By Chris Vessey, VP of Innovation & Customer Value
Have you ever seen the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace? I have - and I love it. The ceremony, the precision, the quiet handover of responsibility from someone who has stood for hours doing their duty to a fresh set of feet, hands and mental space, ready to step in.
Say what you like about the pomp and circumstance but to me it signals continuity, discipline, and readiness for what comes next.
Something similar is happening in Procurement right now: quietly, unevenly, but undeniably.
Chief Procurement Officers have been “on duty” for a long time. They have professionalised procurement, delivered scale, embedded governance and built functions that didn’t exist a generation ago. That work matters, and it deserves respect and appreciation.
But a new guard is emerging, and the role they are stepping into is materially different from the one their predecessors mastered. This is not about age, tenure, or pedigree. It is about mindset, operating philosophy, and the ability to lead in a world that no longer moves in straight lines.
Not long ago, the archetype of a successful enterprise CPO was relatively stable:
That era produced exceptional leaders. I count myself fortunate that my own procurement foundations were shaped by many of them. I worked for and alongside many excellent CPOs, advising, challenging and - honestly - admiring their style and clear thinking. But while I’m fortunate that the CPOs I worked with were the ones I model my ‘emerging CPO’ on in this blog, sadly there are many CPOs that have not yet moved on from the old ways of working. They seem to have not yet noticed that the old world is over. Not evolving. Not pausing. It’s over.
Indeed, the macroeconomic and finance agenda heading into 2026 and 2027 tells a much bigger story. Procurement’s vision must serve the finance agenda more directly than at any point in the last decade.
Today’s CFOs & COOs are balancing cost discipline and growth, resilience and transformation, simultaneously. Cost optimization remains critical, but capital allocation toward future growth and capability is rising rapidly up the agenda.
What’s different now is the scrutiny. AI budgets have matured and the experimentation phase of 2025 is moving into our rear view mirror. In 2026, CFO/COOs are no longer asking what could AI do? They are asking what proven value will it deliver - and can it be trusted?
That shift exposes a growing disconnect. Procurement is still too often perceived through a narrow lens of cost control, compliance and efficiency, while the enterprise of today expects foresight, orchestration and strategic decision support.
That gap matters. Because expectations have already changed, even if operating models haven’t.
In smaller organisations, proximity enables speed. Authority travels quickly. Change is tangible. These smaller organizations can make use of a Source-to-Pay Suite or Procure-to-Pay functionality, utilizing its simplicity, transactional approach and its inherent “walled-garden” approach to deliver a solid experience. However, in global enterprises - with 50+ operating countries, multiple charts of accounts, divergent business models and tens of thousands of employees - authority alone can’t deliver the new agenda. Nor can a closed technology suite ensure the agility and transparency needed to drive the strategy and deliver real value.
The modern enterprise CPO is no longer defined by what they personally control, but by what they design and how powerfully they can lead & influence across the enterprise. Their approach must include:
They can only thrive in the freedom of an inherently open operating platform, not a closed S2P suite. They need to be able to bring together best of breed, without fear of losing even an ounce of agility; or without adding a $ of cost.
Fortunately for me, (and I don’t take for granted the benefits it has brought me) I’ve spent the last two decades inside organizations pushing these boundaries. I’ve seen it work and the value creation is extraordinary. When it doesn’t, procurement becomes friction and noise - regardless of how talented the people are. This is where the need for a changing of the guard becomes visible.
Leading CPOs are making a conscious pivot away from two-dimensional functional consolidation, toward intelligent enterprise orchestration leading to meaningful business impact. Sadly other CPOs are waiting, and hoping the organization doesn’t notice the gap.
Let’s be clear: the CPOs who will find the next phase uncomfortable are not defined by age or experience, they are defined by behaviour.
They are the leaders who still equate value primarily with negotiated savings, who delegate technology and data strategy entirely to vendors or IT. They treat governance as a blocker rather than an enabler, they confuse pilots with progress and think activity equals impact whilst remaining functionally inward-looking, naive to the expectations of their dynamic business stakeholders.
These traits were survivable - even successful - in simpler environments but in complex, regulated, multi-country enterprises, and in a world where there are new dynamics that seem to shift the markets every week, these traits are limiting.
