The power of a Network.
People have told me many times: build your network both inside and outside your company. Inside makes sense because it helps your career. But outside? I must admit that when I left P&G after 24 years, my external network was very poor.
When I started the Digital Procurement Now business in 2020 and was looking for my first customer, I connected with P&G purchases people who now have leadership roles in other companies. I was lucky in that Pierre Menges became the CPO of NEOM in Saudi Arabia and was willing to take a chance on me. My own small business was born!
Now when I look back after 3 years, I realise that almost 50% of my customer revenue has been with P&G alumni: Ricardo Cuevas from XIMPAX Belinda Stiefenhoferfrom Manor AG , Truvant via Stewart Atkinson , Adrienne Cole from Pernod Ricard and lately with Germano Colombo from MSC Cruises . It is clear that without the P&G network, my business would not have existed today.
As I look into the future, I decided to compile a list of P&G Alumni Network - Official Page Purchases who made it to CPO and was impressed:
Shashi Mandapaty is CPO at 强生公司
Dr. Attila A. Tamer is COO (incl. CPO responsibility) at McCain Foods
Javier Echevarría is CPO at Ingredion Incorporated
Melissa Salo is CPO at Aon
E. Mert Kacmaz is CPO at the petfood division of 玛氏食品
Katherine Storer is CPO at Berlin Packaging
Azrul Aziz is CPO at Hayco 喜高
Pieter De Maeseneer is CPO at 欧陆
Saba Sharma is CPO at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages in India
Isabel Hochgesand is CPO at Ferrero Rocher previously 拜尔斯道夫 .
Frank Arendt is CPO at Migros-Gruppe
Hui Chuan Yang is CPO and head of supply chain at The Global Fund
领英推荐
Stephanie Gemmell is CPO at Wella Company
Karine De Wachter is CPO at Milcobel
Nina Guézennec is CPO at Vandemoortele
I am sure that I have missed many, so please feel free to provide names in the comments. What is cool is that 8 out of the above 15 CPO's are women, which is no surprise if you know that 50% of 宝洁 purchases are women and that P&G has been a pioneer in female empowerment and development. P&G also has a high powered female CPO with Ana Elena Marziano .
Procurement is at a cross roads and needs talented people. The P&G procurement school is a great one as they hire talented people from university and develop them to be become really good procurement professionals with strong business acumen.
I would also like to mention my previous team members Karan Arora who is driving a digital procurement transformation at Kaiser Permanente and Shyam Gupta who is doing the same at 波士顿谘询公司 . Procurement needs talent especially now that there is so much procurement technology out there that allows us to elevate procurement and change the world.
Our networks are key. Connections are key. If we want to make a real impact with procurement, we should build and nurture our networks. Karin Fess
I would like to close with a quote from Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn :
'Networking is the best way to succeed in anything. Be it technology, business or personal growth, connecting with others opens door that you didn't know existed'.
Director, Group Procurement and Sustainability for Dynapack Asia
11 个月Great list and congrats to all, was such a good and enriching time to work in P&G ??
Chief Supply Chain Officer at Berlin Packaging
11 个月Well said, Nico Bac; I had a similar realization a couple of years ago. I never thought I would leave P&G, so I didn’t focus on building an external network. However, so many of the P&Gers I worked alongside are now driving transformation at other companies—and have become a big component of my external network. They are my go-to people for comparing notes (and grabbing a drink together!). Here are a couple more P&G Procurement Alumni in CPO roles: - Jackie Wang at Scotiabank - Ketty Poletto at Bacardi
Procurement and SCM Expert / CPO, GM / Source-to-pay / all interfaces / don't solve the problems no one has
11 个月So great Nico, many thanks indeed. We can Rainer Egner, CPO at Birdgestone...
Vice President, Global Beauty Care Purchases
12 个月Hey Nico, thanks for sharing this and recognizing the power of P&G people connections even after their moves to different worlds! Indeed an amazing list of professionals which we should all feel proud to have worked with at different points in our career! All the best!
Board Trustee at Trozon X17
12 个月Great list Nico & privileged to have worked with several of them & while she departed P&G quite early in her career, I think you can/should add Julia Brown - definitely a Procurement leader of note!