Lifetime of Achievement: Alex Saric
Born and raised in Queens, New York, the thought of a career in procurement cannot have crossed Alex Saric’s mind when he joined the US Army Cavalry.
A long way from optimising supply chains, he was leading tank and scout platoons through combat and training deployments.
With a Bachelor's in Economics from the US Military Academy at West Point and an international Master's from INSEAD, his time in the Army, and the Cavalry in particular, was actually the start of his appreciation for procurement.
“While the majority of the focus in military movies is on the front-line fighting, battles are typically won or lost before fighting begins,” Alex says.
“Much of that success, and a key advantage of the US military, is the strength and flexibility of its supply chains. From food to bullets to replacement parts, supply is key to success.”
His time in the Cavalry helped pave the way for his success in building and running teams in global businesses. Alex described how the Cavalry units operated in a highly dispersed manner, and he learned to manage his unit through clear guidance, accurate reporting and soldiers and vehicles operating remotely.
“The parallels to running a globally dispersed team are very clear,” he adds.
Over his 25 years in spend management, Alex has helped shape its evolution and worked closely with hundreds of large organisations to support their digital transformation journeys.
His starting point in procurement originated from the development of vertical procurement applications as a founding member of Zeborg, a B2B e-commerce company (now acquired by Emptoris) that offered a suite of procurement applications for complex categories of spend.
During this time, Alex designed and marketed Zeborg’s first profitable software product for IT procurement.
After this, Alex spent almost 13 years at Ariba, first building and running the spend analytics business as General Manager until it became a global market leader. He then built and led Ariba’s international marketing team after relocating to Germany.
From here, Alex was a key driver of marketing strategy and managed programme execution for SAP Ariba's cloud-based collaborative business commerce solutions and network, contributing to Ariba’s acquisition by SAP in 2012. While at SAP Ariba, Alex quickly climbed the ranks, driving growth in EMEA, MEE and APJ, becoming Global VP, Business Network Marketing in 2014.
Now, working as the CMO at Ivalua, leading its overall marketing strategy and thought leadership programmes, managing a team of over 50 and a budget exceeding US$20m, Alex continues to focus on effective management.
For Alex, management is crucial to success: “What I am most proud of is that of the 200-plus people I’ve managed on my many teams in nearly 25 years, I can count the number that resigned on one hand,” he says.
“Recruiting, developing and retaining talent is the most critical element to the success of a senior leader. It allows you to scale success and makes your own work and life more pleasurable. Despite that, I have found that good management is typically taken for granted and not given much recognition.”
To read the full story in the magazine click HERE
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