The Sourcing Hero

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