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Virginie Vast, Head of Cognitive Procurement and Digital Sourcing, Vodafone Procurement Company

The Vodafone Procurement Company centrally manages around €20 billion of spend every year for Vodafone businesses and partners in 26+ countries.  Its 300+ category managers will soon be using cognitive computing to support virtually every aspect of the procurement and supply chain management process.  The aim is to create the ‘category managers of the future’, to turbo-charge decision making and to open up new business opportunities through the practise of ‘self-disruption’. Virginie is leading the way and her presentation introduces us to…

  • The technology decision – what is cognitive, the supplier landscape and why ‘going cognitive’ is a journey of discovery and disruption
  • The category manager of the future – how cognitive technologies will augment their intelligence, accelerate their decisions and liberate their thinking
  • The new business opportunity – how using AI will create a whole new business opportunity for Vodafone Procurement Company to provide cognitive procurement services
  • The surprising fact – why cost saving didn’t feature in Vodafone’s decision to adopt AI
  • The expansion opportunity – beyond the supply chain

Virginie has worked for Vodafone in a number of executive roles since 2009, joining its technology team in 2012 to build the company’s data centre software strategy, the transformation strategy to outsource procurement activities to shared services, and the tactical sourcing strategy.  In 2016 she was appointed to her current role – a new one for the organisation – created to build a digitally driven procurement function.  Before joining Vodafone she held senior procurement roles for Siemens in Germany and her native France.  She has a double masters in business administration from the University of Connecticut, USA and Goteborg University, Sweden.