Overcoming the Unexpected, Shaping the Future: Developing Resilience through Regenerative Procurement Operating Models

Elvire Regnier: 30 years of international experience as a Procurement executive for major French, European and American groups at the cutting edge of Procurement.

Elvire has devoted her entire career to the Procurement function, in both operational and strategic positions, covering the entire spending spectrum. Over the last ten years, she has held positions of Group Procurement Officer (CPO). She has worked for the FMCG (food, hygiene), construction, renewable energies, chemicals and cosmetics sectors. She is a Senior Advisor for strategy firms, currently Alix-Partners, previously Kearney. She is the president and founder of Regenerative-Advisory. She is part of the advisory board of Craft.co

Career

Elvire’s first procurement job was in the food industry, as fruit procurement manager at Yoplait. She then joined in 2002 the European headquarters of Colgate-Palmolive in Geneva, where she developed and set up the European Indirect Procurement organization. She then moved to the group’s global headquarters in New York to head up worldwide Procurement for the Body Care category. Her career continued in Paris as CPO at Bouygues Bâtiment International (construction industry).

Elvire then joined in 2012 the Unilever Group in Switzerland as Global Vice-President in charge of rolling out the “Partner to Win” supplier partnership program, sponsored by the Group’s CEO, Paul Polman. The aim of the program was to become the “customer of choice” of Unilever’s strategic suppliers, mobilizing them to contribute to the Group’s objective of doubling  the revenue within the next 10 years, while controlling its environmental and social footprint.

Her career continued in Paris as CPO for Groupe Avril (€7 billion revenues, in the bio-fuel, green chemistry and plant protein sectors). Inspired by her experience with Unilever, she deployed the “Win Win Way” program, developing suppliers’ partnerships hybridizing value creation and ESG impact, far beyond price reductions. She then took up in 2021 the position of CPO at L’Occitane, where she also deployed a similar supplier partnership program, called “Partners by Nature”. The partnership program allowed the company to avoid supply shortages during the Covid period.

After spending several years as a Senior Advisor for the strategy consulting firm Kearney, she set up her own consulting boutique, Rgn-Advisory, to offer a fresh vision of the Procurement function as a contributor to strengthening corporate resilience. She is also currently collaborating with Alix-Partners as Senior Advisor.

Transmission

Board Advisor

Ambassador

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Elvire has been teaching Regenerative Procurement for several years at Essec Business School  and HEC Buisness School

 

 

Elvire is a member of  the advisory board of the California scale-up Craft.co

 

 

 Elvire is an Ambassador of the Unesco Chair towards a Culture of Economic Peace

Propositions

The Procurement  function is accelerating its transformation at a time when they must play their part in resolving issues that are challenging the world as we have known it until recently. Evolving expectations around environmental and societal issues, recent crises of value chain disruption and inflation, and the emergence of Artificial Intelligence leading the Procurement function to reinvent itself. It is in this fast-changing environment that Elvire created her consulting boutique, Regenerative-Advisory, to support companies and their managers in integrating ESG, Value Creation and Artificial Intelligence into their Procurement operating models, through consulting, training, executive coaching, talent recruitment and conferences.

Awards

Her work has been recognized by the Peter Kraljic Awards of the Decade on “Collaborative Relations” in 2019 and “Leading Collaborative Value Creation” in 2018.

Publications and Conferences

Elvire regularly shares her vision of the evolution of her profession in editorial publications for Le Monde, Les Echos and l’Opinion. She speaks at international forums such as ProcureCon, Procurement Leaders, Luxepack, Europack, etc.