The good news? None of these mindsets are fixed. Every one of these behaviours can be unlearned.
Almost every CPO I speak to experimented with AI in 2025. They had sourcing optimisation pilots, built chatbots for supplier interaction and experimented with plug-and-play agents on isolated workflows. Some were useful, many were interesting but very few reshaped operating models. And look, that’s okay: exploration was necessary.
But in 2026, the narrative has shifted. Boards, CFOs & COOs are no longer impressed by experimentation without consequence. They are asking harder questions about scale, governance, accountability and trust.
You cannot layer AI onto broken processes and expect transformation.
You cannot scale agents across a global enterprise without clarity on decision ownership. It is imperative to set boundaries of autonomy, ensure data quality and lineage, build in performance reviews and accountability and - perhaps most importantly - to have the wisdom as to when to allow human override and escalation.
In complex organizations, throwing agents at complexity does not accelerate outcomes, it amplifies risk. This is why the conversation has moved from tools to frameworks from suites to intelligent operating platforms.There really is nothing "sweet" about a “suite”.
The hardest shift for the modern CPO is not technological, it is conceptual.
The role is no longer about being the loudest instrument in the orchestra. It is about orchestrating the system - and conducting it. The question has changed:
From: How do I control more spend?
To: How do I coordinate decisions across a system that no longer moves in straight lines?
That shift demands a new operating philosophy:
The strongest CPOs I see have embraced this. They are deliberately orchestrating symphonies of humans and agents, with governance built in, not bolted on. This is also why technology evaluation and platform strategy now matters more than ever.
There is no shortage of vendors offering “AI agents.” But there are very few who can demonstrate agents operating reliably and safely in complex, regulated, multi-country environments - with auditability, accountability and trust.
This is precisely the gap platforms like ORO were built to address: not automating procurement tasks, but orchestrating procurement decisions and empowering human leadership. Providing the structure, governance and intelligence that allows humans and agents to work together - safely, transparently and at scale.
We are already seeing shifts in how procurement leaders are recognised.
In 2025, Renault appointed its Chief Procurement Officer, François Provost, as CEO - a powerful signal that procurement leadership is increasingly viewed as enterprise leadership.
At Vertiv, a long-serving regional CPO was appointed President of EMEA, reflecting the value of leaders who understand complexity, operations and strategic trade-offs.
These are not anomalies. These are signals. Boards are recalibrating what leadership capability looks like in complex organisations and the exciting news is that Procurement is stepping center stage, finally getting its moment.
The modern CPO is no longer measured by category savings alone.
They are measured by how often procurement insight shapes capital allocation. They are being expected to demonstrate a much deeper partnership with finance, risk and operations. They certainly need to make AI (and the Agents that AI makes possible) a core part of their strategy and they need to intentionally design systems that work with complexity and can deliver the reality of the complex world they find themselves in.
Above all, the modern CPO is an influential enterprise leader.
They go deep with business stakeholders. They understand strategy and constraints. They remove friction, create leverage and enable better decisions, at speed. They are relentless, passionate, direct and disruptive. At times, they can feel uncomfortable to work with, but you know when you meet them that there is nothing we won’t be able to do if they believe in it.
This leader requires a different toolkit. And the ones I know well are choosing their technology and thought partners wisely and issuing warnings and ultimatums to those whose evidence of success doesn’t match their marketing narrative.
If you’re a CPO reading this and feeling slightly uncomfortable, that’s probably a good sign. Not because you’re failing - but because you recognise that your role is evolving faster than most organizations are willing to admit. But my encouragement to you is that this is an exciting time. The possibilities and opportunities feel almost limitless and there are an ever growing number of real success stories linked to large, global, complex organizations rewriting the rule book and redefining the framework. These giants have shown it is possible to move from the old ‘Suite First’ strategy underpinned by standardizing and configuration, to the hyperpersonalized approach that we offer at ORO with our intelligent orchestration platform.
There is room for most of us in this next chapter. But not without change.
The next generation of CPOs will not be defined by how hard they push procurement. They will be defined by how well they re-orchestrate it - and by the partners they choose to enable that journey.
2026 is the year this difference becomes visible.
I, for one, can’t wait.
Want to learn more about how ORO helps solve procurement challenges for future-looking CPOs? Sign up for our next monthly demo webinar here.