Art of Procurement

Today I am joined on the show by Charlotte de Brabandt.  As you will hear in the show, Charlotte was recently honored by ISM, as part of their 30 Under 30 Awards program, as the Megawatt winner, and for good reason! In her day job, Charlotte leads Energy Procurement for Johnson & Johnson.  But that only tells half the story!  Charlotte is also a prolific public speaker, TEDx organizer, charity wor...

Today I am joined on the show by Shawn Burton.  Shawn is General Counsel of Business & General Aviation and Integrated Systems at GE. Shawn was connected to me via a former AOP guest Nick Seiersen and has recently published an article in Harvard Business Review on the virtues of plain language contracting. While we did discuss plain language contracting, and the change and disruption underway in t...

This week on the show, the tables are turned! AOP alumni and Negotiations Ninja host Mark Raffan just interviewed me for an episode of his podcast on the topic of procurement cost savings. I enjoyed the conversation with Mark, and so we decided to simultaneously publish both on Art of Procurement and Negotiations Ninja. In our conversation, Mark dug into that omnipresent procurement metric of cost...

I spent a couple of days on the road last week at the Coupa Inspire 2018 conference in San Francisco.  Inspire is an event I always try and make – to get insights into Coupa's latest offerings, to catch up with peers, friends and clients, and to be inspired by fantastic keynote speakers which this year included Alison Levine and Arnold Schwarzenegger. While on site, I had the opportunity to sit do...

Over the course of the last 15 years, Tom Beaty has grown Insight Sourcing Group (ISG) from a one-man operation to one of the leading procurement and sourcing consulting firms. Ranked by Inc Magazine among the fastest-growing private companies in America for the last 10 years, ISG is regularly recognized as one of the nation's best boutique consulting firms to work for. In today's episode, recorde...

My guest on the show today is Brian Bancroft. This is Brian's second appearance on the show. We originally sat down back in episode 126, and I enjoyed the conversation so much that I have been eager to find an opportunity for us to record another pod. Brian has a wealth of experience across, and outside of the procurement function, and has enjoyed roles including as Senior Director for Indirect Pr...

Digitization is a hot topic in procurement today, and while it will undoubtedly have a big impact on the future of our profession, it is often difficult to separate the hype from the reality.  There are few organizations better positioned to help me explore this topic than HfS Research – a company I have followed for a long time – and their Chief Strategy Officer, Saurabh Gupta. In today's episode...

I have long admired Vodafone as being a pioneer in both embracing and supporting supplier enabled innovation and last year Vodafone partnered with the government of Luxembourg to launch what I believe is an innovative approach to working with smaller, growing, companies that they named Tomorrow Street. I wanted to learn more about Vodafone's approach, and so I invited Warrick Cramer, the CEO of To...

Today's show comes to you straight from the SIG Spring Summit last week in Washington DC, and features Danny Ertel, the founding partner at Vantage Partners. Danny's practice focuses on helping buyers and providers of services enter into, manage, and when necessary, remediate their relationships. Danny is a lawyer by training, and prior to founding Vantage Partners, he served in a number of high p...

My guest on the show today is Walt Charles, the Chief Procurement Officer at Biogen. Walt will be well known to a number of listeners – he is a long time CPO with such illustrious companies as Johnson & Johnson's Consumer Division, Kellogg's, Kraft Foods, and now at Biogen. As you will hear in the interview, Walt is very passionate about the potential power of procurement, but also believes that s...

Back in September 2016, Kelly Barner and I opened the mic for 40 revolutionaries to share their thoughts on the future of procurement as part of The Procurement Revolution event. One of the conversations that we enjoyed the most was with Jack Miles, the former CPO of CIBC, AIG, Computer Associates and the Secretary of State for the Florida Department of Management Services. Our topic of conversati...

I was delighted to welcome onto the show this week Jocelyn Stahl, the Director of Indirect Sourcing for The Hershey Company.  The Hershey Company are on an ongoing transformation journey to build an Indirect Procurement organization that embodies the ideals of being a catalyst. In our conversation, recorded live at ProcureCon, I ask Jocelyn to share the work that she and her team are doing to crea...

