Most boardrooms still see procurement the same way: a back-office function that shows up on the agenda once a quarter to report how much money it saved. Ahmed Raafat, Head of Procurement and Supply Chain at ARM Holding in Dubai, has spent his career pushing back on that narrative.
On a recent episode of Beyond Procurement, Ahmed sat down to talk about how procurement earns a genuine seat at the C-suite table. With decades of experience spanning real estate, urban development, asset management, agriculture, and hospitality, Mr. Ahmed has delivered 20 to 25 percent cost reductions across strategic sourcing and vendor partnerships, cut procure-to-pay cycles by 25%, and improved supplier performance compliance by 30%. But the thread running through the entire conversation is his belief that digital transformation is as much about people as it is about technology, and that the journey from tactical to trusted starts with getting the right people, training them, and retaining them.
Below are the questions asked and Ahmed’s answers, presented largely in his own words, because the most honest insights on procurement leadership rarely come wrapped in a slide template.
When you first stepped into the CPO role, what was the single biggest misconception about procurement at the C-suite level, and how did you address it?
When I first stepped into this role, procurement was largely seen as a back-office support function, focused on compliance and savings. I remember walking into early board meetings and realizing that when the agenda reached procurement, it was narrowed down to how much we saved that quarter. That was the perception: mostly tactical, transactional, almost invisible in shaping strategy.
What shifted things was demonstrating that procurement could enable growth. For example, in real estate, we didn’t just negotiate cheaper contracts. We secured supplier innovation and digitalization that reduced construction timelines by months, which directly improved cash flow and sales cycles. That was the turning point: showing the board that procurement could drive speed, resilience, and opportunity, and not just savings.
That is also advisable for all procurement professionals: step into the boardroom and speak about adding value, not only value engineering. There is a misperception in the market that value engineering means cutting quality, so it’s important to present procurement as a value enabler rather than a deduction.
What do CFOs and CEOs want most from procurement today?
CFOs are looking mostly for clarity and predictability. They care about risk, risk exposure, risk mitigation, total cost of ownership, and of course numbers:
- What are the reliable figures?
- What can we budget for?
- How do we stay within budget?
That is the main perspective of most CFOs today; it’s a matter of numbers.
CEOs are a little different. They are looking for growth and resilience. They ask questions like:
- How does procurement help us move faster?
- How does procurement and supply chain help us expand smarter?
- How does it protect our reputation in the market?
So, we speak to them about compliance, ethics, process, and how our vendors’ innovation pipeline helps us bring sustainable projects to market earlier. Procurement and supply chain should show how they directly support the board and the board’s scorecards, and build trust quickly by having answers ready for the questions that always come up.
We should market ourselves. Honestly, I think the main issue is that procurement doesn’t know how to market itself, and that’s part of why the function has the image it does in the market today.
When presenting a digital procurement initiative, whether that’s AI, automation, or new ESG compliance dashboards, what kind of story gets C-suite buy-in, and what kind of pitch tends to fall flat?
In my experience, digitalization has always been the main focal point for management. There’s always a roadmap, and questions like:
- When are we getting to source-to-pay?
- When are we digitalizing our ERP platform 100 percent?
We need to minimize paper and become a paperless organization. For every digital initiative, we have to propose clear criteria and then explain how it will benefit the organization.
One example from my career: we tried a few well-known software platforms and found challenges with each. In one organization, we made a brave decision, one supported by the managing director i.e., to hire an IT specialist and customize a software solution ourselves.
We created a committee of five champions, one from each department, and I was one of them. Within three years, we built a complete ERP system, starting from collecting requirements from the business units, automating that process, and carrying it through order issuance, payment, delivery, and even a gate pass system for vendors, who could apply online, get a barcode, and deliver directly to the project site inventory using that barcode.
It was a very good experience. I learned a lot, and I came to understand other departments better, which is important because there are real gaps between verticals in most organizations. Nobody fully understands
- What finance needs?
- What operations are focused on?
- Or what the inventory team cares about?
We collected all the requirements together, built a roadmap together, and ended up with a system that satisfied everyone’s needs. It took three years, but it was a very productive journey.
This is something I have seen happen a lot: because of the dominance of the big software players in the market, system integrators or IT departments end up forcing you to change your own processes to match their process flow, which is backward. It should be the other way around. Flexibility is acceptable, and you can find workarounds, but if your core business function doesn’t match the platform, it becomes a hopeless case that creates problems later, compromises efficiency and effectiveness, and affects output quality across the whole organization. And there will be no adoption within the team.
You have embedded ESG and governance deeply into your procurement initiatives. Given that commercial pressure often causes boards to treat ESG as a compliance checkbox rather than a priority, how do you present ESG to senior stakeholders as a source of competitive advantage rather than just compliance?
I believe we can frame ESG as market access and brand leadership. Compliance is the minimum requirement, but competitive advantage comes when ESG becomes part of your value proposition in the market. At ARM Holding, we care a lot about ESG. We include ESG innovation, not just compliance, as part of the technical evaluation in every tender. That ensures the project is already highly compliant with ESG requirements, adds value to the community and the city, and helps us meet the regulations of the country we operate in while giving back to the environment and the people around us.
We created local sourcing initiatives and low-carbon production initiatives. We haven’t reached 100 percent, and we are still growing and improving in this area within our vendor registration process and our projects, focusing on certifications and achievements related to mobility and sustainability. That improves the quality of our products in the market, and it reflects on our branding.
You mentioned an ESG initiative that was very new to the industry when you started it but later became a standard, table-stakes requirement. Could you elaborate on that?
