This year’s Summit hosted just over 120 delegates, who descended upon Boston with the individual goals of learning the latest trends and best practice ideas and expanding their network and the collective goal of driving the procurement profession (and the role of the CPO) forward.

The fourth annual CPO Honors Gala was an opportunity to celebrate the procurement profession and recognize excellence in the field. At the dinner reception that concluded Day One, Ardent Partners presented awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year – “The CPO Honors” – to a variety of high achievers including Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement leaders, procurement teams, and new this year: procurement solution providers and/or other experts. A new class of CPOs were also inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame based upon career achievements.

Over the next few days, we will share some of the scenes from the 2019 Summit while also reminding each of you to save the dates – October 27 & 28, 2020 for CPO Rising 2020!

Linda Theisen from Hilton Supply Management accepts the 2019 Innovation Award for Anu Saxena from the CPO Honors MC for the night, Roy Anderson.

Andrea Greco (middle) CPO of CBRE, holds his 2019 Technology Excellence Award, along with CPO Rising Hall of Famer ’18 Scott Singer (left), and Roy Anderson.

The 2019 CPO of the Year, Greg Tennyson (middle) Head of Global Corporate Services at VSP Global, accepts the award from 2018 winner, Chris Chadwick (left) of Caterpillar, and Roy Anderson.

Cheers to the winners, nominees, and all who attended!

This year’s Summit hosted just over 120 delegates, who descended upon Boston with the individual goals of learning the latest trends and best practice ideas and expanding their network and the collective goal of driving the procurement profession (and the role of the CPO) forward.

The fourth annual CPO Honors Gala was an opportunity to celebrate the procurement profession and recognize excellence in the field. At the dinner reception that concluded Day One, Ardent Partners presented awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year – “The CPO Honors” – to a variety of high achievers including Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement leaders, procurement teams, and new this year: procurement solution providers and/or other experts. A new class of CPOs were also inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame based upon career achievements.

Over the next few days, we will share some of the scenes from the 2019 Summit while also reminding each of you to save the dates – October 27 & 28, 2020 for CPO Rising 2020!

Great food, drink, and networking at The CPO Honors Gala Dinner

Paola Nava Aceves accepts the Technology Excellence Award from CPO Rising Hall of Famer Scott Singer. Aceves accepts on behalf of winner Jorge Martín Torres Pérez, Strategic Procurement Director of Coca-Cola FEMSA.

Gary Foster and Gabriella DiGiacobbe accept the Best Team Performance Award for the Global Procurement and ePayables Team from Highmark Health.

Kyle Muskoff (middle) accepts the 2019 Innovative Solution Award on behalf of BuyerQuest.

Jim Polak accepts induction into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame.

Class of 2019 CPO Rising Hall of Famer, Uldis Sipols, is all smiles with Ardent Founder Andrew Bartolini.

The CPO Honors were established to celebrate the procurement function and recognize the accomplishments of the profession’s best leaders and teams. These awards have quickly become the procurement industry’s most prestigious series of awards. CPO celebrities and prior winners played an active role in the ceremony which was hosted by Tradeshift’s CPO, Roy Anderson.

The CPO Rising Hall of Fame Class of 2019

Established in 2016, The CPO Rising Hall of Fame inducts up to three procurement leaders each year who have differentiated themselves and their organizations by a blend in leadership in innovation, executive stewardship, process excellence, and dedication to their craft. This year’s inductees are:

James L. Polak, former Director, General Purchasing, PPG Industries, Inc.

Uldis Sipols, Former CPO Gillette, Danaher, AMP, Sonoco; Executive at P&G and Ford

CPO Honors 2019: And the Winners are…

The CPO Honors were presented in 6 categories. The finalists and winners (in bold) are noted below.

The Innovation Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

• WINNER: Anu Saxena, Senior Vice President and Global Head for Hilton Supply Management (HSM) and the HSM Team
• Sprint’s Procurement Team

The Technology Excellence Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have leveraged technology solutions to impact procurement operations and performance.

• TIE – WINNER: Andrea Greco, Chief Procurement Officer, CBRE
• TIE – WINNER: Jorge Martín Torres Pérez, Strategic Procurement Director, Coca-Cola FEMSA

Best Team Performance Award Finalists: This award is presented to the procurement department that has excelled across the full scope of procurement operations to make a significant impact on overall enterprise results.

