In association with the Financial Times, our CPO Spark Think Tank brings together a hand-picked group of progressive CPOs from market-leading companies around the world who want to drive positive change and top-line growth in their businesses. Over the course of four in-depth virtual sessions, the group is focusing on the strategies, new technologies, and bold ideas helping CPOs innovate and add value to the wider business while responding to the pressure to reduce costs and mitigate risk in a time of unprecedented change. In the third session of the four-part series, the focus was on how CEOs are increasingly turning to the CPO to help create the transformative operating models that will drive long-term growth. Today’s CPO must enable and support better business performance by adding strategic value; being more agile; opening gateways for innovation; and positively influencing sustainability and supplier diversity across the value chain. Additionally, they want to be recognized for doing this by the board of directors and executive leadership, who may have an outdated view of the procurement function as a transactional entity instead of one that can lead the digitalization of business processes to enact positive change.