OMNEA
What motivated him was the distance between procurement’ s current reality and its potential.“ What drives me is impact. The opportunity to be the procurement guy who transforms systems, processes and the way the company operates, delivering a direct impact on the bottom line. You can make such a huge difference.”
Agreeing the terms Before Kai accepted the role, he insisted on having one conversation that mattered more than any other: a conversation with the CFO. His message was straightforward: a real procurement transformation would create friction. People would push back. Business units would find new structures uncomfortable. Kai needed to know that when that moment came, and he promised it would come, the business would hold the line.
“ No matter how carefully you walk as a procurement person, there will be people saying:‘ He stepped on my toe.’ And culturally, that is the moment of truth. The business can react by either saying:‘ I appreciate the person stepped on your toe, but it had to happen,’ or by saying:‘ Oh, I’ m really sorry. I’ ll make sure that the person never comes close to you again.’”
For Kai, the starting point was creating a shared understanding that meaningful transformation would necessitate some short-term pain.“ If you allow for distance, you’ re eliminating my solution space. If you eliminate my solution space, I’ m a receiver of orders and then perform actions and that’ s not what a procurement function should do.”
What he found in the first 90 days Once in the role, Kai spent his first 90 days watching before changing anything. What he found was a team that was, by any operational measure, good at its job, responsive, helpful and trusted by the business. The problem was that being helpful had become the whole job.
“ After 90 days, the biggest surprise was how little the team differentiated between what is just pleasing and what is really creating value. I don’ t pride myself on having fixed something. I pride myself on having anticipated something that doesn’ t need fixing anymore.”
The cause ran deeper: a procurement function operating without the systems or structure to capture demand before it became a transaction. The team lacked strategic visibility. Requests came in through email, through relationships, through informal channels, fragmented across hundreds of legal entities and multiple ERPs, with no unified view of what was being spent. The data required to anticipate problems, shape demand and negotiate from a position of strength simply didn’ t exist.
52 September 2026