• WINNER: Highmark Health Global Procurement & Payables Team
• Endurance’s Procurement Operations and Business Intelligence Team

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year) Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

• Kai Nowosel, Chief Procurement Officer, Accenture
• WINNER: Greg Tennyson, Head of Global Corporate Services,  VSP Global
• Mike Morsch, Vice President Global Procurement & Supply Chain, CDK Global

Innovative Solution of the Year Finalists: Presented to the solution provider who most significantly impacted the market with innovative solutions.

• WINNER: BuyerQuest
• Fairmarkit

Best Technology Partnership Finalists: Presented to the best partnership between a solution provider and their procurement team customer on to a technology deployment.

• WINNER: Scout RFP and Biogen
• Ivalua and Whirlpool

Ardent Partners extends its congratulations to the CPO Honors finalists, winners, and new CPO Rising Hall of Famers! Watch for more details about those recognized last night.

About Ardent Partners

Ardent Partners is a leading research and advisory firm focused on defining and advancing the supply management strategies, processes, and technologies that drive business value and accelerate organizational transformation within the enterprise. Ardent’s analysts have decades of experience publishing primary research that help business leaders in procurement, supply management, and financial operations make smarter technology decisions and improve their performance. Ardent hosts its annual CPO Rising Summit in Boston each fall. To learn more about the company, visit www.ardentpartners.com and www.cporising.com

BOSTON, October 29 — Today, more than 140 Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) and other procurement executives convene at Boston’s elegant Harvard Club to discuss best practices, learn about emerging market trends, and collaborate with like-minded peers. The fourth annual “CPO Rising” Summit and executive symposium, hosted by prominent research and advisory firm Ardent Partners, will feature an unrivaled lineup of speakers and presentations, all of which will serve to push the procurement function into a new era.

This week’s event, which will feature nearly two dozen procurement luminaries from large corporations around the globe (and across many industries), will tackle a vast array of exciting topics within the world of supply management. These executives, from Johnson & Johnson, DuPont, Rio Tinto, and many more, will speak about:

• Expanding Procurement’s Value (this year’s event theme)
• Data-driven procurement strategies
• The role of innovation in today’s procurement function
• Designing and building the optimal procurement operation (and procurement transformation)
• The Future of Work
• And much more!

“The procurement function of 2019 sits on the edge of an incredible transformation in its ultimate quest for business agility and enterprise-wide value,” says Andrew Bartolini, founder and chief research officer at Ardent Partners. “Today’s procurement executives have the power to leverage innovation, intelligence, and transformational thinking to become a truly agile business function. The CPO Rising 2019 Summit is the ideal forum for procurement professionals from around the world to learn how to achieve these goals.”

This exclusive summit is sponsored by Tradeshift, Concord Contracts, Jaggaer, Scout RFP, Guidant Global, SAP Ariba, scoutbee, Sievo, and SpendHQ. For more information on the CPO Rising 2019 Summit, please visit events.cporising.com.

About Ardent Partners:

Ardent Partners is a research and advisory firm focused on defining and advancing the supply management strategies, processes, and technologies that drive business value and accelerate organizational transformation within the enterprise. The Ardent team has decades of experience publishing primary research that help business leaders in procurement, supply management, and financial operations make smarter decisions and improve their performance. To learn more about the company, visit www.ardentpartners.com.

CPO Rising Hall of Fame Class of 2017 Inductee: Shelley Stewart Jr.

Shelley Stewart Jr. has been called one of the most powerful executives in corporate America. As Vice President of Sourcing & Logistics and Chief Procurement Officer at DuPont, this man led global procurement and logistics activities totaling $20 billion dollars annually for the oldest continuously operating company in the United States. Shelley also played a significant role in the DowDuPont merger by helping to deliver synergy savings and standing up two new organizations in support of spinning into three standalone, world-class companies. He joined DuPont in 2012 after serving as Senior Vice President of Operational Excellence and Chief Procurement Officer at Tyco, where, in his first three years with the company, he saved it $1 billion dollars. Shelley’s resume also includes successful stints at SVP and VP of Supply Chain at Invensys and Raytheon, respectively, and nearly 20 years in sourcing at United Technologies.

