The Sourcing Hero

Procurement has long carried an inherited brand problem inside many organizations. Stakeholders expect to hear ‘no,’ to be pushed toward the lowest price, or to be slowed down by process and governance. One of the most effective ways to change that perception is also one of the simplest: listen first. When procurement takes the time to understand what stakeholders and suppliers are trying to achieve, they earn a seat in the conversations that matter most, from supply risk to growth planning. Success brings its own challenge, too, because a trusted procurement team may quickly find themselves with more requests than they can handle. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Scott Levens to the show. Scott is an experienced procurement leader whose career spans nearly four decades, from negotiating contracts for hundreds of hotels across Australia and New Zealand to leading indirect procurement for Gallagher, a fast-growing, family-owned global manufacturer. Scott shares his perspective on the human side of procurement and how listening shapes relationships inside and outside the business: Why listening and offering options, rather than ready-made answers, changes how stakeholders see procurement How a trusted reputation gives procurement a voice in risk, quality, and stock availability decisions What it means to be a customer of choice, and why the hidden costs we create for suppliers matter Practical advice for procurement leaders starting in a new organization, including why culture should shape their approach Links: Scott Levens on LinkedIn

What do Monday mornings in YOUR procurement organization look like? Based on your answer to that question, ask yourself this: is AI being given a chance to make a difference? Procurement teams are under real pressure to show where they are using AI. Too often, the quickest answer is to grab a tool, place it somewhere visible, and call it progress, only to discover later that no one is sure what outcome it was supposed to deliver. The teams getting lasting value start somewhere else entirely. What problem are we trying to solve? Is AI the right fit for it? And what guardrails need to be in place before anyone starts experimenting? In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Hemangi Tawade to the show. Hemangi spent nearly two decades consulting in sourcing and procurement before starting her own advisory practice focused on procurement and AI. She also completed formal programs on both the technology and leadership sides of AI, including at Harvard Business School.  Hemangi shares her perspective on how procurement can adopt AI with clear purpose and the right guardrails: Why understanding how AI works changes the way procurement professionals use it How governance gives teams the confidence to experiment, and even fail, in a protected environment Why the best starting point for AI is a simple question about what Monday morning looks like for the procurement team How to choose between embedded AI tools, enterprise LLMs, and agentic solutions based on the use case   Links: Hemangi Tawade on LinkedIn

Given the speed of change driven by AI, professionals in all functions have two choices: learn to love change or struggle, because the change is coming anyway. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Alec Cranston to the show. Alec is an IT specialist whose work spans networking, hardware, and support, including a stretch running his own repair and build shop, and he is now moving deliberately toward information security.  He works in a field that reinvents itself roughly every five years, and that has taught him to find joy in change - even when it asks a lot. Listen in to hear Alec speak about: How he decides what's worth learning deeply, and what to look up the day you need it  What it means to be able to tell what is ‘good enough’ from AI and what needs further work Developing the skills required to learn in the moment, especially as technology advances   Links: Alec Cranston on LinkedIn  

Few words empty a meeting faster than “governance.” Mention it to non-procurement colleagues and their attention tends to wander. At the same time, governance determines how decisions get made across procurement, maintenance, and operations. In MRO-dependent environments, weak governance shows up quickly as duplicate orders, wrong or missing parts, strained supplier relationships, and unplanned downtime. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Vernetta Tyler. Vernetta is the founder of NINET9 Solutions and has eight years of experience across operations, maintenance, reliability, and supply chain. Vernetta shares her perspective on why procurement governance is about how decisions are made, not just the rules written on paper: Why governance is especially critical in MRO environments, and the early signs that it may be starting to drift How to guide decisions with clear boundaries without restricting the teams who keep operations running How AI is likely to change compliance and anomaly detection while keeping human judgment at the center   Links: Vernetta Tyler on LinkedIn

Procurement’s ‘hidden’ operational costs often sit in the coordination required to get work done across the business. Beyond the hours spent chasing stakeholders, locating contracts, reconstructing negotiation history, and digging through systems, teams can lose value through delayed savings, unsustainable supplier agreements, and the opportunity cost of focusing on transactions instead of more strategic work.  Procurement works with nearly every other function, and so these costs can accumulate in the gaps between teams without ever appearing in traditional performance metrics. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Mike Fedorov to the show. Mike is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO at Applied AI Labs. He has over 25 years worth of hands-on operations and supply chain experience, and he has either run or turned around operations for some of the most complex companies in the world. Listen in to hear Mike explain: Where procurement is most vulnerable to getting pulled into cross-functional busy work The difference between work that creates value and work that simply keeps a process moving How procurement should think about data readiness without getting stuck waiting for perfect data Links: Mike Fedorov on LinkedIn

