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Hello {{first_name}} ,
Have you seen this? A critical supplier fails, a plant is exposed, or a major negotiation changes direction. Everyone waits for the same person to decide what happens next.
That person may be the CPO, Head of Procurement, or an exceptional category leader. It can look like leadership depth. Often, it is leadership capacity concentrated in one person.
Executive Premise
Succession is usually treated as a future vacancy question. A more useful CPO-level view is continuity: can Procurement make consequential decisions if its leader is unavailable for 30 days, promoted, or leaves?
Deloitte’s 2025 Global CPO Survey identifies talent development as a top priority and lists the talent gap among barriers preventing procurement value delivery for surveyed CPOs. ([Deloitte], 2025) McKinsey’s procurement leaders make the associated point directly: talent is the strongest predictor of procurement outcomes, while capability building and credible career planning matter for retaining strong people. ([McKinsey & Company], 2025)
Why This Matters
For a CEO, this is operating continuity. For a CPO, it is institutional strength.
Harvard Business Review warns that organisations can maintain successor lists and still place leaders in roles for which they are unprepared; the gap is often not potential, but exposure to the strategic, financial, and operational demands of the next role. ([Harvard Business Review], 2003)
Reuters reported in 2025 that Next investors were concerned about key-person risk around its long-serving CEO and said limited contact with leaders below him made bench strength difficult to judge. ([Reuters], 2025) Procurement rarely faces that public scrutiny. Yet a supply disruption, supplier insolvency, difficult make-or-buy decision, or cash escalation can expose the same weakness immediately.
The Real Dynamic
The weak succession plan names people. The useful one maps decisions.
The next CPO is not necessarily the best category manager. A high performer may know the suppliers, run a complex spend area, and deliver under pressure. That is valuable. But the next-level test begins when a person must choose between imperfect options and carry the consequence across Procurement, Finance, Operations, Engineering, and the executive team.
CPO Path’s practical distinction is threefold:
Operating cover: who can make a critical decision next week?
Successor path: who could make it within 12 months after one defined experience?
Leadership potential: who has promise but has not yet carried enough consequence to be assessed fairly?
This is not an HR talent grid. It is a continuity map.
Critical decision | 30-day cover | Successor path | Evidence still required |
|---|---|---|---|
Supply continuity crisis | Named decision owner | Candidate | Lead a live disruption response |
Major commercial negotiation | Named decision owner | Candidate | Own strategy and final recommendation |
Source change / investment case | Named decision owner | Candidate | Present risk, margin and continuity trade-offs |
Cash or payment-term escalation | Named decision owner | Candidate | Lead the Finance-facing recommendation |
Executive risk review | Named decision owner | Candidate | Brief management and defend the decision |
The aim is not to create a race for titles. It is to identify where judgment, authority, and business memory are concentrated. HBR’s succession research is relevant here: a strong track record in one role does not automatically prepare someone for the wider financial and strategic demands of the next. ([Harvard Business Review], 2003)
What Strong Leaders Do Differently
They separate immediate coverage from long-term succession. A deputy who can stabilise a supplier crisis next week may not yet be ready to lead the function. A future CPO may still need a finance-heavy decision, a plant escalation, or an executive risk briefing before the business can trust the transition. This turns talent discussion into operating reality. ([Harvard Business Review], 2003)
They give their strongest people one consequential assignment rather than another enlarged workload: lead the supplier-failure review, make the recommendation, brief the CFO, and run the follow-up. McKinsey’s procurement perspective supports capability building and career planning as part of retaining top talent; the CPO Path interpretation is that development becomes credible when it produces evidence of judgment under real conditions. ([McKinsey & Company], 2025)
They review the map quarterly with the CEO or business sponsor: where is ready-now cover, where is the gap, and which experience will close it? Deloitte flags talent gaps as a material constraint on procurement value delivery. ([Deloitte], 2025)
Keeping the best people permanently inside the roles where they already perform well may protect this quarter while weakening the next leadership layer.
CPO Path Diagnostic
Question | Fully true | Partly true | Not true |
We know which five procurement decisions depend most on one person. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
Every critical decision has a named 30-day cover. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
We distinguish immediate cover from a future CPO succession path. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
Every successor candidate has one defined consequential assignment. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
Our CEO could understand Procurement’s bench strength in one page. | ☐ | ☐ | ☐ |
One-Line Verdict
A procurement leader builds a stronger function when critical judgment becomes transferable rather than personal.
Hi {{first_name}}, how is your path going?
I read every single message, and past posts already shaped this space. Reach out to me and tell me what you’re up to and the path you’ve chosen and please share your thoughts about our journey on you preferred platform. CPO Path is free, help me keep it that way.
Talk soon,
Pascal
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SOURCES
Deloitte. (2025, August 19). Procurement at the Tipping Point: Deloitte’s 2025 Chief Procurement Officer Survey Reveals the Pressure and Promise of Technology Disruption. Retrieved from https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/about/press-room/2025-chief-procurement-officer-survey.html
Harvard Business Review. (2003, December). Developing Your Leadership Pipeline. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2003/12/developing-your-leadership-pipeline
McKinsey & Company. (2025, February 25). Procurement 2025: Reimagining the Function for Success. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/procurement-2025-reimagining-the-function-for-success
Reuters. (2025, March 27). Next CEO’s Billion Pound Milestone Stirs Succession Concern. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/next-ceos-billion-pound-milestone-stirs-succession-concern-2025-03-27/
Thank you for reading,
Pascal Hecker | Editor-In-Chief, CPO Path.