Peter Truman

With over three decades in technology and transformation, Peter Truman has become one of Coupa’s key technical voices. As Senior Director of Technical Architects, he leads a global team that helps customers understand how Coupa integrates into their IT environments. His role could not be more vital at this time, as AI reshapes procurement.

“I’ve been with Coupa for about seven years,” Peter says. “My role is to lead a small global team of technical architects to help customers and prospects understand how Coupa fits into their existing IT environment. Explaining how AI works, what it does with their data, what it doesn’t do with customer data – which is perhaps even more important.”

His team works to push innovation and establish trust, ensuring that customers gain the full benefits of AI-driven transformation without compromising data ethics or security.

A career built on transformation

Peter’s career spans consulting, executive leadership and enterprise technology. Before joining Coupa, he worked for major systems integrators and later became CIO for Wilko between 2012 and 2016, a role that gave him valuable insight into technology from a business perspective.

When he joined Coupa, the company had around 700 employees; today, it has more than 3,000. “It’s been a rapid journey of growth and change in the platform and a huge amount of innovation that we’ve brought into the Coupa platform,” he says.

Innovation and people at the core

Asked what has had the biggest impact on his career, Peter points to Coupa’s relentless innovation. “Coupa has probably had the biggest impact on my career because of the technology and the innovation that is put into the platform,” he says. “It’s been a fascinating journey, learning and understanding – then conveying that to prospects and customers.”

Yet, despite being at the cutting edge of this innovation, Peter loves nothing more than the personal side which comes from leadership. “It’s supporting the team of people that I work with,” he explains. “It’s always about people and that’s one of the great things about Coupa. The people who work within it – they never say no. There’s always another challenge to resolve and we always manage to get there.

“They’re an absolutely marvellous bunch and come up with all sorts of different ways of conveying what Coupa is actually capable of doing to customers – and I just love it.”

Keeping pace with change

The biggest challenge, Peter admits, is keeping up with the speed of technological progress. “The pace of change is very rapid – both within what Coupa is doing and the innovations we’re putting into the platform,” he says. “People want to know more and more about the Coupa platform, particularly around AI and getting the message across that it’s safe, ethical and that what we’re doing with customers' data can really add value to what they're doing.”

Looking to the future, Peter is most excited about Coupa’s work in agentic AI, this latest autonomous system which is set to transform how buyers and suppliers collaborate.

“The change that we are putting into the Coupa platform is immense,” he says. “Especially with the agentic journey that we are now embarking on. The change that will bring to the way buyers and suppliers interact and collaborate is significant.”

While this new era will present challenges around privacy, security and integration – Peter believes there will be opportunities to help customers navigate transformation safely. “Helping them understand that journey is going to be quite a challenge,” he says. “But it is an exciting time.”

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