"I had to learn the hard way that people's feelings really matter."

That was Zachary Bachir’s candid admission about his journey from a logical "robot" to an EQ expert. It serves as the foundation for today’s deep dive into Brain Science and the "Fluff" that actually drives multi-million dollar business results.

In this week's Proc & Roll, hosts Conrad Smith, Natasha Gurevich, and Zachary Bachir strip away the spreadsheets to explore the single most important engine in procurement: Stakeholder Management.

We debate why being a "gatekeeper" is a death trap for your influence, how to overcome imposter syndrome when dealing with the C-Suite, and why a relationship with zero friction—a "Love Fest"—might actually mean you’re failing at your job.

In this episode, we cover:

• The 90-Day Listening Tour: The one diagnostic question Natasha uses to uncover organizational pain without getting defensive.

• The "Fluff" Myth: Why brilliant tech and supply chain architects fail the moment they ignore the human side of the business.

• The Ego Audit: A masterclass in taking "brutal" feedback and turning a critic into a coach.

• The "Hobby Buyer" Pivot: How to address shadow procurement by carrying the "torch of empowerment" across the whole enterprise.

About Proc & Roll

Proc & Roll is your guide to practical procurement, hosted by industry heavyweights Zachary Bachir, Conrad Smith (CEO, Graphite), and Natasha Gurevich (CEO, Candor Procurement). From brain science to visual mapping, we deliver actionable insights to help you win hearts, minds, and budgets.

That was the response Natasha Gurevich’s CPO gave to a stakeholder who said, "Don't worry, we got it." It is the ultimate definition of fiduciary duty, and the perfect example of the Enterprise Mindset we discuss in today’s episode.In this week's Proc & Roll, hosts Conrad Smith, Natasha Gurevich, and Zachary Bachir revisit a key prediction for 2026: The shift from "functional" procurement to "enterprise" leadership.We debate whether you should hire "hobby buyers" via rotation programs or stick to dedicated pros, why staying in procurement too long can turn you into a "compliance bot", and how to stop stakeholders from bypassing you by delivering value before the contract is written.Plus, we explore the "Power of And"—why you don't have to choose between savings and value and issue a 1-Week AI Challenge to wake up your team's strategic brain.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Enterprise Shift: Why "keeping score" isn't enough—you have to get in the game.
• The Compliance Bot Trap: Why Zach argues you need to rotate out of procurement to truly understand the business.
• The "End Up" Bar: Natasha’s hilarious analogy for how some procurement teams are staffed with people who just "end up" there.
• The 1-Week AI Challenge: A practical exercise to force your team to think like a C-Suite executive.
• The Elephant Mindset: How to break the mental chains that keep you focused on tactical tasks.

About Proc & Roll

Proc & Roll is your guide to practical procurement, hosted by industry heavyweights Zachary Bachir, Conrad Smith (CEO, Graphite), and Natasha Gurevich (CEO, Candor Procurement). From fighting inflation to navigating AI, we deliver actionable insights to help you turn procurement into a strategic powerhouse.

Why Your SRM Program is Useless Theater?

Why has Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) progressed so little in the last 20 years? And what can procurement leaders learn from the messy "divorce" between Amazon and UPS?

In this episode of Proc & Roll, hosts Conrad Smith, Natasha Gurevich, and Zachary Bachir tackle the stagnation of supplier management. They debate why most QBRs are just "useless theater," why indirect procurement struggles to build real partnerships compared to direct procurement, and how to stop trying to manage 20,000 suppliers and start focusing on the few that matter.

Plus, we break down the strategic shift in the Amazon vs. UPS partnership, and why knowing when to end a relationship is just as important as starting one.

In this episode, we cover:

• Amazon & UPS Split: Why Amazon is UPS’s largest customer but least profitable, and what it teaches us about ending partnerships.

• The "Useless Theater" of SRM: Why running QBRs without business buy-in is a waste of time.

• Direct vs. Indirect: Why manufacturing teams are often decades ahead of indirect procurement in managing relationships.

• The "Data God" Strategy: Natasha reveals why you don't need to be a data expert to lead SRM; you just need a "Data God" on your team.

• Practical Advice: Stop overcomplicating segmentation. Start with one supplier, one stakeholder, and one spreadsheet.

Why do most layoffs fail? Why is the obsession with "world-class" talent actually hurting your team? And is the advice to "learn to code" already obsolete?In this Jam Session, hosts Natasha Gurevich and Zachary Bachir sit down with Lucien Alziari, former CHRO of Prudential, Maersk, and Avon.Lucien drops masterclass insights on leadership discipline, the "He-Man" toxicity in tech management, and why he believes layoffs are like open-heart surgery: a life-saving measure that fails if you go right back to your bad habits.In this episode, we cover:Stop Chasing "World-Class" Talent: Why you only need elite talent in the specific roles that make you win—and why "good" is enough everywhere else.Lessons from PepsiCo: What a truly strategic procurement team looks like (hint: they understood the value of a can from the mine to the shelf).The Layoff "Lifestyle": Why restructuring fails when companies "take the people out but don't take the work out".The Skills Trap: Why Lucien believes human skills like curiosity and reliability will outlast technical skills like coding in the AI era.The Fear Factor: Why stakeholders "live in fear" of procurement and how to fix your reputation.

Everyone wants to talk about AI, but no one wants to talk about the mess in their data lake. In this episode of Proc & Roll, hosts Conrad Smith, Zachary Bachir, and Natasha Gurevich debate the unsexy reality of data readiness.

