Lifetime of Achievement: Barbara Kubicki

Barbara holds over 25 years of experience in supply chain management and global procurement operations in the financial services industry.

Starting her career as the assistant vice president for MBNA America, she went straight to work in leading and implementing all US Oracle Purchasing applications, developing project budgets and delivering schedules. She gained vital experience in streamlining the end-to-end procurement process, and improving the overall efficiency of the transactional purchase.

It was no surprise that five years later she was promoted to Procurement Manager, where she led a 10-member procurement operations team, overseeing all functions from transactional sourcing to ordering, managing a US$1bn external vendor expenditure.

Barbara advanced to the role of Senior Vice President, Procurement Executive, where she led a major strategic sourcing effort across North America. This involved reviewing more than US$2bn in external spending and conducting over 90 category reviews. Through this initiative, she achieved annual cash flow savings of over US$150M within a year.

Additionally, Barbara established a centralised strategic sourcing organisation in 2004 to ensure alignment with overall business strategies across various units.

She successfully implemented Oracle Financials, including Purchasing 11i, on a global scale. Barbara oversaw the development of MBNA's first web-based application, managing a team of 75 individuals through planning, budgeting, process redesign, user testing, communication, and education. This project was completed under budget and on time, resulting in savings of over US$60M within five years.

Speaking to Women's Enterprise USA Magazine, she said: “I firmly believe that you need to be passionate about the profession you choose because you spend a lot of time at work.”

“When I was looking to change roles at MBNA Corp. many years ago, I started looking to see where I could leverage my skills to contribute to the success of the organisation and where I could grow professionally. I felt that if I aligned my passions and strengths to a role, how could I go wrong?

“I interviewed for a lot of different roles over several months until I found one that hit the mark, and it was in procurement. I didn’t know much about procurement at the time, but came to realise it is a hidden gem.

"There are not many places where you can work and have exposure to senior leaders across both a company and suppliers and make a long-lasting impact across the firm. I caught the ‘procurement bug’ after taking that role and decided to make a career in the procurement field. I think I’ve held every type of role in procurement over the past 25-plus years.”

In 2006, she became the Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Management at Bank of America - a role she held for just shy of 16 years. She was responsible for end-to-end procurement, associated risk management and third-party programme adherence for all eight lines of business.

She led a procurement transformation initiative to simplify the end-to-end, third-party process; reduce connections; restructure roles to gain economies of scale; and replace technology solutions.

Since 2021, Barbara has been the Chief Procurement Officer at Wells Fargo, 

one of the "big four banks" in the US. Here she is responsible for leading supply-chain management, which consists of strategic sourcing, procure-to-pay, supplier diversity and third-party risk management functions.

In 2013 she was awarded the WBENC Applause Award, which is for making significant strides in expanding opportunities for Women’s Business Enterprises (WBEs) on a national level. She is also part of the Institute for Supply Management.

Speaking again to the magazine, she added: “My favourite thing about procurement is the ability to take a business partner’s vision and make it a reality. As far as strategic sourcing goes, it is really about the thrill of the deal. There is nothing more exhilarating than negotiating a great deal.”

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