Your CIPS and Procurement Apprenticeships Team, here for you through your study, and beyond.
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!
At ABA, We aren’t going to suffocate you under meaningless tag lines about student experience, send you meaningless marketing, give you weird AI teachers, or shoehorn everyone into whichever course we need to fill the numbers on right now. We’re real people, always on the other end of a phone when you need us, and 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 create learning that is actually interesting and relevent to our students.
That’s the reason we always have a pass rate far above the CIPS average. That’s why our students consistently give us glowing feedback. That’s why so many companies come back to us again and again.
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.
ABA Directors, all based in our Norwich Office
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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: learning techniques, essay writing, study help, or recommendations for a new book to read.
Lu Fact: she’s currently studying for MA in Creative Writing Crime Fiction!
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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.
Evie Fact: Evie can, and almost certainly will, eaten cheese at every single meal.
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Beth - Curriculum Director
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.
Beth Fact: she can crochet pretty much anything in the world. It’s like a superpower.
CIPS and Procurement Apprenticeship Tutors
We 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.
Here’s just a few of the great members of our team.
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Martin Higginson
Martin has taught Procurement and Business Skills for over a decade, 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
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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.
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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).
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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 phone for streaming!
The Origin Story
If you’ve read this far, it’s probably because you’re wondering how the three of us wound up here, and now.
ABA Procurement opened in Norwich, Norfolk back in 2012 when another CIPS centre closed part way through the year and left some students stranded. Beth began her own CIPS study with ABA in 2014, Lu began working for ABA in 2016, and Evie joined a year later.
Meet ABA’s not so secret 4th owner, Eko. She tries to help out, but is more of a free-floating agent of chaos.
In 2020 Lu and Evie took over as owners and directors, and Beth began working with us as a CIPS tutor. Then in 2023 Beth joined as the third owner of our company, meaning we were able to make the leap to becoming an apprenticeship provider, consultancy, and CPD short course provider.
ABA Procurement began life as Anglia Business Academy and our Anglian roots run deep. We’re still based in Norwich, Norfolk and have been fortunate enough to build a huge network of local companies whom we work with and support. We stay local with our in person scheduled courses, meaning our local network and knowledge is something all of our students can benefit from.
Thanks to a level of demand for courses that are flexible, interesting, and engaging we’ve expanded our online courses to be accessible to students across the world! There’s actually 8,674 miles between our two furthest reaching students and they both have access to all of our resources, great tutors, and unlimited office support.
We’re a fixture in Norwich and love to meet new students here at home, but we’re excited to expand, enjoy arranging our in-company courses across the world, and will always keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
There’s still a million things we haven’t done, but just you wait.
Our Norwich Home. It really is a fine city!
The ABA Team, ready to take on the world (or possibly take a nap).
Get in touch to join us!
We’ve got a great team who will support you in whatever you need, so come and join us!