history
Achilles was founded by Sturla Sand in Norway in 1990, when he launched a supplier pre-qualification service for the country’s oil and gas industry.
Since then, the company has grown into one of the world’s largest supplier management service providers, with customers from a diverse range of industry sectors. Its services too have grown to embrace evaluation, monitoring and risk management.
Following the successful start-up of the Norwegian and UK operations new Group companies were started in Ireland, Spain and Sweden (1997), Venezuela (1999), Argentina (2000), and Portugal (2003). Our most recent geographical units are Hong Kong, Germany, Denmark, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Italy, Australia, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia; giving Achilles a truly global presence (2011).
Achilles today
Today, the company employs around 670 people in 23 countries, offering truly global professional procurement services, with local expertise. We have 32 established supplier management schemes, serving more than 750 of the world’s largest companies and over 77,000 registered suppliers.
We work in partnership not only with buyers and suppliers, but also with other organisations which offer expertise that is complementary to our own.
In June 2008, HgCapital, the European sector-focused private equity investor, invested in Achilles Group Limited and in July 2011, appointed Adrian Chamberlain as its new CEO with Colin Maund as the Chairman.