Is your organization actually ready for predictive analytics, or are you just "tidying up your bedroom" before it gets messy again?

The team dives deep into why one-off data cleanup projects are a waste of budget, why hiring a PhD Data Scientist might be a massive mistake for your current maturity level, and why the most successful leaders "stay in love with the data" even as they rise through the ranks.

In this episode, we cover:

• The "Bedroom Tidying" Trap: Why cleaning up data without fixing the operating model is a futile exercise.
• Single Version of Truth: How to stop the "I disagree with your numbers" argument that kills every procurement strategy.
• The Talent Debate: Do you need a Data Scientist or a Process Analyst? (The answer might surprise you) .
• "No New Data": A radical strategy to stop data sludge before it enters your system.
• Leadership Advice: Conrad’s plea for leaders to remain connected to the raw information that runs the business.

About Proc & Roll

Proc & Roll is your guide to practical procurement, hosted by industry heavyweights Zachary Bachir, Conrad Smith (CEO, Graphite), and Natasha Gurevich (CEO, Candor Procurement). From fighting inflation to navigating AI, we deliver actionable insights and "Jam Sessions" with world-class leaders to help you turn procurement into a strategic powerhouse.

Why do business stakeholders roll their eyes when you talk about "cost savings"? And why does the next generation of talent treat their career path like a video game?

In this episode, hosts Zachary Bachir and Natasha Gurevich sit down with Ted Baumuller, former Global Leader of Source-to-Pay at Meta (and formerly Cisco & Abbott), for a masterclass on stakeholder alignment and modern leadership.

Ted shares his unconventional journey from hating supply chain ("too many parts!") to leading procurement at one of the world's biggest tech companies. He reveals why "leading with savings" is a trap and how to actually get a seat at the table by speaking the language of Marketing, Engineering, and IT.

In this episode, we cover:

• Stop Leading with Savings: Why stakeholders see you as a "back office cost center" when you talk price—and what to say instead to get their attention.
• The Credibility Equation: Ted's rule for building trust: "You are only as good as your last failure".
• The Gamification of Career: How to manage Gen Z talent who expect to "level up" their career like a video game (and why that's not necessarily a bad thing).
• AI & The "Crap Work": Why you should happily hand over transactional work to AI so you can focus on relationships.
• Career Zig-Zags: Why the best procurement leaders often don't start in procurement—and why cross-functional experience is your superpower.

Whether you are a procurement leader trying to get Engineering to listen to you, or a young professional mapping out your career, this episode is packed with practical wisdom from a leader who has seen it all.About Proc & RollProc & Roll is your guide to practical procurement, hosted by industry heavyweights Zachary Bachir, Conrad Smith (CEO, Graphite), and Natasha Gurevich (CEO, Candor Procurement). From fighting inflation to navigating AI, we deliver actionable insights and "Jam Sessions" with world-class leaders to help you turn procurement into a strategic powerhouse.

Will Procurement Teams Shrink in 2026?

It is time for our retrospective! In this episode of Proc & Roll, hosts Conrad Smith, Natasha Gurevich, and Zachary Bachir look back at their 2025 forecasts and lay out their bold predictions for the year ahead.

We even let an AI agent grade our 2025 scorecards. Did we hit the mark on the "AI Hype Cycle" crashing into the "Data Wall"?

In this episode, we cover:

🔮 The 2025 Scorecard:

• The Data Wall: AI confirms that the hype cycle crashed in Q2 2025 as companies paused projects to fix master data.

• The Amazon Effect: Intake management became the hottest category to solve user experience.

• Savings vs. Value: Why the CFO still demanded hard dollar savings despite the push for "value.

🚀 Top Predictions for 2026:

• The Great Tech Stack Reshuffle: Natasha predicts CPOs will cancel niche subscriptions to self-fund new tools—no incremental budget expected.

• Shrinking Teams: A controversial take that procurement teams will get smaller as manual tasks vanish, shifting focus to high-level strategy.

• Tangible AI Value: Moving past the "shiny toy" phase to asking where AI agents are actually executing work.

• The Gig Expert: The rise of the "fractional" procurement expert to solve the talent crisis.

Plus, Conrad shares an AI-generated "Top 10" list for 2026, including the death of the PowerPoint QBR and the thawing of US-China relations.

In this Jam Session, host Conrad Smith sits down with Jay Sklar from Hub International for a masterclass in high-velocity procurement.

With Hub International acquiring an average of five companies every single month, Jay has developed a battle-tested playbook for rapid integration. He shares how he manages a massive portfolio of 700+ offices while leveraging his company's explosive growth to secure better deals with suppliers.

In this episode, we cover:

🏢 Procurement Meets Real Estate: How Jay manages a dual role and drives "operating expense" savings by optimizing office density and design.

🚀 The M&A Engine: How to use your company's growth story to tell suppliers to "hitch their wagon" to you for better pricing.

🛑 The Nuclear Option: Jay’s strategy for fighting unjustified 2x software price hikes (and why you have to be willing to "rip and replace").

🤖 AI Pragmatism: Why we need less theory and more "show and tell" in the procurement AI sandbox.

💡 Best Advice: Why "being a nice person" is the secret weapon of successful M&A integration.

Whether you are dealing with software inflation or managing a complex real estate portfolio, this episode is packed with practical tips you can use today.