Public procurement mentoring in Finland

In 2020, Finland launched its first national public procurement strategy, with a vision that Finland will be a European leader in public procurement sector. The implementation of this strategy is done via eight theme groups (strategic leadership, competence, knowledge management and impact, well-functioning procurement, innovations, economic sustainability, social sustainability, and ecological sustainability) involving hundreds of public procurement stakeholders. As part of the procurement competence theme group’s work, a public procurement mentoring program was designed and implemented in 2022-2023. The purpose of this session is to illustrate how mentoring can be used as a tool for professionalizing the procurement capabilities in a purchasing and supply organisation.