Every CEO should prove themselves as a CPO!

EVERY CEO SHOULD PROVE THEMSELVES 'AS A CPO’ BEFORE LANDING THE TOP JOB!

Your most provocative influencer in the organisation isn’t a board member, a shareholder, or even the CFO. It’s the Chief Procurement Officer!

Many don’t yet realise it, but the CPO is the CEO’s right-hand person, or at least should be.

Procurement is the one role that sees the whole ecosystem at once: the money in, the money out, the risks in between, the suppliers who build it, and the customers it ultimately impacts. In a world defined by volatility, disruption, and constant reinvention, this perspective is invaluable – it’s what makes procurement an unstoppable force!

This raises a fundamental question: why isn’t procurement universally recognised as the ultimate prerequisite for the top job?

The reality is that many organisations treat procurement as a rotation or a transaction. However, some procurement functions are where ambitious executives are dropped for a short tour of duty before they “graduate” into something supposedly more prestigious. That mindset is not only outdated, it’s dangerous. You would never parachute someone into the CFO’s seat without the hard credentials of finance. You would never drop an untested executive into the role of General Counsel. So why is it considered acceptable to hand procurement, the function that governs company expenditure, manages risk across global supply chains, and touches (when done well) every lever of growth, to leaders without procurement expertise?

“Procurement is not a pitstop.”

Procurement is where strategy meets reality. And it is precisely this crucible that makes it the most credible pathway to the CEO seat.

My opinion is strong, because when you have led procurement teams and high-calibre technical people bringing diverse skills, fresh perspectives, outside-of-the-box thinking, you have led the hardest, most complex, most exposed part of the business - you have really seen it all. The path from CPO to CEO is about building what I call winning enterprise DNA. This is not a neat framework or a tidy set of KPIs that you can download from ChatGPT or Google. It is a formula forged over years of experience and tested under fire. It comes from scars earned in crises, restructures, and supplier failures. It is sharpened by influence across finance, risk, sustainability, technology, and growth. It is built on failures that harden resilience, on war stories that sharpen judgement, and on the humility to learn, adapt, and evolve.

The most experienced leaders know that DNA is never complete. Every challenge, every setback, every win adds to it. Strong leaders don’t cling to their experience as if it is something to be protected like their ego. They share it, they discuss it, they optimise and elevate it – this is your entry ticket to the CEO lounge.

The uncomfortable truth is that parachuting into the top job is easy, but surviving the whirlwind is not. Anyone can fall into the seat. Few have the DNA to withstand the turbulence that follows. And I don’t mean the fake turbulence because you’re new to procurement and learning as you’re going – I mean the real deal: strategy accountability, resilience, workforce development, budget control, process optimisation, innovation, growth, customer, stakeholder, supplier, and most importantly, team respect.

This is why the role of the proper CPO is an essential pathway to CEO. It demands leaders to balance strategy and execution, risk and resilience, commercial logic and human empathy, all in real time, all under pressure with the entire organisation watching - not behind your screen with AI suggesting key words that make a fool sound fresh!

“If you can lead here, you can lead anywhere.”

Diluting the CPO role into a temporary rotation does more than weaken procurement. It weakens the business. It strips the profession of its credibility, downplays its complexity, and sidelines the leaders who have the foresight to transform organisations. That approach is not just short-sighted, it is reckless.

“Procurement leaders are not caretakers; they are value creators, risk navigators and future shapers – quite simply, they are CEOs-in-waiting.”

At Think Fresh Advisory (TFA), we see this in action every day. The leaders who take procurement seriously, who embrace it as a proving ground, elevate entire businesses - they are the ones who create competitive advantage where others see only cost.

The professionals we work with manage risk before it becomes disruption. They unlock innovation through supplier ecosystems. They orchestrate change that sticks. And they do it with the agility, resilience, and commercial nous that modern CEOs so desperately need. In essence, these CPOs, they become unstoppable.

This is why we built The Executive Spheretable, not as another conference or networking event, but as an arena. A place where procurement leaders can stress-test their ideas, sharpen their DNA, and build the courage to set the executive agenda.

The conversations we’ve had in this arena are not about incremental savings; they are about transformation, about resilience, about the role of procurement as the nerve centre of the enterprise. It is where leaders prove that procurement is not a tick-box career stage but the ultimate training ground for the top job.

This is the truth boards need to hear. Procurement is not a consolation prize. It is not a shortcut. It is not a stepping stone. It is the real leadership test.

By Libby Tzimos

Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, Think Fresh Advisory (TFA)