Yes. One of our projects, which I worked on very early on, before 2018, was a huge community project with villas where a lot of people would be living. We looked at a long-term relationship with international timber suppliers and eventually went with a supplier that had a green, sustainable certification for the wood. We signed a long-term deal with them, brought that wood to one of our joinery factories, and used it in the project.
Later, that kind of certification was written into local regulations as mandatory. At the time, we had presented this approach on an Abu Dhabi project, and it was later adopted and formalized into regulation more broadly. It was a very good initiative for us, and it ended up setting the trend for the real estate and construction business in the UAE.
In a volatile sector like construction, how do you communicate the risk of not doing procurement the right way to the board, in a way that is credible, quantified, and solution-oriented rather than fear-driven?
We went through a very good experience, and I say “good” because we learned a lot from it through the pandemic. It was good and bad. We suffered a lot, but it also changed a lot of mindsets that had been resistant before the pandemic. Resilience and risk mitigation became very clear priorities, and we had to approach the market with solutions and out-of-the-box thinking to reduce the impact of shortages and market volatility.
For example, in construction, we learned how to introduce fixed-rate agreements internationally to secure continuity of sourcing during any market volatility, and to build long-term relationships that help us work through political situations around us. That helped us build resilience and helped us present procurement’s value to the board: what was behind the numbers, and what hard work and effort went into overcoming force majeure and out-of-control situations. We have to always be proactive. There is no harm in creating long-term agreements ahead of time and keeping them ready, since we already know the pipeline and the nature of upcoming projects from the business units.
You have said many times that transformation is about people, not technology. Can you share a moment when investing in your team’s talent, through hiring, training, or retention, helped you build trust with your stakeholders?
I always work with a formula: people, then process, then platform, and that equals innovation and improvement. That’s the same priority I apply to everything. Without passion in your people about digitalization and AI, and without the right skill set, you will waste time and effort going around in circles and end up failing. I always believe in training, in sharing information and knowledge, and in attending summits and conferences to increase awareness and create interaction with other companies and people in the market.
When the team isn’t locked in the office doing only operational work, they look at the world, they learn new things from exhibitions and conferences, and they come back with ideas. They voice their daily challenges and propose solutions themselves.
I remember one of my colleagues, after a few training sessions and summits, came to me and said he had been thinking about whether we should use a piece of software he’d seen, or bring in some other solution, to automate a repetitive task and save time. I was genuinely surprised and glad, because that shift in mindset happened simply because we exposed him to the world outside the office. Don’t keep people locked in closed offices. That is where they will bring ideas and the intention to help and improve. Otherwise, all you get is resistance.
What behaviors or decisions distinguish a trusted procurement leader from a purely tactical one, in the eyes of the business?
A tactical leader waits for demand to come in and then starts acting and negotiating a good price. That’s a typical tactical leader.
A trusted leader is strategic and proactive: they anticipate demand and collaborate with the business units. It’s a pull strategy rather than a push strategy.
You pull data and information from all the business units, process it internally, prepare yourself, and get ready to react in advance based on history and experience.
You come to the board with options before a problem even starts solutions for challenges around timing, specifications, or innovative approaches that come from your daily interactions with vendors. All of this benefits the organization. Don’t wait for the demand; you need to pull it, create it yourself. That is the real difference between a trusted leader and a tactical one.
What advice would you give a new CPO in their first 12 months to avoid being seen as a reactive firefighter, and instead build trust from day one?
My advice for a new CPO in their first year is to secure quick wins to build credibility first. You need to build credibility with all stakeholders and quickly connect it to a bigger story. In your first year, you’ll be tempted to focus on firefighting and proving your worth by cutting costs fast. That’s fine to do, but don’t stop there. You need to go a step further, stay ahead of the game, add value, and be strategic at the same time, so you can secure smooth operations later and solve problems before they come up. That is the main thing I believe a new CPO should focus on in the first year.
If we reconnect in 2027, what is the one bold metric or defining shift that will tell you procurement has truly become a strategic function?
Looking at the trend of artificial intelligence in our region, which started gaining momentum last year and has moved fast since, I believe that by 2027 procurement won’t be judged on savings or spend under management at all.
It will be evaluated on value delivery beyond just costs: resilience, sustainability, and supplier-driven innovation. I think those three will be the main KPIs for procurement by then, and cost savings will become the fourth, because those other three add more value to the industry and to product quality than cost savings alone.
I think the measures will look more like: how much revenue was protected because procurement ensured continuity of supply during disruptions, especially given how many disruptions we are seeing worldwide today. It’s not like the old days, when a disruption in a far geographic area didn’t touch us. After globalization, everything is connected, and any geographic challenge anywhere in the world affects logistics and supply chains everywhere. It will also be about how much brand value was created because suppliers helped the organization exceed ESG requirements and benchmarks, and how many innovations reached the market faster because procurement built the right partnerships, whether international or national, early on.
I believe procurement will be measured in terms of enabling growth, resilience, and reputation, not just efficiency. That’s when we’ll know procurement has finally taken its seat as a truly strategic function.
Conclusion
Ahmed’s account of what it takes to earn a trusted seat at the table cuts through the usual procurement talking points about savings and cost avoidance. His central argument is consistent throughout the conversation: procurement earns trust by proving it can drive speed, resilience, and growth, not just cut costs; by learning to speak the language CFOs and CEOs actually care about; and by treating ESG and digital transformation as sources of competitive advantage rather than compliance checkboxes.
But the thread that ties everything together is people. From his people-process-platform formula to his advice for first-time CPOs, Ahmed keeps returning to the same idea: technology and process only work when the people behind them have the passion, training, and trust to make them work. By 2027, in his view, procurement won’t be judged by how much it saved, but by how much growth, resilience, and reputation it helped build.
