THE PROCUREMENT INTERVIEW
For many seasoned executives, procurement was not a carefully mapped-out destination, but a fortunate accident. For Kai Nowosel, Chief Procurement Officer at The Adecco Group, his entry into the field was the absolute definition of serendipity. Armed with an economics degree and a deep passion for environmental economics, his career took an unexpected turn when his confirmed employer went bankrupt before his very first day on the job.
Without a plan B, Kai had to find a way to earn money while continuing his job search. He took a student worker role at Deutsche Bank, an institution he admitted he never originally wanted to work for, viewing it and Mercedes at the time as perhaps too elite and wondering if it was the right fit.
It was there that a chance conversation with an HR colleague changed his trajectory forever. The bank had just hired its first Chief Procurement Officer from IBM, Helmut Flockerzi. After an intense one-hour meeting, Helmut left Kai with a confounding remark:“ I was looking for everybody but you.”
Yet, 24 hours later, an email offer arrived. Helmut valued Kai’ s passion, personality and commitment over traditional supply chain experience. Kai became employee number three in the newly formed department. This early exposure to building a corporate function completely from scratch, working alongside
“Procurement is probably one of the most dynamic, undervalued and permanently renewed functions in a company”
Kai Nowosel Chief Procurement Officer The Adecco Group
one of the greatest leaders he would ever meet, shaped his disruptive, lifelong approach to the profession.
A business lens on transformation Rather than rising through the traditional ranks of supply chain negotiations, Kai attributes his successful career to looking at the profession through an alternative, highly commercial lens rather than relying on textbook theory:“ I think the benefit I had was a business lens, not a procurement lens. And it was more a business job than it was a procurement job to start with.”
This perspective proved invaluable during his early days at Deutsche Bank, when the institution was transitioning its massive corporate infrastructure from a legacy terminal host environment to a first-time clientserver network. Instead of focusing strictly on transactional procurement operations, Kai tackled complex business and logistical problems.
24 October 2026