Hi {{first_name}} ,

Today’s episode is about getting signal through the noise.

Many procurement leaders try to win executive attention too directly. Across recent procurement research, the more reliable route is different: procurement gains top-level attention when its value is already visible through the agendas of other functions and when the message is framed in enterprise terms rather than procurement terms. (McKinsey, 2025) (McKinsey, 2023) CEOs do not usually engage longer because a topic is important to procurement. They engage when the issue is legible as a business matter: resilience, growth, capital efficiency, execution reliability, or margin quality. (McKinsey, 2025) (McKinsey, 2023)

A consistent pattern across recent procurement work is that the function’s mandate is widening beyond savings and sourcing into resilience, sustainability, innovation, and broader value creation. (McKinsey, 2025) (McKinsey, 2023) At the same time, Deloitte’s 2025 CPO survey found that siloed ways of working were the most-cited barrier to procurement value delivery, identified by 57% of respondents. (Deloitte, 2025) The leadership implication is practical: if procurement value depends increasingly on cross-functional outcomes, then upward visibility rarely comes from self-description alone. It comes from validated relevance that other leaders can already confirm from their own operating reality. (Deloitte, 2025) (Harvard Business Review, 2024)

The hidden leadership problem is not that procurement lacks substance. In many cases, it has the opposite problem: strong substance presented in a way that remains too function-centered for executive attention.

Procurement often reports itself through category language, savings logic, sourcing milestones, policy adherence, contract status, and supplier actions. Those are necessary management elements. But they are not, by themselves, executive language. A CEO rarely asks whether procurement has run a disciplined process. The more likely questions are different: What business exposure has been reduced? What execution risk has been lowered? What margin pressure has been contained? What capital has been deployed more intelligently? What growth plan is now more credible?

This is where lateral proof becomes decisive.

In most organisations, CEOs do not rely on one function’s self-assessment alone. They look for signals that a topic matters beyond the originating team. Procurement becomes easier to hear when finance sees stronger cost discipline or cleaner investment logic, when operations sees fewer disruptions or more realistic supplier commitments, when sales sees more reliable delivery assumptions, or when engineering sees earlier supplier input reducing later redesign and cost lock-in. That is not politics in a cheap sense. It is cross-functional evidence.

Harvard Business Review’s work on siloed organisations supports the same logic: leaders become more effective when they understand peers’ priorities and constraints rather than operating only through their own vertical lens. (Harvard Business Review, 2024) McKinsey’s 2023 procurement work points in the same direction by describing a broader procurement agenda that extends into cross-functional value creation and has implications from strategic development through to sales and marketing. (McKinsey, 2023)

This is also why some strong procurement leaders stall. Tactical leaders try to move upward through escalation, visibility requests, or better presentation alone. More mature leaders build relevance sideways first. They solve a problem that another trusted function already cares about, and they make that value visible in a language that can travel upward without translation.

The sequence matters. If procurement goes straight to the CEO with a function-led case, it often sounds like advocacy. If procurement arrives with lateral proof already established, the same issue sounds like management information.

The mature frame is therefore not: “How do I get the CEO to pay attention to procurement?” It is: “Which business-critical issue can procurement improve so clearly that CEO attention becomes a rational next step?”

They choose the first validating ally based on business pressure, not habit. In a margin-driven company, finance may be the strongest amplifier. In a disruption-heavy environment, operations may be. In a project business, engineering or program leadership may matter more.

They translate procurement into consequence. They do not say, “Procurement needs earlier involvement.” They say, “Late supplier and specification decisions are increasing cost lock-in and execution risk.”

They avoid self-referential reporting. Procurement effort is rarely the point. Business effect is.

They build evidence that others can repeat upward. The strongest executive message is often one that another function could confirm without being prompted.

They understand that CEO attention is usually earned through credibility, not requested through hierarchy.

Procurement earns CEO attention fastest when the business has already learned to trust its value from the side.

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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. (2024, January 11). How to Lead Across a Siloed Organization. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2024/01/how-to-lead-across-a-siloed-organization

McKinsey & Company. (2023, September 27). A New Era for Procurement: Value Creation Across the Supply Chain. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/a-new-era-for-procurement-value-creation-across-the-supply-chain

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

Thank you for reading,

Pascal Hecker | Editor-In-Chief, CPO Path.