# David Kershaw

David Kershaw works on public-sector procurement, with a focus on how organisations buy and contract for AI. His posts discuss procurement risks, contract management, and helping smaller technology suppliers navigate public-sector purchasing.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/david-kershaw/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkershaw1
- LinkedIn followers: 13,269
- Topics: artificial-intelligence, ai-governance
- Based on 15 dated posts, latest 2026-09-28

## Summary

David Kershaw is most useful for talks and workshops on AI procurement, contracting risk, and public-sector buying.

- Best for: A public-sector procurement consultancy seeking a keynote and workshop on AI procurement and contracting risk.
- Not for: Campaigns needing proven large senior public-sector buying audiences or passive keynote-only events.
- Check first: Ask for recent results from comparable AI procurement sessions and audience survey data.

### Takeaways

- AI procurement runs from market to contract closure, with the back end neglected.
- AI governance principles count when they become procurement standards, clauses, and market intelligence.
- Public procurement shuts smaller innovators out; demystifying it is part of the job.

## Main ideas

- **AI procurement runs from market to contract closure, and the back end is the neglected part**: Kershaw defines AI procurement as five connected stages: markets, competition, contracting, contract management and contract closure. They argue that AI sourcing gets attention while the risks that arrive after signature — managing the contract and closing it out — are treated as an afterthought, leaving the industry unprepared.
- **AI governance principles only count once they become procurement standards, clauses and market intelligence**: Kershaw argues that international AI governance, ethics and regulation need to translate into practical, safe and trusted AI procurement standards. That means both buying AI and using AI in commercial, procurement and contract management work. Safety-by-design and inclusivity, they argue, must be written into what organisations source, not left at the level of principles.
- **Procurement should be in the room when AI policy is written**: Kershaw treats procurement's absence from global AI events as a structural problem, not a personal complaint. When the people who buy and manage the technology are missing, implementation bottlenecks persist and policy stays disconnected from delivery.
- **Public procurement shuts smaller innovators out, and demystifying it is part of the job**: Kershaw argues that small firms and first-time public-sector suppliers struggle to navigate public purchasing, so good technology never gets bought. They frame helping supply markets understand public procurement as a commercial skill, not a favour, and ask how smaller innovators can face complex guardrails without having their innovation crushed.
- **Social value, equity and sustainability belong in the buying decision**: Kershaw links AI procurement to social value and inclusion, arguing that conversations about equity and sustainability should be central rather than peripheral. Procurement choices, they say, shape who gets access to technology and who is locked out.
- **Participant-driven rooms and a standing community beat set-piece presentations**: Kershaw promotes unconferences and an ongoing community over conventional conference formats, arguing that participants who arrive with real problems produce more useful answers than fixed presentations. The 2026 events focus on the questions they work on: how to procure AI, which contract terms matter, vendor hype, agile contracting, risk management and exit strategies.
- **Compliance is a floor, not the ceiling for commercial work**: The recruitment call sets out Kershaw's view of what commercial and procurement professionals should do: treat traditional compliance as a starting point, use digital tools and AI to get more value from vendors, help suppliers understand public purchasing, leave a measurable legacy for future generations, and keep learning. They frame public money as something to invest rather than spend.

## Work to read

- [UN AI for Good Summit, Day 2: procurement is the missing voice in the AI conversation](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidkershaw1_day-2-at-the-united-nations-ai-for-good-summit-activity-7480705842057654272-qYne)
- [UN AI for Good Summit, Day 4: fragmentation and the learning gap in AI procurement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidkershaw1_day-4-of-the-united-nations-international-activity-7481366517301948416-xKIG)
- [AI Procurement and Contracting Unconferences 2026 in London and Cardiff](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidkershaw1_aiprocurement-aicontracting-techprocurement-activity-7500499955481034753-EdYo)
- [CIPS webinar: artificial intelligence risks in procurement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidkershaw1_artificial-intelligence-risks-and-key-considerations-activity-7505197020735856640-iKwd)
- [Recruitment call: what Kershaw looks for in commercial and procurement people](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidkershaw1_we-need-amazing-people-commercial-ai-activity-7505276511650770944-Z_dr)

## Brand relationships

- **Posterity Global** (disclosed_partnership)
- **CIPS — The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply** (disclosed_partnership)

## Partnerships

The posts show partnership activity around Posterity Global’s AI procurement work: the 2026 AI Procurement & Contracting Unconferences in London and Cardiff, where sponsors are wanted; a joint CIPS webinar on AI procurement risk; and the AI Procurement Community of Interest, which invites people to join and collaborate. Ask the organiser directly for partnership terms; no package or tiers are published.

## Alternatives

- Nicole Tripputi: Choose Nicole Tripputi when the room’s real problem is not AI risk in the abstract but how to choose and run a specific procurement route. Two posts offer a former contracting officer’s view of program funding pathways and direct awards. The first explains how technology maturity, an existing relationship with someone who holds budget, the budget-cycle timeline and the end user’s procurement authority should shape the choice of funding mechanism. It argues that a slightly less favourable mechanism with a strong internal champion usually beats a perfect mechanism with no relationships inside the building. The second argues that on an SBIR Phase III direct award, the contracting officer can speak with the company before award without creating a conflict of interest, because there is no competition to taint. It adds that putting up a wall between the office and the company can slow the award and make the requirement worse. For a session on route selection and the practical behaviour of contracting officers, this is closer to the work than a lifecycle-and-risk keynote.
- Dr Steve Hodgkinson: Dr Steve Hodgkinson is the stronger alternative for an executive audience — CIOs, CDOs and boards — asking whether the organisation is fit enough to absorb AI at all. The posts argue that leaders under pressure to show AI results should build digital fitness first: modern, secure, scalable platforms; disciplined data strategy and governance; in-house engineering and delivery experience; high-cadence ways of working; long-term vendor partnerships; and executive confidence earned through performance. The comparison is explicit: you cannot buy digital fitness by signing a contract or subscribing to an AI agent, any more than you can buy physical fitness by buying a rowing machine. Organisations that lack it will spend heavily on pilots that never scale. A second post reports from the 2026 Vested conference in Amsterdam and sets out relational contracting: formal governance written into the contract so a win-win outsourcing relationship survives changing circumstances. For a session urging senior leaders to invest before buying, or to overhaul a long-running outsourcing deal, this framing does more work than a contract-clauses session.
- William Stephens: William Stephens fits when the need is to build and recognise government technology talent rather than buy technology. The posts cover the Foreign Affairs Information Technology (FAIT) Fellowship — a US Department of State-funded two-year route into the Foreign Service with academic funding, internships, professional development, mentorship and a direct pathway into diplomatic technology roles — and the recognition of a Diplomatic Technology expert at Foreign Affairs Day 2025. The second post quotes the awardee’s argument that the whole Foreign Service must speak the digital language, alongside senior officials’ message that the Department has to evolve internally and externally to meet global challenges. For a session on recruiting, developing and retaining public-sector digital and cybersecurity staff, or making a government technology career attractive, this is the closer match.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/