Q&A: McKinsey Partner on Trailblazing Women in Procurement

Theano Liakopoulou isn’t just a leader in McKinsey’s Operations practice—she’s someone who thrives on technology and transformation. An engineer at heart, she’s spent 25 years with the firm, working across Athens, London and now Paris, helping companies in pharmaceuticals and industry unlock new opportunities.

At McKinsey, Theano spearheads efforts to ‘rewire’ procurement, using data, analytics and AI to push the function beyond its traditional limits. She believes technology isn’t just an enabler but a game-changer, capable of uncovering value in ways businesses haven’t even imagined. Her focus is on turning complex challenges into practical, high-impact solutions while inspiring leaders to embrace the possibilities ahead.

In conversation with Supply Chain Digital, Theano shares her views on the future of procurement, the transformative role of AI and why it’s crucial to see more women shaping an industry that has long been dominated by men.

How is AI transforming value creation and savings?

The impact of AI on value creation is substantial and spans across various industries and business functions, including significantly enhancing productivity, driving customer engagement and fostering product innovation. Generative AI (gen AI) alone could contribute an incremental economic impact of US$2.6 to US$4.4tn, with the total AI economic potential estimated at US$17.1-25.6tn.

While technology can also drive efficiencies within the procurement function (e.g., automating manual tasks, accelerating process steps), the really exciting potential that AI unlocks is on the value creation that procurement can drive. There is a wide range of high-impact use cases along the procurement process that enable better spend management, streamlining demand, managing external factors and volatility, managing supplier cost and performance, supporting risk management and decarbonisation, etc.

The main idea behind most of these use cases is that AI surfaces opportunities in real-time and at a scale that is manually not possible. It also provides unique insights that inform better sourcing decisions, and Gen AI is a co-pilot for procurement professionals to guide them to take more impactful actions. 

While we all agree that the potential for AI-driven value creation is vast, capturing these benefits is not easy. The few successful cases clearly show that the implementation approach is the unlock.

Main differentiators include adopting an impact-centric approach to selecting use cases and focusing on a few that will make most of the difference: addressing the data challenges, for example building a data model owned by procurement; focusing on people from day one, and specifically adapting the operating model, building capabilities, bringing new data and analytics savvy profiles into procurement while driving adoption.

All these elements are key to scale impact and fully realise the potential from AI.

How are you optimising spend and boosting supplier resilience?

As mentioned, there is a wide range of high impact use-cases along the procurement process. Let’s take a couple of examples. 

A category management co-pilot can support procurement and the business in building better category strategies. With spend categorisation algorithms, teams can create cleaned spend cubes seamlessly. Then, the idea is that a series of analytics use cases produce insights by combining the vast amounts of internal data from across procurement, manufacturing, sales, etc., with external data on what is happening in the supplier markets and on the customer front.

The user is then guided by a Gen AI-powered interface in making sharper decisions on how to evolve their supplier footprint, and on identifying opportunities for renegotiations with suppliers or for internal demand management. 

Another interesting use case involves creating a digital value chain twin that maps the tier-n value chain. This can be used to gain real-time insights into cost drivers, set-up an early warning system for any type of disruption thus supporting risk management and resilience, as well as to identify the real drivers of CO2 emissions to enable true decarbonisation of the entire value chain.

You have been described as a trailblazer in a field which is traditionally male-dominated, how does that make you feel?

Thank you so much for the kind words. I am honoured. As mentioned, I love taking on tough challenges and I love driving positive change.

Together with my McKinsey colleagues, we have been working in helping clients leverage technology to change the stakes for the function. And it is rewarding to see some of our clients amongst the pioneers in this space.  

Procurement is full of opportunities for innovation and I also feel excited about the potential that can be unlocked in the next 3-5 years. I will continue pushing the boundaries, I will keep working with colleagues and with bold business leaders to innovate and drive more impact. 

You are well known for your leadership driving innovation, sustainability and resilience in procurement. How does it feel to inspire others to follow in your footsteps, as we see with women’s growing influence in procurement?

It’s very fulfilling to know that my efforts in driving innovation, sustainability and resilience are resonating. At the same time, I want to recognise that these achievements are the result of collaboration with a talented group of colleagues. They are also the outcome of opportunities for learning and growth that McKinsey has provided to me. 

I am also inspired by the several examples of successful senior women in procurement. I believe that diversity and inclusion are critical to driving innovation, growth and resilience. Seeing more women stepping into influential roles in procurement is also essential for the continued evolution and success of the function. 

Knowing that my experiences can inspire others, particularly women, to excel in procurement is incredibly meaningful to me. I am dedicated to mentoring and supporting the next generation of leaders, ensuring they can succeed and drive further positive change.

What do you think the future looks like for women in the procurement space? 

McKinsey research, which is the basis for the book ‘The Broken Rung’ recently published by three of my senior partner colleagues, suggests that in general 50% of women’s career success depends on their education, and the other 50% on the development opportunities they receive in the workplace and the ‘experience capital’ they build. 

Given the role that the procurement function has in most organisations, procurement professionals get a 360-degree view of the company and its value chain, and get exposed to a range of topics that are core to the business. As such, the procurement function provides unique opportunities for all professionals, including women, to build valuable ‘experience capital’ from early stages in their career. 

I am convinced that the procurement function is a great stepping-stone for women in the corporate environment. I want to believe that procurement will be one of the first domains where we will achieve gender parity in the not-so-distant future.

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