When I was approached by Clifford and Jim Ilkay, the organizers of Modern Procurement 2009, to be the Conference Chairman, I was non-committal at first because I did not know if their vision of what constituted a good conference was the same as mine.

Within the first 10 minutes, I knew that we were on the same wavelength. I was quite impressed by how Clifford and Jim were determined to bring the same winning formula that they had used in conferences targeting the IT sector to the public procurement sector.

It is with pleasure that I invite you to participate in Modern Procurement 2009, a conference wholly dedicated to those concerned with public procurement.

The conference curriculum will cover a wide range of topics of relevance both to public sector purchasing professionals and to the suppliers to municipal, provincial, and federal governments, schools, community colleges, and universities, hospitals, and all other publicly funded institutions.