BOSTON, November 16 — Ardent Partners, a leading analyst firm focused on supply management, presented five “CPO Honors” awards at its annual CPO Rising Summit held in Boston last week, including one new inductee into its Hall of Fame. The Chief Procurement Officer (or “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.

Scott Singer, a globally-renowned business executive and former Chief Procurement Officer at Rio Tinto and United Technologies was inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame and was the sole member of the Class of 2018. Mr. Singer was honored based upon a career spent leading large, global procurement organizations. Mr. Singer was an early technology and cloud evangelist and one of the first major CPOs to advance his career beyond procurement, becoming both the CIO and Head of Global Business Services at Rio Tinto. “It is an honor to be recognized by what I consider to be a premier research and advisory firm like Ardent Partners,” said Scott. “I value my relationship with Ardent’s analyst team and I am thrilled to join such a prestigious list of CPO Rising Hall of Famers.”

During the CPO Honors Gala, awards were presented in four major categories, including:

• Chief Procurement Officer of the Year: For her efforts in increasing spend under management by $100 million and leveraging technology to redesign Harvard University’s source-to-pay process, Sarah Malconian was awarded the “CPO of the Year” distinction. “I am incredibly excited to be honored as CPO of the Year,” said Malconian. “This award is a testament to the Harvard Strategic Procurement team’s dedication and commitment to providing the highest level of service to our stakeholders. The team’s commitment to functional transformation and adoption of enabling technologies to increase our overall spend visibility has allowed us to provide measurable impact aligned with the mission and goals of the University.”
• Best Team Performance: The procurement team at Watermark Retirement Communities demonstrated its ability to drive business agility within the procurement operation and across the enterprise, and was awarded for their successful efforts. “Considering the high level of the organizations participating in the CPO Rising 2018 Summit, winning the Best Team Performance Award is an honor and a truly proud moment for Watermark,” said Amee Foss, National Director of Procurement and Plant Operations. “This prestigious award is a testament to the continuous dedication, commitment, and hard work by everyone across the company to create a positive impact on the quality of lives of our residents. We also thank our technology partner, Determine, for helping us achieve the process agility that enables our team to continuously improve service delivery.”
• Innovator of the Year: Dennis Silva, CPO of BCNET, received the “Innovator of the Year” award for helping unlock new opportunities for his company by fostering engagement among supply management professionals, institutional leaders, and their suppliers. “It was a tremendous pleasure to attend the CPO Rising Summit 2018 event. For procurement leaders, the opportunity to network and connect with CPOs from organizations represented at this conference is a great investment of time,” said Silva. “The summit was also inspirational; as a CPO, listening to the speakers and talking to the attendees, it reaffirmed that our profession can make a significant impact to our organizations. Thank you to Ardent Partners and the panel for the opportunity to be considered for this award.”
• Technology Excellence: The procurement team at Brighthouse Financial was honored with the “Technology Excellence” award for its incredible achievement of procurement automation success (such as requisition-to-purchase order cycle time and unified source-to-pay processes).

“The procurement profession continues to advance and thrive because of new and innovative strategies and technologies, like those on display at the CPO Rising 2018 Summit,” says Andrew Bartolini, founder and chief research officer at Ardent Partners. “We are thrilled, once again, to honor an amazing group of Best-in-Class procurement leaders at this year’s CPO Honors Gala.”

This CPO Rising 2018 Summit was sponsored by Coupa, GEP, Determine, iValua, AppZen, Guidant Global, Basware, SourceOne, and ScoutRFP. For more information on the CPO Rising 2018 Summit, please visit https://www.events.cporising.com. Details about the CPO Honors can be found at http://www.cpohonors.com.

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.

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

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

Best Team Performance Award: 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.

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year): 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. 

“We distinguish top performers in all Ardent Partners’ research efforts as ‘Best-in-Class’ enterprises; from this group, our research team has identified a smaller list of procurement leaders and organizations who are notable for their transformative strategies and results” states Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer at Ardent Partners. “The CPO Rising 2017 Summit is, in some respects, a celebration of the accomplishments of procurement as a function, so we think it is the perfect venue to recognize top performers for their excellence in procurement while also enjoying a great meal and atmosphere.” The CPO Honors 2017 Gala Dinner will also include the induction of several the newest class of Chief Procurement Officers into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame.

The CPO Honors nominees will be selected based upon both external nominations that can be submitted on this page and a detailed review of Ardent’s research over the preceding 12 months.

CPO Honors 2017 – Nominate Top Performers Today!

The CPO Rising 2017 Summit – November 8 & 9

On November 8 & 9, 2017, a select group of Chief Procurement Officers (“CPOs”) and other business leaders will come together at the Harvard Club in Boston for The CPO Rising 2017 Summit, an executive symposium brought to you by Ardent Partners.

This exclusive event promises valuable networking opportunities and the interactive exchange of ideas for Chief Procurement Officers and other business executives. Attendees can expect to return home with a collection of new and innovative ideas and strategies that will help improve the performance of their organizations and increase the impact that their teams will have on business results.

“The accelerating speed and complexity of business has placed procurement and its leader, the Chief Procurement Officer, in the crucible of business operations, relationships, and results. Procurement departments, their operations, culture, and systems, the way in which they transform knowledge into strategies and those strategies into performance, must all keep pace.” said Andrew Bartolini, Ardent Partners’ Chief Research Officer. “We are excited to announce our CPO Rising 2017 event this fall in Boston to help CPOs better understand what they can do increase their relevance, engagement, and results.”

From keynote presentations to CPO panel discussions, case studies, and breakout sessions, the unparalleled speaker panel will highlight procurement-led innovation within the enterprise and across the supply chain and present key topics such as:

• Tools of the Trade
• Procurement-led Innovation
• The Agility Agenda
• The Pillars of Strategic Sourcing Success
• P2P Excellence and Expansion
• Internal & External Collaboration
• Globalization & Supply Risk
• Contingent Workforce Management
• Complex Spend Management
• Procurement Performance Measurement

We have an excellent speaker panel that we will be announcing soon. However, Ardent Partners is looking for Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement executives from all industries and geographies to present keynote and mainstage presentations, lead breakout sessions, and join executive panel discussions. If you’d like to nominate someone or yourself, please complete this speaker nomination form.