2027 Agenda

For years, businesses planned for disruption to pass. Now they must lead through it. In this session the CEO of one of the world’s largest food and beverage businesses shares the decisions that mattered, the mistakes they learned from and how they’re preparing for what comes next. Expect candid answers on what to keep funding when finance is pushing cost control, and how to make the call when the data is incomplete. 

How are tariff and trade-policy decisions made, and where do the first signals emerge? This session examines what Mercosur means for beef, poultry and sugar, and how EUDR and CBAM put compliance and supply security under pressure. It also explains why buying less directly from China may still leave businesses exposed, and how policy signals can inform sourcing decisions as they develop. 

What will procurement look like over the next decade, and who will shape it? This keynote explores how the function’s role could evolve, what that means for the people leading it, and the skills and capabilities they should start building now. You’ll leave with a clearer view of where procurement is heading and how to help shape its future. 

How can AI free up procurement’s capacity and expand its influence on supply, risk, margin and growth? A CPO shares practical lessons on taking a broader enterprise role and leading with a GM and P&L mindset.  

AI investment needs to deliver results the business can see. This panel explores what has to change in procurement’s processes, people and decision-making for that to happen. Panellists discuss how AI can improve market analysis, category strategy and commercial decisions, with procurement, finance and commercial teams inside the business working from a shared internal view of costs and pricing. They also cover how to prove value, secure investment and move beyond pilots, and who owns decisions and sensitive data as work crosses functions. 

Buying from several suppliers can still leave you dependent on one producer, geography or route. An acquisition can concentrate that exposure overnight without procurement changing a single sourcing decision. This session looks beyond tier one at the dependencies buyers miss, why frameworks built for occasional shocks struggle with constant change and demand swings, and how to act when the evidence is incomplete. 

As automation takes routine work out of buying, supplier relationships become a growing source of competitive advantage. This keynote explores which suppliers deserve long-term investment and what that partnership should deliver. It covers why collaboration stalls when it is under-resourced or hard to measure, how supplier innovation gets past “not invented here”, and what survives of years of trust when a supplier changes hands. 

When supply tightens, suppliers decide who gets served first. Does your most important supplier rank you where you think they do? This session looks at what earns buyers priority and how planning, procurement and suppliers make decisions together. It also examines indexation, hybrid pricing and force majeure provisions that hold under pressure, and how supplier relationships can become your earliest warning of disruption. 

Take fifteen minutes on your own to decide what you’ll do differently. What did you hear today that changes an existing plan? Where is your organisation most exposed? Which talent or capability decision needs another look? What’s the first call you’ll make tomorrow? Everyone leaves with a personal Action Card: one changed decision, one identified exposure and one committed action.