Ivalua NOW 2025: Interview with Bulgari CPO Matteo Perondi

Matteo Perondi has a crucial and somewhat unique role at Bulgari. As Chief Procurement Officer at the luxury brand, his role is about transformation and adding value, but is driven by a delicate balance of creativity, curiosity and intelligent procurement. 

We tracked him down at Ivalua NOW 2025, the two-day industry leading procurement event at Caesars Superdome to discuss this fascinating opportunity for empowering a traditional and operational function. 

At the New Orleans-based event, Matteo took to the stage to share his thoughts on 'creative procurement', explaining the mechanics of transforming a luxury brand with a strong heritage, the role of AI and Bulgari's partnership with Ivalua. 

Here is what he told us. 

Tell us about your role and main areas of responsibility at Bulgari

I joined Bulgari less than two years ago as Chief Procurement Officer and I oversee all spend for the group. We're in the middle of a big transformation focused on repositioning procurement differently. 

When I joined the business, procurement was essentially an operational team, mainly focused on controlling costs and other basic operational activities.

Now, we're trying to reposition the team, the function and the platform – everything we do – in a more strategic direction with the goal of bringing more value to Bulgari.

How are you delivering that shift, and what are the main areas of focus? 

As with any transformation, we start by building a strong foundation by elevating the team. It was important to know they can think in a more strategic way, so we focussed on coaching and training, but also giving them the tools and assets to do the job. 

We created special solutions, including a spend visibility tool, to help them really understand their work and evolved the role to being more of a partner to the business. 

After the team was ready, we began implementing different procedures and processes, all built around the fact that we have a specific mission and vision to bring added value to Bulgari over the next couple of years.

How does procurement differ at a luxury brand like Bulgari compared to other industries? 

It's very different because. I’ve worked in other industries and they can tend to be quite similar in terms of procurement processes. 

In this industry, everything we do is focused on excellence and creativity. Everything must be really perfect and, for this reason, there is always the trade-off between being agile or bringing results and achieving real excellence for our final customers in collaboration with our suppliers for the final customers. 

Procurement’s role is to be in the middle, always ensuring that there is a good balance between speed and perfection in everything we do. 

You talk about creatively transforming procurement. Can you explain what that looks like on a practical level?

It means being passionate about having a sense of creativity and always being curious. 

We try to find alternative solutions in processes, in our relationship with suppliers, and in what we are looking for from them. That means challenging our suppliers in a different way and pushing them to deliver even more. 

The real keyword is curiosity. If you're curious, you can be more creative. You can also use innovative tools or methods, like Gen AI or hackathons with your suppliers to foster a greater sense of creativity.

Your panel was about embracing AI. How are you doing that at Bulgari? 

You can use AI to free up time to take on other high level or high value activities. 

We’re trying to also use it as a change management tool, pushing the team to embrace it. Today you can embrace AI, but in a couple of years it’ll be another technology. 

What’s really important is the mindset around accepting these new technologies and the desire and interest to start using them in really creative ways. 

Where does your partnership with Ivalua benefit the business? 

It’s already changed so much since I joined, when Ivalua was positioned as more of an operational tool. 

We’ve really tried to change this positioning and Ivalua has helped this a lot through close collaboration with partners, with their sales team and experts – we’re now working like this and going much faster generally, and in terms of things like global implementation. 

With Ivalua, it’s not just about having a tool, it's about the partnership and the culture of the company, and we’re so aligned in that way. 

How do you plan to continue this relationship, and evolve procurement further at Bulgari? 

We really appreciate Ivalua’s roadmap, as well as the value and investment they put into their mission, so we want to carry on collaborating. 

When the newest version of their platform is available next I want Bulgari to be one of the first clients to implement. It’s an exciting proposition.

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