In November of 2017, Shelley was inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame, along with fellow CPO Tom Linton of Flex. The two procurement leaders joined the ranks of Tim Cook (of Apple), Gregg Brandyberry of GlaxoSmithKline, and Harold (Hal) Good of the City of Palm Springs, and most recently, Scott Singer of RioTinto. Each of our Hall of Famers have made a significant contribution to the procurement profession over the course of their respective careers. Shelley is not only a procurement visionary, he is also considered among the most forward-thinking executives working in business today.

In October of 2018, Shelley retired from DuPont to lead Bottom Line Advisory, LLC, a boutique consulting firm focused on procurement operational improvement. On Tuesday, October 29, Shelley will take a break from his busy schedule and join fellow CPOs, Nisreen Bagasra of Veolia North America and Dan Warn of athenahealth, at CPO Rising 2019 for a panel discussion on how CPOs can expand procurement’s value. Catch them at 10:55 am in the Harvard Hall at the Harvard Club of Boston (Back Bay).

To see a few images from CPO Rising 2017, click here – CPO Honors: Stars Shine Bright at the 2017 Summit

The CPO Honors 2019 Awards Gala is scheduled for October 29, 2019. If you cannot join us for the event (sidenote: there are still tickets available — click here to purchase and join us!), please be sure to check this site to see who will join Shelley and other CPO Rising Hall of Fame members at this year’s Gala Awards Dinner.

At the dinner reception, Ardent Partners will present awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year – “The CPO Honors” – to a variety of high achievers including Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement leaders, procurement teams, and new this year: procurement solution providers and/or other experts. A new class of CPOs (two names will be announced next week) will also be inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame based upon career achievements.

With a record number of nominations this year, the competition for the CPO Honors 2019 awards was extremely competitive. Making it to this far should be considered a huge achievement, in and of itself.

So, without further ado…

The CPO HONORS 2019 Finalists are:

The Innovation Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

• Anu Saxena, Senior Vice President and Global Head for Hilton Supply Management (HSM) and the HSM Team
• Sprint’s Procurement Team

The Technology Excellence Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have leveraged technology solutions to impact procurement operations and performance.

• Andrea Greco, Chief Procurement Officer, CBRE
• Jorge Martín Torres Pérez, Strategic Procurement Director, Coca-Cola FEMSA

Best Team Performance Award Finalists: This award is presented to the procurement department that has excelled across the full scope of procurement operations to make a significant impact on overall enterprise results.

• Highmark Health Global Procurement & Payables Team
• Endurance’s Procurement Operations and Business Intelligence Team

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year) Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

• Kai Nowosel, Chief Procurement Officer, Accenture
• Greg Tennyson, Head of Global Corporate Services,  VSP Global
• Mike Morsch, Vice President Global Procurement & Supply Chain, CDK Global

Innovative Solution of the Year Finalists: Presented to the solution provider who most significantly impacted the market with innovative solutions.

• BuyerQuest
• Fairmarkit

Best Technology Partnership Finalists: Presented to the best partnership between a solution provider and their procurement team customer on to a technology deployment.

• ScoutRFP and Biogen
• Ivalua and Whirlpool

Our congratulations to all of the finalists!  We will see you soon!

Simply put, Gregg “gets” procurement and supply management, having logged more than 40 years of executive and managerial experience across multiple industries, like automotive, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. He was the Global eSourcing Lead and a consultant at Takeda Pharmaceutical after serving as Senior Vice President, Market Operations for FedBid, Inc, a high volume reverse auction marketplace serving the Federal Government. Gregg also served as a Senior Advisor for A.T. Kearney Procurement and Analytic Solutions organization following a three-year stint as CEO of Wildfire Commerce. But he is perhaps best known as the former Vice President of Procurement – Global Systems and Operations for pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, a role that he held for 10 years.

Early Beginnings

After leaving Western Illinois University in 1974, Gregg promptly got to work building his 42-year career in supply management. He started at the very ground floor of manufacturing at an auto parts manufacturing plant and eventually became the head of quality. “Something that I learned very early on was that price doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality,” said Gregg. “There’s no strong correlation between what you pay and what you get. It stuck with me forever.” Indeed, Gregg echoed these comments when he was a panelist at CPO Rising 2016.

