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Case Study: PE-Backed European Infrastructure Company – First Head of Procurement

Situation

A PE-backed European infrastructure company owned and operated more than 350 infrastructure assets across Europe.

The company generated approximately EUR 400 million in annual revenue, employed around 400 people and managed procurement and CapEx spend of approximately EUR 150 million.

Despite the scale of the business, procurement had never been established as a formal function.

Responsibility for purchasing sat with engineers and project managers, who sourced materials, components and external services through local supplier relationships and personal networks.

This approach had worked during the company's earlier growth phase, but had become increasingly difficult to sustain.

The company faced:

  • fragmented supplier management
  • inconsistent contract governance
  • limited visibility across spend and suppliers
  • dependence on local supplier relationships and a sourcing approach that had become materially less competitive than international alternatives.
  • increasing cost pressure driven by geopolitical developments
  • limited ability to scale efficiently

A newly appointed COO concluded that procurement had become a bottleneck for growth and operational performance.

Without a professional procurement function, the company risked continued supplier dependency, weak contract management and an inability to support its next phase of growth.

Mandate

We were engaged by the investor and management team to recruit the company's first Head of Procurement.

This was not a traditional procurement leadership role.

The selected candidate would need to:

  • build the procurement function from scratch
  • establish procurement processes, governance and reporting
  • create visibility across spend and suppliers
  • reduce dependency on fragmented local sourcing
  • develop a more internationally competitive sourcing strategy
  • build and lead a team of category and contract managers
  • work credibly with engineers, project managers, senior leadership and investors
  • transform procurement from an operational activity into a strategic business function

For the investor, the role was strategically important because procurement had direct impact on:

  • project economics
  • cost competitiveness
  • supplier risk
  • capital expenditure
  • scalability
  • EBITDA improvement potential
  • value creation in the investment case

Search Challenge

The search required a rare combination of capabilities.

Candidates needed:

  • experience building procurement organisations from scratch
  • a background in project-driven and technically complex businesses
  • international sourcing experience
  • credibility with engineers and operational leaders
  • the ability to operate in a fast-moving, PE-backed environment
  • A hands-on approach combined with enough seniority to work directly with the COO, HR, board representatives and investors.

The challenge was not finding procurement executives.

The challenge was finding executives who had already built a procurement organisation in a similarly entrepreneurial and operationally complex environment.

Search Process

We supported the investor and management team through:

  • clarification of the role and mandate and span of control
  • definition of the leadership profile and required experience
  • international talent mapping
  • longlist development
  • structured interviews and candidate assessment
  • continuous calibration between management, HR and investor representatives

Within four weeks, we had identified and presented the first group of highly relevant candidates.

Within eight weeks:

  • 14 qualified senior candidates had been identified and approached
  • 5 candidates had been shortlisted
  • several rounds of interviews had been completed with the COO, HR, investor representatives and board participation

a final hiring decision had been made

Outcome

The selected candidate stood out because he had previously built procurement organisations in international project businesses, combined strong engineering credibility with global sourcing experience and was able to operate effectively in a highly entrepreneurial environment.

The appointment gave the company the capability to establish its first formal procurement organisation, recruit category and contract management capabilities, introduce procurement governance and launch a more internationally competitive sourcing strategy. 

Within the first phase after the hire, the new Head of Procurement was expected to:

  • establish the company's first formal procurement organisation
  • recruit category and contract management capabilities
  • create procurement governance and spend transparency
  • launch a more competitive international sourcing approach
  • strengthen supplier management and contract discipline
  • support the company's next growth phase with a more scalable procurement model
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