Episode 9 | Nils Windahl on the Real Future of AI and Talent

In fast-scaling tech organisations, procurement faces a familiar challenge: how do you maintain control and provide strategic value without becoming the bottleneck? 

It’s a question Nils Windahl has spent close to two decades answering. In this episode, host Aaron McMillan sits down with the Director of Group Procurement at Sinch to talk transformation, AI and what it takes to build a high-performance procurement function the business wants to work with.

Nils brings a unique perspective to the role built on legal roots, consultancy experience across three continents, and senior procurement leadership at organisations ranging from startups to major names like Telenor. He talks strategy and performance with honesty and insight. 

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In this episode we explore:

• Why procurement's scope has expanded beyond cost, and what that means for CPOs right now
• How to shift the bottleneck perception and become a function the business partners with
• What AI can and can't fix, and why broken processes stay broken regardless of the tools
• Why the next generation of procurement leaders may struggle to learn the craft
• How to hire for passion over experience
• What sales teams do better than procurement when it comes to celebrating wins

Procurement's expanding scope

When Nils started out, procurement was about cost. Today it spans risk, compliance, governance, privacy and sustainability and rapid AI adoption. The challenge for CPOs is doing more, and communicating their expanded remit clearly. Nils believes this is one of the most interesting times to lead a procurement function, but only if you're willing to keep redefining what the role means.

Killing the bottleneck myth

Procurement can still be perceived as a blocker. Nils believes in communication to solve it: working with CXOs, understanding their pressures and working as a problem-solver. He says clarity on roles helps too, noting that when people know what procurement does and why, friction drops. 

AI: useful, but no magic bullet

Nils is enthusiastic about AI but honest about its existing limits. Broken processes don't get fixed by deploying tools on top of them, he says. The real opportunity lies in stepping back, questioning whether current processes are actually right and rebuilding where they aren't. Watch out for agents, too, as 100 agents still need managing and maintaining. 

People-first leadership

Nils' hiring philosophy focuses on passion as much as skills – the ‘instinct’ for procurement is harder to find, he says. Get the right people, and leadership is about being visible, communicating constantly and making it easy for your teams to do the right thing and work through complexity.

The next generation challenge

If AI absorbs traditional entry-level tasks such as RFQs, routine analysis and contract admin, where do tomorrow's procurement leaders learn their craft? Nils doesn't have a clear answer, but he believes that critical thinking becomes more valuable as AI embeds itself deeper. The risk, he explains, isn't being replaced, but a generation of procurement professionals that never develops critical judgement or the ability to challenge AI.

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Explore More from the Procurement Podcast Series

Catch up on Episode 8, featuring  Hiten Parmar, Chief Procurement Officer at Beazley, who discusses supplier resilience, governance and the future of procurement leadership.