Before he switched careers to procurement, Gregg became Director of Manufacturing and Quality at the Gates Energy Products, a division of The Gates Corporation and GE’s former battery business division. The experience taught him the fundamentals about how to consider capacity, efficiency, utilization, velocity, and through-put – all the things that a good manufacturer that has a finite amount of time, space, and capacity needs to make the best product possible. As he got into procurement, Gregg realized that procurement did not quite work this way. “It was still in the early days, it was so transactional but did not have a lot of structure, aside from strategic sourcing,” he said. It was very event driven; each event took a certain amount of time; work never seemed as “planful” as what a good manufacturer would do – how they would do their future planning.

Finding His Way in Procurement with eSourcing

Gregg left The Gates Corporation in 1990 and found his way to GSK, where he would make the leap to procurement and also spend the next 16 years of his career. Between 2000 and 2005, he saw procurement technologies, particularly eSourcing platforms, grow in popularity. Gregg worked hard at GSK to illustrate how a small staff could conduct many sourcing events using eSourcing platforms. He set up four global sourcing hubs in the US, UK, and India where his staff of 15 ran between 10,000 and 12,000 annual sourcing events; roughly half of them were auctions. He had “an extremely engaged workforce” that was using a new technology, and that added to the excitement of it all. Pretty soon their excitement outpaced their efficiency, but he and his staff eventually learned how to source more efficiently, even for eSourcing.

As a result of his efforts to drive eSourcing at GSK, his team won the “Baseline ROI Award” for the highest ROI for any IT project that Baseline Magazine had ever considered. They returned investment every two or three working days. This wasn’t an accident. As Gregg says, “a lot of the stars were aligned: tremendous senior management support, a real burning platform to take costs out, an executive, CEO-level mandate, and an organization that was designed to help allow work to flow through it.” Other factors that contributed to the success of Gregg’s sourcing team were that he instituted eSourcing at GSK when it “was at the dawn of all the new procurement technology.” He and his team were not only willing to give eSourcing a try, there were excited by it. “When you have all of these things working together, there’s a good chance you’re going to be successful.”

Gregg reflects on his 10 years as VP of Procurement at GSK and calls it one of the best times in his working life – a time in which he saw many senior procurement people – including CPOs and directors – “sprout” while he was there. Still, every good leader knows when it is time to take on their next challenge, and in 2009, Gregg left GSK to take on three. He became CEO of Wildfire Commerce in February 2009. A couple of months later, he assumed a concurrent role as a Senior Advisor at AT Kearney Procurement and Analytic Solutions. More than a year later, he also joined FedBid as the Senior Vice Present of Market Operations, where he would serve for nearly four years.

Taking eSourcing to the “Next Level”

At FedBid, Gregg led a team whose focus was to run eSourcing events, and boy did they run them. At the height of his tenure, he and his team conducted more than 50,000 eAuction events annually for their government clients. At a time when the concept of “Big Data” was starting to be bandied about, Gregg and his team were getting soaked in data. On any given day, they might have had more than 500 auctions going on. He remembers a day at the end of FY2011 where they had 2600 auctions underway, with an average length of three days, and tens of thousands of discrete transactions occurring.

To understand their events and to help them better manage their auctions, they pulled data from the system every 20 minutes and, using their BI analytics tool, organized the data into real-time reports that their “market specialists” would consult. They would give the specialists real-time intelligence to say that they might not have enough suppliers bidding, or that there is not enough competition, or that there are some questionable bids coming in that need to be checked out. “Nobody’s doing procurement like that,” Gregg boasted.

Like his tenure at GSK, this was a really interesting time for Gregg, and the experience has shaped his thinking on how sourcing events will be carried out.

The Future of eSourcing

For Gregg, some of the approaches that procurement is using are getting pretty stale – procurement as a whole is spinning the same cycles year-over-year, and it is ripe for change. The way he sees it, a big change for corporations will be to get away from treating everything like a single event and move towards a marketplace approach where suppliers are pre-vetted. That way, they will not have to be trained because they already understand how the marketplace works, and buyers “just throw” opportunities at them. Buyers can get highly specific, too – they can ask for diverse suppliers, like women-, veteran-, or minority-owned businesses, or highly-specific suppliers to bid on niche projects. Gregg and his staff were able to do this at FedBid and were very successful with it.

