Breaking the Glass Ceiling in Procurement – A Leadership Path

Recommendation: appoint a sponsor whose role is to move high-potential professionals toward boardroom visibility, backed by a concrete development plan with quarterly milestones.

Horizontal rotations across functions, preferably within sourcing, logistics, and supplier management, improve performance by exposing talent to cross-functional metrics.

allison notes that sponsorship programs reduce lack of visibility for women and other underrepresented groups, with reported gains in retention and role progression.

To reinforce progress, implement a transparent ladder with horizontal moves across business units, each with measurable milestones, from entry-level sourcing to senior function ownership, with fewer months to deliver measurable impact.

Programs should combine structured technical training with experiential exposure, ensuring compatibility with family-friendly policies, improved work-life balance, and visible performance metrics.

When gaps exist, a formal roster should include their high-potential colleagues and align with company strategy, a pattern that suggests longer-term gains in representation and performance.

As case-in-point, allison demonstrates how a sponsor network supports vertical movement while preserving family life.

To sustain momentum, a governance cadence pairs boardroom visibility with regular performance reviews, so every function has a clear route to higher responsibility within company.

For women: map a leadership trajectory with clear milestones and timelines

Implement a four-rung ladder with 12-month windows, pair with sponsor (Allison can assist) and enroll in targeted development programs. Each rung delivers cross-functional exposure, budget literacy, and measurable outcomes that boost credibility with senior partners in businesses.

Preferably, activities focus on advancing around core domains: strategy, supplier relations, data use, and people coaching. A target: shift from trusted contributor to accountable owner within a group of 4-6 colleagues. Women around this ladder have found support via peer groups linked with managers and sponsors, improving confidence and impact.

Metrics include improved cycle time for sourcing, supplier performance scores, and personal indicators such as confidence in corporate negotiations. Governance includes quarterly sponsor check-ins, biannual peer reviews, and a formal decision on progression after each 12-month block. This structure helps counter imbalance narratives, where negative stereotypes around mothers and fathers leave times have persisted, by linking advancement to real outcomes and group-linked accountability.

Wrapping up, this approach keeps attention on measurable results, not on slogans, and fosters improved visibility among teams and management circles.

For women: secure sponsorship, mentorship, and high-visibility projects

Secure sponsorship within 30 days by pairing with executive sponsor who holds budget authority and sits in boardroom discussions.

1. Identify 3–5 senior sponsors across horizontal functions, including buyers and cpos, who can hold priority work that influences decisions behind major deals.
2. Craft a structured sponsorship plan with clear milestones, expectations, and sponsor hold times; publish to senior peers to increase transparency.
3. Request high-visibility projects that demonstrate impact on cost, quality, or speed; push sponsorship to boardroom updates.
4. Establish mentorship with executive peers: schedule regular 1:1s, invite to key vendor reviews, and include cpos in feedback loops.
5. Promote female talent through stretch assignments: assign women to critical supplier negotiations, supplier risk assessments, and cross-functional teams; ensure numbers show significant improvements in representation across generation cohorts.
6. Track progress with a structured dashboard and reported metrics: sponsorship activity, project outcomes, and boardroom visibility; adjust approach based on feedback from buyers and executives.
7. Address lack of sponsorship by implementing interim sponsor program and rotating sponsors until permanent sponsor is secured.
8. Most participants report improved visibility, faster progression, and stronger positioning in boardroom through ongoing sponsorship and mentorship.

They speed growth by turning sponsorship into visible results across functions.

For businesses: create formal sponsorship programs and a transparent promotion ladder

Launch formal sponsorship programs pairing high-potential women with executive sponsors, backed by transparent promotion ladder and clear milestones.

Create horizontal coverage across teams to share best practices and reduce bias.

Assign committees of senior leaders behind initiatives to ensure accountability.

Integrate family-friendly policies including paternity leave and flexible schedules to support sense of belonging.

Associate each function with a sponsor to ensure ongoing participation.

There are benefits when sponsorship initiatives exist; teams across organisations thrive.

Family support signals long-term sense across organisations.

Implementation steps

Starting with a pilot in asia, select two to three business units; track time to promotion, average promotion rate by gender, and boardroom representation after sponsorship begins.

Giving sponsors visibility across areas enables faster decisions.

Leverage technology to run sponsorship dashboards across organisations.

Talk to executive sponsors regularly to maintain momentum.

Metrics and accountability

Monitor benefits such as higher retention, fewer time-to-promotion gaps, and greater sense of belonging among women.

