From the Peace Corp to Chief Procurement Officer, Arnold Sowa shares his career path and lessons learned while building teams, reengineering procurement and demanding accountability to supplier diversity. Plus, tips on how to navigate larger organizations.
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Arnold Sowa is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer for MetLife
In this role, he was responsible for overseeing MetLife’s global procurement, travel, third-party risk management, and supply chain social responsibility programs.
He currently is on the board of directors at the Capital Region Minority Supplier Development Council (CRMSDC).
He has won numerous awards for his support of supplier diversity initiatives including the NMSDC’s CPO of the Year Award in 2018 and ISM’s Supplier Diversity Advocate Award in 2016.
As Chief Procurement Officer at MetLife, Arnold built a global organization of over 300 professionals in almost 50 countries who managed $5 billion in annual spend.
He was also responsible for putting in place global third-party risk management and travel policies and programs and was behind the largest ever global implementation of Ariba OnDemand, which covered over 95% of MetLife’s spend.
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About CRMSDC | It is our mission to feature dynamic one-on-one conversations with CEOs, contracting officers, minority businesses, supplier diversity professionals and procurement leaders from some of the leading companies in America via our Hotchat Podcast discussions. We will highlight the challenges, success stories, resources and opportunities that exist for our vast network of MBEs, and we will spotlight our corporate partners who share our vision to help drive economic development, equity and inclusion within their organizations across the country.
Sharon R. Pinder, President & CEO, CRMSDC
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