Final Thoughts

We’re very grateful to Gregg for continually supporting CPO Rising, the CPO Rising 2019 event, and for being a true “friend of the firm.” He’s a great guy — colleagial and easy going — and we look forward to seeing him once again at the Harvard Club of Boston this week. Don’t be shy — introduce yourself!

Hal is an accomplished professional with over 30 years of CPO level experience in procurement and contracting. He is a past national president of the Airport Purchasing Group and the National Procurement Institute, and was a founding member and past president of the California Chapter of the National Institute of Government Purchasing. He is a frequent presenter at industry events and is a well-regarded procurement expert.

We were fortunate to catch up with Hal earlier this year to learn more about his background, notably: how he got his start in procurement, why he left the cold and wintry weathers of the East Coast for the warm and breezy West Coast, and how he returned before retiring to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Today, Hal writes about procurement and continues to evangelize for the future of the profession.

Education and Early Career

Hal attended Elizabethtown College where he studied business administration and psychology. Like many other procurement professionals, he got his start in the field somewhat accidentally at New York University (NYU) Medical Center (now NYU Langone) where he began working in the respiratory care wing of the clinical department, a 24-7 operation that required constant staffing and servicing. Over time, Hal became more involved in the procurement of goods for the department and less involved in the clinical-care side. One day, one of his managers said, “Why don’t we call it like it is and transition you into procurement?” From there, Hal’s career would be entirely focused on materials management and procurement.

Hal worked for NYU Langone Medical Center for 12 years, serving as Assistant Director of Central Services before taking a sudden and drastically different turn in his career. While on a family vacation to Disney Land, Hal noticed an opening for a Procurement Director for the City of Palm Springs. He and his family loved the location, and with nothing to lose, Hal applied for and ultimately got the job. He and has family uprooted from the East Coast and would make Palm Springs home for the next 21 years.

Hal’s long tenure as Director of Procurement and Contracting for Palm Springs was quite interesting because it encapsulated a lot of unique projects, including infrastructure, marketing, public safety, and tourism. For example, during his time the city built a convention center that accommodated the local economy – mainly, hospitality and tourism. He and his team helped to manage the expansion of Palm Springs Airport and allow it to serve international carriers. He was instrumental in the acquisition and installation of one of the earliest reliable and successful earthquake early warning systems in the US in Palm Springs, a city located on the San Andreas Fault.

After working there for more than 21 years, Hal and his wife, Jaye, moved back to the East Coast when he became Director of Procurement and Contracting for Frederick County, Maryland, a position that he would hold for about another eight years. Hal’s tenure in Frederick would cover the ground of the modern procurement professional – procuring direct and indirect materials, as well as construction and professional services.

In November 2012, Hal decided to semi-retire from procurement and move to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he consults and freelances on procurement and remains active on social media. He hosts a LinkedIn group, Procurement Pros, in which he combines public and private sector issues, as well as supply chain and service-oriented issues, in a forum that he seeks to make as interesting for his members as it is for him. Although Hal is semi-retired, he remains interested in developing a common procurement language that procurement professionals around the world can use, as well as connecting the sourcing, procurement, and payment processes into the source-to-settle process. For him, hosting Procurement Pros and speaking at conferences are “give-backs” to a procurement community that has treated him well over his career.

What 35 Years of Procurement Change Looks Like

Since Hal began his procurement career in 1971, he has seen quite a revolution across the industry. At first, there were no thought leaders evangelizing the procurement role. It is a different story today, with thought leaders educating the workforce and tying the two ends of procurement and AP together, and linking contracts and risk management with procurement.

What he sees more than anything else is the recognition that internal and external stakeholders need to collaborate and work together. They need to be familiar with what procurement is working on, and they need to work holistically across the organization to pull in other constituent departments and functions, like AP/Finance, contracts, legal, marketing, operations, and so on. Hal also believes that it is no longer just about cost savings; they are important, as are cost containment (not spending more than you have to). But the concept of best value and looking at the overall value to the organization has really come to the forefront. Fortunately, he believes that the digital environment in which we operate has enhanced our ability to do that, as well as to collaborate and make the world much smaller than it is.

