Ardent Partners’ CPO Rising 2018 Summit was held on November 7 and 8 at the historic Harvard Club of Boston in the city’s posh Back Bay district. And while the event is over, the team at Ardent Partners is still going over all of the great presentations and discussions of which we were a part. This year, Ardent had the opportunity to use the Summit to reach over 120 attendees from all over the globe who descended upon Boston with the shared goal of helping us continue to push the procurement profession forward. Attendees were able to learn best practices, share ideas, and make connections they wouldn’t have a chance to ordinarily make. This year’s theme, the “Age of Intelligence,” focused on how to build an intelligent procurement operation with agile staff, processes, and technologies that deliver superior performance.
Day One of the conference kicked off with energetic keynotes from the Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) from Shire Pharmaceuticals, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bain Capital, and MUFG Union Bank. It also featured breakout sessions and panel discussions from global procurement luminaries and technology thought-leaders. Day One concluded with the extravagant CPO Honors Gala Dinner, where awards were given to procurement leaders/teams from Harvard University, Brighthouse Financial, Watermark Retirement Communities, and BCNET. We were also excited to induct Scott Singer, a procurement veteran and a true thought leader who has consistently pushed the industry forward, into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame.
On Day Two, we were thrilled to have speakers from the City of New York, Wayfair, Rio Tinto, and Honeywell International. The conference ended with lunch and a closing keynote from Ardent’s Founder and Chief Research Officer, Andrew Bartolini, who spoke on the innovative technologies that will fundamentally change (and are already changing) procurement.
The team at Ardent Partners wanted to give a special thanks to the more than 20 speakers who took time out of their busy schedules to give thought-provoking presentations on a diverse range of topics surrounding the procurement function. The speakers inspired those in attendance to take action, and develop the tools necessary to make their own procurement teams more agile and intelligent. We also wanted to thank the attendees with whom we got to share these two days. We hope they have returned to their teams energized and ready to share all that they learned from the CPO Rising Summit, amplifying the strategies necessary to bring procurement to the next level.
How to Relive All the Memories
If you missed the event, or want to relive some of the highlights, Andrew Bartolini and Christopher J. Dwyer will share the collective “greatest hits” drawn from the event’s outstanding keynote presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions in a webinar on Tuesday, November 20th at 2 PM ET. Attendees to this complimentary webinar can expect to gather a collection of new and innovative ideas to help improve the performance of their organizations and increase the procurement team’s overall impact. Click here to register.
Conclusion
Just because the 2018 Summit is over, it does not mean that Ardent’s work of evangelizing the CPO and the procurement profession is done, too. Ardent continues to produce research that examines the processes, strategies, and technologies that drive operational excellence across the procurement and financial arms of an enterprise. We are excited to announce that the 2019 CPO Rising Summit is scheduled for October 29 and 30, once again in Boston. Mark your calendars now, and be on the lookout for more information from us in the near future.