Procurement can feel like the loneliest seat in the business. You’re the one who has to say no when everyone else wants to say yes. You carry the risk nobody else wants to own. Get it right and nobody notices. Get it wrong and everybody does.

I remember sitting in the audience at my daughter’s school play. She was ten. I should have been watching her, but my head was stuck in a loop of anxiety over the wording of a travel policy I’d just published to a business of 8,000 employees. I clapped when everyone else clapped. I couldn’t tell you a single thing she did on that stage. I never told her that. But I’ve always carried that guilt.

That’s procurement people for you. We want to prove our value. We want to help as much as we possibly can. So we carry things nobody asked us to carry.

I felt responsible, not just to myself, but to the business, to do the right thing. That’s where my procurement heart is. Done right, procurement doesn’t just save a business money or save jobs. It drives revenue. It drives innovation. All the sexy stuff sales usually gets the credit for.

I built this because it’s exactly what I wish I’d had that night in the audience, ten years ago, worrying about a policy instead of watching my daughter.