As Chief Procurement Officer at Johnson & Johnson, Julian Hooks leads a global organisation where he says “talent comes first”, why? He believes it is because “world-class outcomes start with a world-class team.”

Julian set the company’s enterprise procurement strategy, built capabilities, invested in technology and a leadership pipeline that enabled Johnson & Johnson to deliver supplier management excellence.

This is what helps the company to unlock value through innovation: using data, automation and AI to improve speed and decision quality; partnering with suppliers to accelerate new solutions and strengthening resilience and sustainability so supply is dependable in a healthcare environment.

The financial value he and his team create helps J&J reinvest in our products and new research to deliver on its Credo commitment to help patients and improve health for humanity.

A generalist foundation for end-to-end Value

Originally from the UK, Julian didn’t start in procurement, but saw his career begin by starting as a business generalist at Mars, with early roles as a Petcare Marketing Brand Manager, in Snacking Sales, working in the Czech Republic, then into manufacturing and supply chain operations in a pet food factory, before transitioning into procurement.

This path gave him a true end-to-end view of how value is created, from the customer and commercial strategy through operations, quality and delivery, and it built a deep appreciation for the critical role procurement plays in enabling business performance.

“Those experiences also shaped a leadership style grounded in servant leadership—closely aligned with Johnson & Johnson’s Credo,” Julian adds.

“For me, that means staying anchored to whom we ultimately serve, removing barriers so teams can do their best work and make decisions that balance performance with responsibility.

“As you become more senior, your impact increasingly comes through others, so I focus on setting clear direction, building confidence and capability and creating an environment where people can take ownership, be innovative, collaborate across the business and deliver outcomes that matter for patients.”

With many procurement leaders being asked to deliver measurable value while also improving resilience, Julian is balancing both due to his belief that delivering measurable value and improving resilience aren’t mutually exclusive, in healthcare, they’re inseparable.

“When lives are on the line, continuity of supply, quality and compliance are non-negotiable, and the smartest value creation strengthens the system while improving performance,” Julian says.

Johnson & Johnson starts with the fundamentals: impactful category strategies and exceptional supplier management, with clear metrics on financial value, quality, speed and innovation. Then it designs resilience into the way we work with close collaboration with critical suppliers to improve transparency and responsiveness. Finally, Johnson & Johnson embeds compliance and third-party intelligence into sourcing, contracting and payment workflows so protection is built in helping teams move faster with confidence.

“The result is value you can measure today, paired with the resilience J&J needs to reliably serve patients tomorrow,” Julian adds.

Shifting towards an insight-driven model

As technological innovations continue to reshape procurement, Julian points to Johnson & Johnson building an end-to-end digital procurement experience that equips its professionals with the time, data and insights needed to make proactive, strategic recommendations to the business.

“By leveraging automation, AI and advanced analytics, we are shifting toward an efficient, insight-driven value creation model. Clean, structured data is foundational, enabling scalable AI, real-time dashboards and data-driven supply and business insights.”

It has examples where AI-powered tools are enhancing category strategies, monitoring supplier performance, powering spend and risk analytics and even impacting negotiations. While automated contracting is accelerating review cycles and improving risk coverage, intelligent automation across its payment process has reduced manual touch, improved accuracy, minimised financial leakage while enhancing compliance.

“The result is a faster, smarter and more intuitive buying and business partner experience, one that increases leverage, drives cost and cash‑flow improvements and positions the enterprise to compete and win,” Julian adds.

“The fun thing is it feels like we are still very early in our journey and there will be much more opportunity ahead of us.”

Upskilling talent for a future-ready organisation

When it comes to building a future‑ready procurement organisation, Julian stresses that it “starts with our people.”

He adds: “We are investing heavily in talent by upskilling teams in data literacy, AI fluency and digital tools through targeted training and learning platforms. At the same time, we are recruiting talent with strong analytical and digital capabilities.

“We believe in collaborative learning; for digital skills we have a Citizen Developer program, these are non-IT employees who can create digital applications or workflows using low code platforms.

“We have very experienced category and supplier management leaders who teach others, for example, world-class category strategy and negotiation techniques. We have a program called ‘Together We Learn’ where best practices and learnings are openly shared across our over 1,000 procurement professionals. We invest heavily in educating our teams in business acumen, as good procurement performance requires a great understanding of our products and the different business sectors where J&J operates.

Strategic priorities looking ahead

As 2026 unfolds, Julian is looking to continue helping Johnson & Johnson procurement deliver world-class performance. The team will stay focused on measurable value: spend reduction, cash-flow improvement and traceable savings that enable reinvestment in science and healthcare innovation in service of patients and health for humanity.

“A major priority is advancing our digital and data agenda, impactful software platforms, clean, connected data and practical AI that simplifies work, improves decision quality and unlocks capacity so teams can focus on the highest-value opportunities.

“We’ll also deepen both our most critical business leader relationships and our strategic supplier partnerships to bring forward transformational new ways of working. In parallel, we’ll keep strengthening resilience, compliance and sustainability across our supply base.”

Julian is looking to balance an internal and external focus, learning with other business functions to deepen his view of emerging technology, data and AI and engaging peer CPOs at leading companies to stay anchored on what best in class looks like.

“Ultimately, it comes back to investing in our talent to unlock value, so J&J can deliver for patients, every day,” Julian concludes.