While category expertise and strategies help procurement deliver specific business outcomes, sometimes it is the cross-category fundamentals that make the biggest difference of all. Case in point: stakeholder expectation setting.  How fast will a project move and why? What might need to be changed to deliver the results the business is looking for? How should stakeholders think about savings and cost avoidance? These are important topics for procurement to address before a sourcing project ever gets underway. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Richard Campbell to the show. Richard has deep experience in procurement, specifically in sourcing and managing spend related to the fleet, transportation, and logistics categories. Richard shares his perspective on why setting stakeholder expectations early and often is critical to procurement’s success: How to kick off a new project with the best chances for sustained alignment between procurement and the business Why procurement may need to educate stakeholders about cost avoidance and TCO in addition to sourcing strategy The importance of being present and listening closely before ever speaking to set an expectation   Links: Richard Campbell on LinkedIn

Procurement and spend management play a critical role in humanitarian response because the speed and quality of sourcing decisions directly affect how quickly aid reaches people in crisis.  Rather than simply purchasing goods, these procurement teams create the capacity to respond before disasters strike by establishing long-term supplier agreements, standardizing essential supplies, and ensuring resources can be mobilized wherever they are needed. Effective spend management is not just about efficiency, it is a force multiplier that enables organizations to extend their impact and save more lives. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes José Alfredo Rodríguez. José Alfredo is the Regional Supply Chain Director at World Vision International, a top-4 global organization managing $4B+ in annual spend, focusing on Health Insurance and large-scale Health Humanitarian Aid. José Alfredo shares his unique perspective on procurement through the lens of humanitarian crisis response: Why speed in procurement can be a life-saving capability How procurement teams maximize impact with limited resources  What it takes to build resilient supplier networks in challenging environments Lessons corporate procurement leaders can apply from humanitarian response   Links: World Vision Latin America

Supplier diversity programs have been part of procurement’s purview for decades, and they have changed a lot during that time. The categories of supplier ownership have expanded and become better defined, success metrics have narrowed, and initiatives like ESG have altered how companies relate to the program as a whole. Today, the most notable change to supplier diversity is… the silence. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes back Lamont Robinson. Lamont is a leading voice on supplier diversity, but that doesn’t mean he’s hesitant to reexamine and reimagine everything about the practice.  Lamont envisions supplier diversity programs that are both business-driven and legally defensible for long term impact: Why an over-reliance on spend as a performance metric has skewed the impact of supplier diversity programs and even held them back Whether the many categories of ‘diverse’ suppliers can (or should) be managed in the same way or whether they require a more varied approach Practical advice for diversity-minded procurement professionals, whether they own their company’s program or not Why he feels optimistic for the future of supplier diversity   Links: Lamont Robinson on LinkedIn

The mind-blowing potential of AI, either in LLM form or embedded in a SaaS solution, is so impressive that it would be easy to overlook the risks. Some of these risks come in the form of data security, but others linger in signed contracts that contain very real (but seemingly harmless) terms that change in importance as the technology evolves. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Wendy Storino. Wendy is a seasoned procurement leader with nearly two decades of experience in technology sourcing and supplier strategy. She has taken it upon herself to better understand the contract terms that procurement needs to understand to manage risk and cost in the age of AI. Wendy discusses some of the things procurement needs to know about AI-related contracts: The challenges resulting from the rapid rate of AI/tech development  Whether the addition (or the embedding) of AI changes the associated liability Why procurement (not to mention legal and IT) have a greater opportunity to learn across their contracts rather than focusing on one at a time Links: Wendy Storino on LinkedIn

There are some categories of spend that we all interact with differently because of the way they affect us as consumers. Packaging is a prime example of this. The level of strategy and effort invested in every choice make these buying decisions and supplier partnerships fascinating to study. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Bhavuk Chawla. Bhavuk has a Master’s degree in packaging technology, and has worked in either packaging development or packaging procurement for almost two decades. Bhavuk shares his in depth experience with packaging from the cost, brand, and supply chain points of view: -How packaging choices enhance the consumer experience -Considerations (including tradeoffs) that have to be managed in the buying process -Balancing internal priorities and objectives with new supplier  ideas and innovations -Increasing supplier (or supply chain) resilience through packaging sourcing decisions