Original article published on Linkedin by Dustin Lanier, CPPO
In a Procurement Leader Spotlight, we had a great 10-minute discussion with Aubrey Leigh Goodwin, a Deputy Executive Director with the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration. The full audio is available in the podcast, here’s her response to my invitation to her to introduce herself:
"Thank you, my name is Aubrey Leigh Goodwin – I do go by Aubrey Leigh, a good Southern double name - I work for the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration, which is a catch-all support agency for government.
We do everything from pick up the trash to fly the Governor’s airplanes. That’s generally my elevator speech for DFA. We do all kinds of support functions and one of those is procurement oversight.
I started out in procurement about 13 years ago. I was assigned here as one of DFA’s Special Assistant Attorney Generals - so the procurement shop was my client. I tell everybody they taught me everything I know about procurement – they really invested in me, which I’m eternally grateful for, I wouldn’t be here if not for that.
In 2016 I became Chief Procurement Officer which was an amazing experience. I really thought I'd be there forever, but the Legislature had other plans, so I moved into this role in 2017. I moved into this role (A Deputy Executive Director of DFA) in 2017
In my current role I do basically all things procurement at DFA. That includes everything that we contract for as an agency, the Office of Procurement and Contracts is on my team, then I have Ross Campbell, the Chief Procurement Officer’s team as part of my shop, and I have another office similar to his that does Personal and Professional Services, so we are just Team Procurement."
Other questions we talk through in the full recording include:
Check out the full interview in the podcast link.