones.”

"I love this field."

Joining American Express in 1998 was the beginning of a 26-year (and counting) love affair with the industry. 

Trish’s career has seen her work across various roles and gain vital experience in global procurement and strategic sourcing. Seeking an opportunity to lead and build a procurement organisation from the ground up is what ultimately took her to Hagerty.

Of course, this meant arriving with no team and no procurement processes or policies in place – just a “great CFO as my leader providing me the space and trust to do what he brought me here to do."

Fast forward to today and Trish is leading what she calls a brilliant team of five FTEs: Michelle Payne, Senior Sourcing Manager; Brendan Doyle, Sourcing Manager; Chris McKeever, Sourcing Manager; Lynn Doherty, Procurement Specialist; and Shawn Burnside, Senior Travel Specialist, with another FTE due to start in early 2025.

But building this team isn’t all she has achieved since joining Hagerty. Trish has been at the heart of some huge transformations, such as creating and implementing an enterprise-wide strategic sourcing and contract negotiations process that must be followed under the company's Delegation of Authority Policy.

She and her team have created a procurement intranet site that explains the function’s purpose and goals, as well as providing general guidance, tips and tricks for the organisation to use in their sourcing and contract planning.

In January of 2024, Trish took over Travel Services as part of her Procurement organisation. Responsible for the corporate travel booking site and third-party service provider, tracking and monitoring of all Hagerty travel and spend. She also looks after the Travel Policy for Hagerty.

In September 2023, Trish's title was expanded to include Third-Party Risk Management leader for Hagerty.

As of today, Trish is now making sure that the third-party risk management programme stands up, this includes policy, procedures, developing tier ranking criteria and assigning ranking to active vendors, issuing critical vendor assessments and tracking results, forms, contracts, team development, corporate training and communications. 

"Given my experience throughout my career working with third-party risk and ensuring critical vendors are tracked and have contracts in place that meet regulatory and ISO standards, I was more than happy to take on this critical role for Hagerty and ensure its success," Trish says.

Read the full story HERE.

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