I Won’t Back Down: A Leader’s Guide to Courage and Overcoming the Fear of AI Disruption

As AI and automation change the procurement landscape, what skills will you actually need to stay relevant?

Natasha, Conrad, and Zach break down how the profession is evolving from a narrow focus on savings to a strategic function centered on value, speed, and customer service. They provide a practical guide on the new critical skills required for CPOs, directors, and individual contributors to thrive in the age of AI.

You’ll learn about the new skills for:

• The CPO (Chief Procurement Officer): The CPO’s role is shifting to that of an “inspirer” and a “catalyst of a change”. Natasha argues CPOs will spend as much as 70% of their time on “sales”—selling their vision to the organization. They must be “knowledgeable enough to ask the right questions” about new tech and possess the “intuition” to “zoom in on the things that matter”.
• Directors & Mid-Level Leaders: This level needs an “absolute willingness and even enthusiasm around change“. They must also be “bolder” in hiring to bring in diverse skill sets like data science and coding to build a more capable team.
• Individual Contributors & Category Managers: As AI automates technical knowledge, “soft skills” like EQ are being prioritized. The hosts suggest hiring people with backgrounds in English and philosophy , warning that if 80% of your job is done by ChatGPT, “you’re not going to have that position for a very long time”. The key is to use AI to “elevate your thinking,” not replace it.

Watch now or read the transcript below.

Transcript: Proc-N-Roll | I Won’t Back Down: A Leader’s Guide to Courage and Overcoming the Fear of AI Disruption

Zach: Welcome to Proc and Roll. Today’s episode is all about the future skills required in procurement. Procurement is changing a lot, right? We’ve talked about the move from savings to value , and that’s shifting towards customer service and speed. It’s only natural that skills are going to evolve. Let’s start with the CPO role. Natasha, how do you see the CPO role evolving?

Natasha: For CPOs, the big emphasis is still on inspiration and an ability to move business forward. This means inspiring your internal team to be part of the massive technological changes , but also being a great catalyst of change within the organization. I think CPOs will continue to spend 70% of their time on sales —selling their vision, selling their strategies, and shining a light on the necessity of the changes procurement is driving.

Conrad: I think leadership is about seeing where you need to be and then laying out the path to get there. But as we enter this phase of massive technology transformation, the future is moving much faster. The successful CPOs will be the ones that can navigate at speed, digest a whole bunch of ambiguity and uncertainty, and crystallize it enough to move generally in the right direction.

Zach: Doesn’t that require really deep technological experience?

Conrad: These presidents don’t know everything; they can’t know everything. You’ve got to get comfortable making decisions without knowing everything. To me, it comes down to learning and surrounding yourself with advice from the right people.

Natasha: I would add that you have to be knowledgeable enough. If you have $100 million in tail spend that isn’t addressed, you have to be knowledgeable enough about what solutions exist at the tail spend market. When your team brings you two solutions, you have to be knowledgeable enough to ask the right questions. What problems will it solve? How easily will it integrate? What is the risk? You don’t have to know how it works on the back end , but you need the problem-solving skills and ability to zoom out and look at the entire procurement landscape.

Conrad: I’ve worked for leaders who have this uncanny ability to ask the question I didn’t want them to ask. They zoom in on the things that matter. I don’t know if it’s intuition or just wisdom, but those are amazing leaders.

Natasha: I would call it intuition, experience, and the ability to think broadly by taking off your functional CPO hat and putting on the enterprise leader hat.

Zach: What about the level below that, the director level? Do they need to be more technical?

Conrad: The director that’s going to fail with me is the one that keeps getting hung up on the change. Things are going to change rapidly, and they need to have an “absolute willingness and even enthusiasm around change”. If they’re resisting the speed of change, I’m going to have somebody in there that can embrace change.

Natasha: I agree. I’d like to see mid-level management focus on their teams and come up with a “gamification plan”. How do you engage the teams in building their own agents? How do you create a competition, like making October the “month of identifying AI biases?” Through gamification, find a way to weave technology into your team and stitch it to everyday tasks.

Zach: I agree. One thing I would add is that directors should be “bolder” in their hiring. Why don’t we hire people who have data science expertise or who know how to code? Look at hiring outside your usual pools of procurement talent.

Natasha: I love that you’re bringing up recruiting differently. I am very interested in people who specialize in English and in philosophy. The importance of being very good in English is extremely important because it’s not just about how you structure a prompt, but what are you going to do with that information? If your report will be 100% produced by ChatGPT without you weaving in your personal analysis, rest assured you’re not going to have that position for a very long time.

Zach: That’s super interesting. It’s not just prompt engineering; it’s your language skills. I’d also add the storytelling aspect of language.

Conrad: One of the best people I ever hired was Aaron, a software developer I hired out of his MBA program. I put him in charge of the IT category because he speaks IT. But then I could go to him and say, “Hey, I’m trying to automate this spreadsheet,” and he was like, “Yeah, that’s no problem”. That started a relationship of transformation and innovation that was a game changer for our organization.

Zach: Let’s take category management. AI can potentially do a lot of that, right?

Conrad: One of the best people I ever hired was a finance person who had never done procurement or software category management. We made a shift to de-prioritize technical procurement skills and focus on what mattered most: the EQ, the people, and the soft skills. AI will help people come up to speed really fast on the category, but that thing that really made them good—their ability to communicate and influence—that doesn’t change.

Natasha: I’m thinking that influence, impact, and empowering no longer belong just to the head of procurement; those skills sit on every level. I think procurement teams will start getting smaller. Everyone will have a role to play, and responsibilities will grow. I am also hopeful companies will realize you cannot go with your guns blazing on AI if you don’t even have a PO system or if half your organization is shadow procurement.

Zach: What I’m getting here is that the human side of things is actually more important than ever.

Natasha: And thinking skills. Don’t take everything that a machine speeds up at face value because machines have biases. Be courageous. Changes are here. It’s a natural human propensity to avoid change; there’s a medical term for it, metathesiophobia, the fear of change. I think having the courage of running towards something that intimidates you… keep driving the change.

Zach: Thank you to all our listeners. Please drop us any comments or thoughts that you have. See you next time.

This transcript has been edited for clarity while maintaining all substantive content