Meet ABA
ABA is entirely owned and operated by Lu, Evie, and Beth with the support of our fantastic tutors.
If you’ve come to this page, it’s because you want to know what makes ABA different, right? The answer is us!
We aren’t going to suffocate you under meaningless tag lines about student experience, or shoehorn everyone into whichever course we need to fill the numbers on right now, we work around what’s best for you.
The three of us have been working together for years, but we’re also friends who sit together on the sofa drinking wine, failing to crochet, and coming up with great new ideas to make learning that is actually interesting and relevent to our students.
If you want a course that runs the same way it did ten years ago, ABA probably isn’t for you. But if you want to study with a company that is always working on new things for students, cares about each of them, and does things a little differently, then we’ve got you.
Lu
Director of Education
Lu’s focus is on the student experience, so she spends her time creating new learning resources, and designing our materials and new exam preparation methods.
Lu is your go to for: questions about learning techniques, essay writing, study help, or recommendations for a new book to read.
Evie
Director of Operations
Evie’s makes sure that the ABA runs the way it’s supposed to. She takes care of timetabling classes, managing finances, and keeping day to day operations working.
Evie is your go to for: Corporate enquiries, finance, distance learning, and when Lu or Beth mess something up.
Beth
Director of Curriculm
Beth takes care of all things teaching, from creating new procurement information content, to managing tutors, to running our bespoke short courses and consultancy.
Beth is your go to for: procurement questions, CPD short courses, consultancy, or obscure information about Taylor Swift.
ABA Tutors
We are fortunate to have an amazing group of tutors who all share ABA’s aim to provide courses aimed at what the students actually want to be learning.
So there’s plenty of chatting, lots of real world experience, and constant updating of courses based on student and employer ideas.
Meet just a few of the great members of our team below.
Martin Higginson
Martin has taught Procurement and Business Skills for over ten years, and coming from an education background specialises in guiding students through the course and applying new learning techniques.
Martin Facts: He’s a keen skiier, a licences sommilier, and was Evie’s georgraphy teacher back in 2005!
Paula Jarvis
Paula is a graduate of ABA’s first ever year of operation. With over a decade of experience, she specialises in public sector procurement and introducting students to the area.
Paula Facts: Paula is a keen runner, and always has the best hair of any of our tutors.
Jim Goodhead
Jim is a chartered engineer as well as a Fellow of CIPS, and has worked in just about every procurement role there is. It’s very rare to have a cohort of students without at least one working in a company Jim has first had experience of!
Jim Facts: Jim studies karate (although he assures us he doesn’t use it to keep students in line).
Alan Oxenbury
Alan is our contract and risk management specialist, teaching levels 5 and 6. Alan is our longest serving tutor, with extensive industry experience and some of the best anecdotes.
Alan Fact: Alan still owns every incarnation of music player from wind up gramophone to a CD player (don’t ask him about streaming though).