The National Armaments Director Group has appointed Jim Carter as its permanent Director General for Commercial and Industry after an external competition, the organisation stated.
Carter has been serving in the role on an interim basis. According to the release, he previously led commercial activity at the Submarine Delivery Agency from 2020 and held senior positions at the Cabinet Office, Network Rail and Cable and Wireless.
His appointment comes as the NAD Group moves ahead with the Strategic Defence Review and Defence Reform, which it describes as the most significant changes to defence in more than fifty years.
In the post, Carter will lead the Defence Industrial Strategy and oversee the transformation of the group’s commercial and industry work. The organisation says this includes strengthening collaboration with industry, reducing contracting timelines and improving the pace of development. He will oversee a team of more than 2,500 personnel. The release highlights his role as Champion for Small and Medium Enterprises, which is intended to widen access for smaller suppliers across the defence sector.
National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce said “Jim’s appointment is excellent news. His deep commercial expertise and proven leadership will be invaluable as we implement the Defence Industrial Strategy and drive the transformation needed to for our Armed Forces to have the capabilities they need.”
Carter said “it’s an exciting time to be leading our commercial experts as we forge strategic partnerships with industry” and added that he looks forward to establishing what he described as a new relationship with suppliers.
The NAD Group brings together roughly 27,000 personnel across capability design, development and delivery.
Another insider. Not a real industry captain who could come in and sort out the mess of procurement. These people go from one civil service job to the next. Nothing will change.
Cable & Wireless were a private company. depends when he worked there
Headhunters were desperately looking for atone to put foward for this job.
My suspicion is that he got the job due to an absence of better candidates.