EXPERT SPOTLIGHT
Michael Van Keulen, Industry Practice
“ My advice to procurement leaders is to embrace everything we’ re talking about here, particularly around AI”
Michael van Keulen – or MVK to those who know him well – needs little introduction. As the global spend management company’ s Industry Practice Leader Procurement and self-confessed‘ Procurement Evangelist’, he is a senior leader who brings a wealth of experience to the challenges, complexities and opportunities faced by modern procurement.
MVK is a CPO at heart and hugely passionate about the profession. Over the last 20 years he has led global transformations at the likes of Lululemon, VF Corp and – most recently – Coupa. The latter is the global leader in AI-native total spend management, helping some 3,000 companies to intelligently manage US $ 8tn worth of spend
and more than 10 million buyers and suppliers. At Coupa, MVK leverages transformation and strategy to empower and elevate procurement.“ As a procurement enthusiast it’ s a super exciting time to be part of an innovative tech company at the heart of the industry, seeing new innovations like AI transforming how procurement works, and knowing from my work with procurement teams that there’ s a really bright future ahead for the profession,” he says.
Procurement has evolved significantly over MVK’ s career, driven by many of the key trends at the heart of this global survey.“ The function has never been more relevant,” he states.“ Global disruption, tariffs, new technologies
8 The Procurement Survey 2025