EXECUTIVE INSIGHT
Anders Lillevik is CEO and Founder of Focal Point . Established just over four years ago , Anders has helped the company achieve rapid growth , leveraging his 25 + years of experience in the procurement space , and as a former Chief Procurement Officer for several large-scale organisations . With his experience in building and turning around large , complex procurement organisations to be best in class . Anders has an extensive background in rolling out new procurement infrastructure and optimising legacy technology investments . With this experience , Anders founded Focal Point to help organisations maximise the value of their procurement spend .
During his time as head of procurement at these large organisations that inspired Anders to found Focal Point .
Speaking to Procurement Magazine , Anders discussed how he ended up in procurement , the future of supply chains and why celebrating procurement is so important .
Q . HOW DID YOU END UP WORKING IN THE PROCUREMENT SPACE ?
» When I graduated college in the nineties , I fell into an accounting job and hated it . I decided to get my MBA , which included a co-op program : four months of school , four months of work . My first co-op placement was in a procurement organisation at Bank of Montreal , where a procurement function was being built from scratch .
“ I started in technology procurement sourcing and found it fascinating … and never looked back ”
Kearney , one of the best procurement consultants in the business , was assisting in setting up the shop . They needed me for performance analysis to track and validate money saved . I also built a spend analysis tool to track all supplier expenses . In two months , I developed a supplier analysis solution , normalising three accounts payable data sources . They were impressed and offered to support my MBA part-time while I worked there . I stayed for four or five years . Initially , my boss had me automate everything , and once I did , I transitioned into sourcing roles . I started in technology procurement sourcing and found it fascinating . It wasn ’ t planned , but I found it super cool and never looked back .
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