- February 19th 2.30pm ET – 3.30pm ET
Reinventing Chemical & Raw Material Sourcing: A New Era of Innovation
Join us to discover how AI is transforming chemical and raw material sourcing. In this one-hour webinar, Valdera CEO Sruti Arulmani and procurement expert Mike Cadieux will explore market challenges, demonstrate practical AI solutions, and share real-world success stories.
Takeaways you'll get:
- Market Dynamics & Drivers: The forces reshaping chemical and raw material procurement
- AI in Procurement: Beyond the Hype: Separating valuable solutions from industry buzzwords
- Valdera Solutions in Practice: Real-world applications and measurable impact
Speakers
A glimpse into the inspiring voices and procurement trailblazers who shape and elevate our events.
Sruti Arulmani
CEO and co-founder
Valdera
Mike Cadieux
Founder & CEO
Procurement Foundry
Gregory Polcer
Founder and President
POLCE LLC
Francesco Marzoni
Chief Data & Analytics Officer
Ingka Group (IKEA)
speaker bios
Sruti Arulmani is the CEO and co-founder of Valdera, an AI-powered platform transforming how manufacturers source materials. Before founding Valdera, Sruti developed her expertise as a SaaS investor, exploring numerous procurement solutions across industries. When she discovered that none effectively addressed the complexities of sourcing chemicals and raw materials, she decided to create her own solution with her brother, Dheev. Valdera simplifies procurement by eliminating inefficiencies and enabling manufacturers to source raw materials more effectively without compromising on quality standards. Under Sruti’s leadership, Valdera has become a trusted partner for leading manufacturers in CPG, beauty, and industrial manufacturing. As the company grows, Sruti remains committed to transforming the $5 trillion chemicals industry with innovation, resilience, and sustainability at its core.
Michael Cadieux is the Founder and serves as CEO of the Procurement Foundry. Michael is a recognized global Indirect procurement thought leader. With more than 25 years of procurement and business experience, he is a sought-after resource within the Indirect Spend community and has spoken at numerous industry conferences and events over the years.
Prior to founding Procurement Foundry, he spent 17 years at Publicis Groupe, the second-largest advertising and communications firm in the industry. He was directly responsible for $2.4B of spending, from 65+ business units, and 27,000 employees within Publicis Groupe’s holdings in the Americas. Michael’s time at Publicis Groupe exposed him to many of the common pain points for practitioners and executives in the procurement industry, as well as the solutions.
More often than not, solutions to common problems were forced to resolution by enlisting the services of high-cost consulting firms. The process was both expensive and time-consuming, sometimes resulting in a solution that was not the most effective. These commonplace interactions were the basis for the Procurement Foundry – a fully vetted practitioner-based community where procurement professionals could source solutions from peers instantly and correctly.
Since its inception, Procurement Foundry has increased membership to over 3,000 practitioners in 63 countries, started their own series of conferences and webinars on both the Direct and Indirect sides of procurement, and has released two independent salary and compensation surveys to industry acclaim. Procurement Foundry has become a daily resource to its vetted member list, making it one of the most valuable and up and coming resources to the industry.
Gregory Polcer is a leading global consumer products executive and board director with more than 30 years of experience in the space. He currently acts as a board member at Combe Inc, Blackstone, and Virtue Labs, as well as taking an advisory role at Kearney, o9Solutions, and World 50. He previously served as the Executive Vice President of Global Supply Chain and Estee Lauder, where he modernized the end-to-end supply chain to fuel and support rapid growth from $7B to $17B in revenue and $7B to $120B+ in market capitalization. Previous to that, he held positions as a senior executive for Unilever, where he restructured supply chain operations and led the integration of numerous siloed businesses into a cohesive unit.
Francesco Marzoni is the Chief Data & Analytics Officer of Ingka Group (IKEA), and is a thought leader in applying data and analytics intelligently within organizations. Previous to IKEA, Francesco was Group Head of Analytics, Data & Integration at Nestle in Switzerland. He started his career at Procter & Gamble. He held several country, regional and global roles in the business analytics space, from data analyst to division analytics head, based in Switzerland. In 2017, he joined Bayer as Vice President of Data & Analytics. He led a global organization, accountable for corporate data strategy and analytics portfolio development across divisions and functional areas.