Chris Hayward

Experienced CEO who led NMBS for over 20 years, in which time it grew to be the largest buying group for Independent Building, Plumbing, Hardware & Timber Merchants in the UK, with an annual turnover more than £2bn, with over 1150 members and 4500 branches.

During his tenure as CEO of NMBS he focused on the strategic development of NMBS, which included the amalgamation with United Merchants in 2014 which effectively doubled the annual turnover, whilst simultaneously driving up returns to members, with the extra economies of scale falling straight to the bottom line.

In 2020 NMBS developed an online order portal, “Oneplace” for its members and suppliers and this was developed into a full B2B trading platform, enabling the full digitisation of transactions between members and suppliers, to rival the capabilities offered by Amazon and similar online marketplaces.

Most recently he was proud to have initiated the vision and setting set up of “DataYard” a joint venture between NMBS and the BMF to create an industry data pool for product data.

He was elected President of EURO-MAT, the leading European cooperation of independent builders’ merchants in 2015 and was president for over 8 years.

Chris continues as an Advisor to the industry, utilising his Strong knowledge on how buying groups work and how they can be developed to gain the maximum benefits for both members and suppliers, adding real value to everyone within the supply chain, by leveraging the importance of collaboration and working for a common goal. This has included setting up international dialogue and relationships with buying groups across the globe including the USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand, although predominantly across European countries.

“The Builders' Merchants Awards give formal recognition and reward for excellence and demonstrate how innovative and successful, the people and organisations are within the builders merchant industry”