Procurement LIVE: The London Summit returns to the QEII Centre on 8-9 September 2026, drawing more than 1,000 attendees and around 50 speakers for two days of panels, workshops and keynotes. Four Chief Procurement Officers headline the Procurement Stage, each addressing a different structural challenge reshaping the function - from AI-driven strategy shifts to the future of strategic sourcing itself.
Sessions to put on the schedule
Vivian Wu, VP of Global Indirect Procurement at The Estée Lauder Companies, opens the stage on Day 1 at 10:00 BST. She oversees roughly US$8bn in global indirect spend and leads an international team of more than 100 professionals. Her keynote tackles a question every CPO faces: what does procurement bring to the table now that AI is redefining corporate strategy? Wu will examine how intelligent automation, predictive analytics and data-driven insight push procurement beyond transactional efficiency into strategic supplier partnerships, cross-functional innovation and supply chain risk mitigation.
Rob Turner, Global Director of Procurement & Supply Chain at DoorDash, takes the stage at 11:50 BST. He partners with C-Suite executives to drive sustainable growth by transforming static procurement teams into high-impact functions. Turner's session draws on a live, large-scale integration across a global platform business, where he was asked to lead procurement transformation from inside the company that had just been acquired - not from the acquirer's seat. The talk sets out practical lessons for building a coalition without hierarchy, using data to depoliticise decisions, and translating cost and risk into language that gets executive attention. Attendees leave with a working framework for leading change through an acquisition, whichever side of the deal they are on.
Nikki Wright, Chief Procurement Officer at MS Amlin, closes the first day's headline slots at 14:00 BST. She brings 20 years of experience guiding B2B and B2C product-led businesses through critical transformation phases, from start-ups and scale-ups to IPOs and exits. Wright addresses how the CPO role is shifting from cost management toward board-level strategic leadership, balancing AI-driven automation with high-touch commercial value while navigating continuous supply chain disruption. Her session also covers deploying emerging technology and developing the talent to lead procurement forward.
Day 2 at 14:00 BST brings the summit's sharpest provocation. Rob Alexander, Chief Procurement Officer at Biffa, draws on his company's waste and resource management heritage to ask whether strategic sourcing should be retired altogether or reshaped into an agile, continuous model. He challenges the industry's reliance on rigid, multi-year sourcing cycles that too often produce static contracts rather than dynamic value. Alexander is an experienced transformation leader who has operated across blue-chip corporations, private equity-backed entities and mid-sized private enterprises.
Why this matters for executives and strategy leaders
These four sessions map directly to the pressures procurement executives are navigating right now: justifying the function's value as AI rewrites operational playbooks, leading integration from a position of formal weakness, and deciding whether legacy methodologies still earn their keep. For leaders building teams that can handle this shift, targeted upskilling in how AI applies to procurement and supply chain is becoming a practical necessity - not a future consideration.
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