Sandra is a recognised voice in advocating for the VCSE sector to be placed at the heart of social value system intelligence, influencing the national dialogue at the Social Value Taskforce and contributing to Minister Gould’s Cabinet Office expert procurement roundtable on innovation.
Working alongside Stone King Partner and public benefit lawyer Julian Blake, Sandra’s innovative work is expanding the firm’s service offering into public sector transformation. By distinguishing market purchasing from the system stewardship needed to co-design and deliver 21st century public services, Stone King is supporting contracting authorities to develop more collaborative pathways that involve moving from procurement to partnership. With a professional background in publishing and management consulting, Sandra, who is both a UK and Canadian national, draws on over 30 years’ experience providing strategic advisory services.
In Vancouver, her work as Publisher of BC Woman Magazine led to an opportunity to manage the business interests of Canadian World Champion and four-time Olympic rower Silken Laumann, who was transitioning from sport into business and was very involved in charitable work. Over time, Sandra’s business expanded, providing professional services to other retiring Olympians and to public benefit organisations working to improve lives and drive social innovation.
In 2003, her work led to an invitation to work on the bid to bring the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games to Canada, where Sandra’s social value journey began. With a focus on people and the social aspect of sustainability, the Vancouver Games were the first Olympics in history to advance a sustainability strategy. This is where Sandra first encountered the power of procurement to change lives.
Sandra said: “I witnessed an Olympic flower contract transform the lives of women escaping domestic violence, and I couldn’t unsee the potential for good.”
At the end of the games, Sandra was appointed Business Manager to John Furlong, CEO of the Vancouver Olympics, and together they crossed Canada sharing the stories and legacy of the 2010 Olympics. During this time, Sandra began asking politicians and senior civil servants why governments weren’t also leveraging procurement to improve social outcomes, only to be told that international trade agreements prevented governments from evaluating non-commercial criteria. It wasn’t until 2012, that the original text of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement (1994) was revised. Effective 2013, the evaluation of non-commercial criteria in government procurement was once again permitted, paving the way to advance the UK Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012.
Inspired by the original ‘Art of The Possible in Public Procurement’, an influential publication co-authored in 2016 by Julian Blake, and having graduated as Canada's first Social MBA, Sandra spoke extensively at conferences and went on to design Canada's first municipal Social Procurement policies and frameworks. Demonstration projects followed, as Sandra focused on supporting contracting authorities seeking to leverage procurement to improve social outcomes for people and shape places. In 2017, The Canadian Government invited Sandra to showcase her transformative work at the WTO in Geneva. At this, the first international WTO Symposium on Sustainable Public Procurement, Sandra presented on the importance of people in a people, planet, profit approach to sustainability.
In 2019, Sandra was offered an academic scholarship inviting her to return to the UK to continue her work at The University of Manchester Institute of Innovation Research. Here, she researched the public management response to mandatory Social Value Procurement policies. Her ground-breaking research paper ‘Public Procurement: Price-Taker or Market-Shaper’ won the 2023 Emerald Literati Award for outstanding contribution to the field.
At Stone King, Sandra will be leading on projects that demonstrate the art of the possible in collaborative commissioning.
Stone King is a national law firm with offices in Cambridge, Bath, Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester. It specialises in the sectors of Business & Social Enterprise, Charity, Education, Faith, Private Client, and Public & Regulatory law. The firm is consistently top-ranked by independent legal guides Chambers and the Legal 500, and has been named a Best Law Firm for 2025 by The Times.
