Claire Methven O'Brien is Procurement Leader of the Year

We are very proud to announce that Claire Methven O’Brien has been named Leader of the Year by The National Procurement & Supply Chain Awards in Ireland.

Claire is Strategic Adviser at the Human Rights and Business programme of The Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), and a human rights advocate, expert and innovator, who has specialised in the area of business and human rights for more than 15 years.

In the area of procurement and supply chain management, Claire has collaborated on technical advisory, outreach and capacity building on human rights with procurement bodies, international organisations and a range of large companies, including Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard and Total.

She is also Co-Founder of the International Learning Lab on Public Procurement and Human Rights. The Learning Lab is a global network and learning platform that aims to generate knowledge, tools and guidance, and build capacity of local and national procurement agencies to integrate human rights into public purchasing.

Through its activities, the Learning Lab has succeeded in getting public procurement and human rights onto agenda at the UN, EU and World Bank, amongst others. The Lab is also fostering the development of practitioner communities to demonstrate and define best practices and innovation in integrating human rights into procurement in areas such as electronics, apparel and security services.

In Ireland, in 2013, Claire worked closely with the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to support their own programme of work on public procurement, and over recent years, she has provided expert input to the development of Ireland’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights and the invitation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She has also worked with the Irish Equality and Human Rights Commission and Irish Aid to support the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone to launch work on business and human rights.

Claire holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute in Florence, a BA from the University of Cambridge, and an LLM from the London School of Economics. She has been called to the London Bar.