The Future of Procurement: It’s Already Happening

As Hal looks ahead, he believes that the term “buyer” will be a thing of the past, as category managers and procurement professionals are much more than glorified order takers. Also, more staple commodities will be automatically purchased, allowing practitioners to reallocate their time and effort to more strategic planning and execution. Sure, they will still need to setup, maintain, and QA/QC systems and processes, but they will be more involved in examining issues that pertain to sourcing, procurement, and best value to ensure that they are integrated within the overall organization. Hal also believes that procurement as a specialty will continue to be a multi-purpose operation that gets integrated into other things – a belief that Ardent Partners’ research shows has been occurring for the past several years. Hal believes (as do we) that if it has to be competed, sourced, or purchased, procurement should get involved.

There is also a lot of green field opportunity for procurement expansion and collaboration across the enterprise. According to Hal, “some of the things that procurement’s not involved in but could add a lot of value to are things like construction, insurance, and legal services that are still siloed within many companies.” Here, all parties ought to take a holistic view of the value that procurement can deliver to the whole organization. Marketing, in particular, is an underserved procurement relationship, and CPOs and procurement leaders need to ensure smooth collaboration between the two departments. “Sometimes there’s a lot of misunderstanding between the two – one of the most important things that procurement professionals can ascribe to in the future. The two roles need to understand each other.”

There is also greater opportunity for procurement to collaborate and align with legal departments, particularly regarding contract management. “When contracts get handed off, sometimes there’s a glitch,” he says, adding that the relationship between legal and procurement needs to be smooth and integrated because they contribute so much to each other for them not to be. In fact, some legal departments are starting to have their own procurement section, which is recognition that procurement and legal need to work together because they are all working towards the same ends.

Final Thoughts

It is a real treat to sit down with someone who has the breadth and depth of experience in an industry that has evolved as much as it has over the last 35 years and continues to evolve. Hal Good is a procurement pro who not only has ridden the wave from coast to coast and back, but also has managed to be an evangelist and thought leader even in retirement. For these reasons, we are so grateful to have him speak at CPO Rising 2019 and are counting down the days. If you haven’t already, you can take advantage of early bird registration and pricing and register here!

Ardent Partners will present awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year – “The CPO Honors” – to a variety of high achievers including CPOs and other procurement leaders, procurement teams, and new this year: procurement solution providers and/or other experts. The deadline to submit nominations is September 15th, so if you and your team would like to be recognized for Best-in-Class procurement achievement over the last year, make your nomination today!

The categories for nomination are:

The Innovation Award: Presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

The Technology Excellence Award: Presented to the CPO and team that have leveraged technology solutions to impact procurement operations and performance.

Best Team Performance Award: Presented to the procurement department that has excelled across the full scope of procurement operations to make a significant impact on overall enterprise results.

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year): Presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

**NEW

Innovative Solution of the Year: Presented to the solution provider who most significantly impacted the market with innovative solutions.

Best Technology Partnership: Presented to the best partnership between a solution provider and their procurement team customer on to a technology deployment.

To make a nomination, visit the event site:

https://events.cporising.com/cpohonors/

“The technology sponsors are all very interesting, the speakers are fantastic, great food, and great people to be around. In my opinion this is the very best conference to attend.” ~ Gregg Brandyberry, the former VP of Procurement at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and 2016 CPO Rising Hall of Fame inductee.

“As one of the speakers at this year’s event, talking about Big Data analytics, it’s certainly ‘on theme’ with one of the key buzz words of future of our business. I shared some case studies of how we use Big Data analytics on bid data to unlock almost a 2x savings rate, which is awesome!” ~ Walt Charles, CPO of Allergan.

“Just the intellectual power in the room is really great to learn from. There are some real thought leaders out there talking about their experiences. And it seems like they are still learning, they talk about the fact that they haven’t sat back, that they continue to be students and learn. And that is inspiring,” said one procurement leader.

“One thing that makes this conference special is the size. Truly you aren’t just a number. When the speakers are done, you can go up and ask questions. The intimate setting that is created at this event is something special,” said another CPO attendee. 

Check Out The Video Below to Hear More

Attendees to the CPO Rising 2019 Summit are certain to depart from this executive conference energized and armed with new ideas to improve their operations. Please consider joining us this October 29 & 30 at the Harvard Club in Boston! To view the speaker panel and the Summit agenda, visit the event site https://events.cporising.com.