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