In the episode this week, I want to talk a little bit about the idea of stepping back and challenging things that we do every day, or the things that have become "generally accepted procurement thinking". I won't be seeking to suggest we are doing things wrong, or that things need to be fixed. No, my intent is to help us all, collectively, get our creative juices flowing!  I kick things off by cha...

I'm joined today by Jeanette Nyden.  Jeanette is a well renowned contracts and negotiations specialist, who approaches her work with a focus on building win-win, sustainable, agreements. In fact, Jeanette was a co-author with Kate Vitasek and David Frydlinger of Getting to We: Negotiating Agreements for Highly Collaborative Relationships. Today's podcast is the first of a two-part series that I am...

This week, I am joined by negotiation ninja Mark Raffan. Mark leads a negotiations training business – both for buyers and sales professionals – and recently launched his own podcast – Negotiations Ninja – which I highly recommend that you check out. We had a wide-ranging discussion on all things negotiation -  from negotiation strategies and approaches, to the common pitfalls that negotiators fac...

My guest is Joseph Richardson.  Joseph is the President and CEO of Professional Purchasing Partners which he founded in 2014, after a long spell as a practitioner.  Joseph's most recent buy-side roll was as a Head of Indirect Procurement in the Oil and Gas industry. In our discussion, we touch on a wide range of topics, from the evolution of procurement to value beyond savings, and much more. One...

My guest on the Art of Procurement this week is my friend Johan-Peter, or JP, Teppala.  JP is the CEO of the US operations of Sievo, a Finland-based procurement analytics company, encompassing spend analysis, spend forecasting, savings management and contract management. The core of our conversation today focuses on how procurement can be the driver of what JP termed "radical transparency" through...

Hitting publish on the show is a culmination of a lot of thinking and reflection as I look to continue the evolution of Art of Procurement. I reflect on where we have come from, but more importantly look to the future and the building blocks of what my team and I have termed Art of Procurement 3.0. In today's episode, I start by sharing the importance of finding your Why, and the process that I we...

How can we work collaboratively with our suppliers to manage and mitigate risk?  That is the question I put to today's guests on the Art of Procurement, Margaret Gilbert and Anthony English. Margaret is the Director of Corporate Contracts Management, where she works with buyers and suppliers in all areas of procurement and contracting. Anthony has enjoyed a long career as an IT consultant working...

Tania Seary is passionate about raising the profile of procurement, and is a master connector, and networker.  She is the Founding Chairman of Procurious, The Faculty and The Source, and in 2016 was named "Influencer of the Year" by Supply Chain Dive magazine. I was delighted to invite Tania back onto the show for what is now her third appearance.  I wanted to dig deeper into her success as a netw...

I was inspired to cover today's topic based on a question from a listener who has resolved to make a career move in 2018… I know from personal experience that at this time of year, we are often making decisions on our career strategies for the year ahead.  When I made the decision to pursue setting up my own business, I made the decision over the holiday period, and I'm sure many listeners may hav...

My guest today is Chandar Pattabhiram, the new Chief Marketing Officer at Coupa. We sat down and recorded this podcast during the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, which explains all of the interesting background noises you may hear. I took that opportunity to get his fresh perspective on how procurement can elevate its role in the organization.

My guest today is Lawrence Kane, a Fortune 50 strategic sourcing and functional excellence lead. Lawrence and I sat down to talk at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, where our conversation focused on what he has learned during his three-decade career.

Hi there everyone, and welcome to this week's Art of Procurement interview, which is powered by SIG. My guest today is Kate Vitasek, a member of the graduate faculty in executive education at the University of Tennessee, and the creator of the Vested model. Kate and I have recorded several podcasts together, but in this case we connected in person at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California. We...

Hi there everyone, and welcome to this week's Art of Procurement interview, which is powered by SIG. My guest today is Chris Camejo, the Director of Product Management and Threat Intelligence at NTT Security - probably the scariest sounding title I've ever had here on Art of Procurement. Chris and I connected in person at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, where we had an opportunity to...