Its role is to represent the interests of the global membership and act as the ‘conscience’ of CIPS by influencing and guiding the Global Board of Trustees and holding the Board accountable against our Charter and charitable objectives, values and ethos.

Congress members form a communication channel between the members they represent and the leadership of the Institute. Congress is also the constitutional mechanism for electing 50% of the members of the Global Board of Trustees.

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FInd out more about CIPS Governance

Composition
Congress will have a maximum of 62 seats directly elected by the membership, plus a Chairman elected by Congress members from among the members of the Global Board of Trustees.  Seat allocation is based on 6 geographical regions:

• UK (sub-divided into 4 local regions: Three Nations, North of England, Central England, South of England)
• Africa
• Australasia
• Asia
• Europe/Middle East
• Americas

The number of seats per region is proportionate to the number of qualified members in each region. In addition, one student seat has been allocated to each region.

Operation
Congress will typically meet twice in each financial year, normally in November and March. The March meeting will be a two-day event, combined with the Institute’s AGM, and will feed into the Institute’s strategy planning cycle.

Elections
Membership of Congress will be by open election and the ballot is conducted online. Candidates must be resident in the region they want to represent and students must meet additional eligibility criteria to enable full participation.

The term of office is three years and elections will be held each year to replace one third of the membership in a balanced sequence. 

1 February 2015 to 31 October 2016

Congress Chair – Nikki Bell FCIPS, BA (Hons)

Nikki Bell, Head of Commercial Policy & Project Assurance, Scottish Government
Nikki has worked in a number of private and public sector senior procurement and programme management roles since graduating in 1990 with a BA (Hons) in Business Economics and Marketing. With IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Agilent she gained extensive experience in leading national and international procurement and system transformation programmes. Since joining the Scottish Government in 2005 she has played a key role in driving and enabling public procurement reform in Scotland, with a particular focus on building Scottish Government’s Procurement, Commercial and Project Delivery skills. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply, Nikki sits on CIPS Global Board of Trustees; is Chair of CIPS Global Congress; and is a Member of the Institute of Directors. With specific interests in developing the capability of individuals, organisations, supply chains and our Procurement People of Tomorrow, she is a Member the Glasgow Caledonian University ‘School for Business and Society’ Advisory Group; Chair of the Scottish Professional Practice and Development Strategic Forum; and is an active contributor to the development and implementation of Scottish Government’s People Strategy.