Track generation shifts by noting more women taking on core projects and boardroom discussions.

Share progress with boards and involved committees to sustain change.

Where asia markets indicate success, scale sponsorship to additional functions in horizontal cohorts across businesses.

For businesses: implement governance, dashboards, and inclusive procurement policies

Recommendation: Establish a holding cross-functional steering council that defines policy, approves dashboards, and oversees an inclusive program across all units. The role of this body is to translate needs from each department into structured controls, foster talk across teams, and take ideas from frontline staff behind policy updates. Advancing this approach requires active participation from finance, legal, operations, and technical owners. This council should play a central role across functions, drive only policy quality and governance clarity, avoiding micromanagement, wherever decisions impact spend.

Governance and dashboards

Dashboards provide action-ready insights with a horizontal view across regions and units. Track percent of spend with suppliers meeting inclusion criteria, contract compliance, lead times, and supplier performance. This approach helps identify imbalanced patterns and negative biases that were reported in some sectors, including bias toward male-dominated supplier pools. If such signals appear, refine the scoring model, adjust onboarding criteria, and taking actions across teams. The fathers of policy change–senior sponsors–should stay closely involved to maintain clarity of their role in advancing the program. This momentum yields more predictable outcomes for the organization.

Inclusive policy design and implementation

Policies should be built around neutral language, accessible onboarding, and transparent, structured evaluation criteria. Across the organization, create opportunities for minority-owned, women-owned, and small suppliers, and set percent targets that reflect market potential. Programs should be monitored with quarterly reviews; needs from each unit should inform refinements. If gaps are found, talk with stakeholders, gather ideas, and taking actions that align with your strategic goals. Past learnings were taken into account.

Beyond gender: address culture, data literacy, and access to cross-functional networks

Launch a data literacy plan within procurement and extend to finance and operations; essential 6 hours of training per quarter, plus a 12-month benchmark. These sessions cover data interpretation, supplier risk metrics, and spend analytics, enabling staff to link insights to decisions. These sessions were designed for immediate applicability.

In asia, reported studies show women hold about 28% of senior roles in supply chains; minority groups often face imbalanced access to cross-functional networks. They remain concentrated at lower levels. To close this gap, implement targeted sponsorship and rotate participants through projects that require collaboration with finance, IT, and operations.

Create linked sponsorship across committees, ensuring seats for minority group members; target at least 2 cross-functional rotations per year.

Dashboards highlight imbalanced access; when sponsorship programs exist, representation improves and ceiling approaches parity. These dashboards should show where women reach decision posts in procurement and how often they influence approvals.

Role models in procurement speak at town halls; such stories build workforce trust. Provide flexible schedules to accommodate caregiving and other responsibilities, so they are taking on expanding assignments.

Most gains come when cross-functional networks are linked to incentive programs; increased collaboration yields better supplier selection, reduced risk, and improved spend outcomes. Financial results improve as teams with diverse backgrounds collaborate, and they report higher satisfaction across budgets.

Recommended Reading: pragmatic guides, case studies, and playbooks

Choose Allison’s executive guide to inclusive buying as concrete starting point; it offers a pragmatic framework to move from intent to action in sourcing, with measurable milestones and a focus on advancing women into senior roles. Just-in-time development tracks help move talent quickly.

Across asia, women hold around 15%–20% of cpos roles; globally, average share sits near 25%. These figures signal chance for rapid gains, opening a generation of buyers around your markets, and when you implement targeted development and stretch-assignment programs around your businesses, engaging both female and male talent.

Best playbooks recommend a data-driven cadence: capture exits by gender and role, test with pilots, and adjust. Enhanced leave policies for fathers and mothers correlate with higher retention, and this reduces cost of replacing top buyers. Cadence data shows retention improves significantly when leave policies are enhanced. Just clear goals accelerate momentum.

Case studies show groups with diverse executive boards and a formal mentorship loop generate faster growth around purchasing function; these examples combat negative stereotypes about who can lead in buying, and illustrate how to become more inclusive, from early-career roles to executive slots. Lack of clear metrics slows adoption; talk about incentive alignment helps.

Recommended readings include: pragmatic guides for attracting talent to buying function; case studies on cpos who increased female representation; and playbooks for building high-performing sourcing group. Ideas from these readings help adjust policies around your company and workforce.

Try a 90-day pilot: pick a pragmatic guide, a case study from asia, and a practical playbook; assign a sponsor from your executive group to oversee milestones and report results to your board, aiming for fewer meetings and faster action.