Procurement Professional is the official publication of CIPS Australia.

Procurement leaders prep for new executive roles

04 Feb 2010

Source: Purchasing.com, 1 February 2010

Chief procurement officers (CPO) view their current role as a career stepping stone to other high-level positions either in their present company or another different company.

That's a finding of a new study by Accenture and good news for the profession, said Kai Nowosel, one of the authors of "Painting a portrait of the Chief Procurement Officer," in an interview with Purchasing.com. Of their expectations for their next career move, nearly 80% of CPOs say they aspire to go up, with 40% looking for promotion within their existing company. Eighty-two percent acknowledge that they are likely to hold their current role for less than three years.

Where are they moving to? Twenty-six percent say the outgoing CPO was promoted or rotated at the same level. Twenty-eight percent say the CPO role is new to the organization.

These results and others in the survey are indicative of the increasing recognition of the value of procurement to an organization. "It's exciting. It shows that procurement has become a career path," Nowosel said.

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