Riva Bobrowsky, is Chief Procurement Officer at Varo Bank, in her role she is responsible for overseeing the end-to-end procurement lifecycle and vendor governance. 

“My primary objective is ensuring that as America's first all-digital, nationally chartered bank, our external vendor ecosystem operates with the same velocity, security and innovation as our internal technology stacks,” says Riva. 

But of course, this is something that she does not do alone.

“Procurement at Varo is fundamentally a team sport. My team works in lockstep with our Legal, Compliance, Privacy, Technology, the various business requestors and we collaborate with our Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) team to ensure that procurement fully supports and champions Varo’s risk program requirements,” says Riva. 

When Riva joined Varo Bank, the procurement function looked very different. “Procurement was a completely manual process built on spreadsheet-heavy workflows,” says Riva.

She adds: “When I came to Varo in 2019, I inherited a blank slate. We were a small fintech startup and contract management, the operation was entirely manual.” 

Riva saw an incredible opportunity to build a modern, tech-enabled procurement framework from scratch, one specifically tailored for a fast-scaling, digital-native institution rather than trying to retrofit the rigid frameworks of a traditional legacy bank. 

“Crucially, I realised immediately that building a successful function required integrating procurement as a strategic business partner,” says Riva.

She explains: “Over the last several years, my core mission, collaborating closely with cross-functional teams, has been to drive a total digital transformation. We shifted from those manual tracking and support processes to implementing cutting-edge Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) via ContractPodAi, now branded as Leah.”

Today, Varo Bank is collectively focused on exploring and expanding that foundation into the next frontier: leveraging agentic AI to power connected data integrations, accelerate contract reviews and unlock proactive vendor insights. All while maintaining the crucial human oversight required to guide these technologies safely.

Why procurement? 

“Like many in this field, my path into procurement wasn't entirely linear,” says Riva. Her path was driven by a deep fascination with business operations and strategic negotiation. 
“Over the course of my career, I realised that procurement sits at the ultimate nexus of a company's strategy,” says Riva. 

She adds: “And what I love most about procurement is that it encourages you to become a student of the business.

“In a procurement role, you cannot be effective if you operate in an isolated silo. To protect the company, negotiate balanced contracts and anticipate operational or regulatory bottlenecks, you must deeply understand the unique technical and operational nuances of your specific industry.”

Riva explains that working specifically in banking elevates this challenge even further. Money matters to everyone in society; providing people with the tools to effectively manage their financial health is essential to their daily survival. 

“In a modern digital world, it is impossible to deliver those innovative financial tools autonomously, you must rely heavily on complex third-party infrastructure, cloud providers and fintech partnerships. Procurement is the bridge that makes those critical partnerships possible,” says Riva. 

Crucially, this means Varo Bank’s relationship with its vendors is intimately tied to its core mission of financial inclusion. 

“We don't view vendor management as a purely mechanical or back-office function; we actively work with our partners to ensure they understand our journey and are incentivized to perform at the highest level,” explains Riva. 

She adds: “Because our app directly impacts the financial stability and peace of mind of real people every single day, we must look for vendors who share that commitment to reliability and accessibility. 

“When we collaborate with our third parties to drive operational cost efficiencies and robust system uptime, we are directly enabling Varo to pass those structural cost savings back to our customers through affordable, credit-building and wealth-generating tools. 

“Every negotiation we manage is ultimately about ensuring our vendors are true partners in helping our customers realize their financial power.”