EXPERT SPOTLIGHT
Rujul Zaparde, Co-founder and CEO,
“ Shifting from reactive to proactive is central to procurement’ s future value”
Rujul Zaparde has spent a lifetime pushing the boundaries of what’ s possible in enterprise technology. A serial entrepreneur and forwardthinking operator, he is CEO and Co-Founder of Zip – the world’ s leading procurement orchestration company – where he drives vision and go-to-market functions, strategy and execution.
Zip empowers procurement in an increasingly complex environment. Its AI-powered orchestration platform revolutionises purchasing for leading names like Snowflake, Discover and Sephora, while a recent IDC report shows organisations save an average of US $ 14m using its solutions – Zip has saved global enterprises over US $ 4.4bn since it was founded four years ago.
This gives Rujul crucial insight into the mechanics of modern procurement.“ There’ s a new generation in procurement thinking,”
he reflects.“ Previously, it was about aggressive negotiations and cost cutting, but today’ s professionals emphasise supplier partnerships and stakeholder experience. There’ s a shared responsibility for procurement culture, where everyone protects the business from risk.”
This is critical against a backdrop of increasing complexity and disruption – key themes in this research.“ Since the pandemic we’ ve seen an explosion in complexity, including supply chain issues, ESG concerns, tariffs, inflation, geopolitical disruption and global multipolarity,” says Rujul.“ The CPO role is evolving rapidly and procurement teams are figuring out how to do much more with less.”
Rujul points to the combined labour and complexity challenge – enormous volatility but insufficient staff to handle it – as a pressing problem. And while digital transformation has moved beyond
12 The Survey 2025