When the Fortune 500 company he worked for offered Chief Procurement Officer Robert A. Rudzki the top global strategic sourcing job, he had a tough decision to make: “The opportunity was great on every level, except one. And overseas move just didn’t work for my family,” recalls Rudzki. “But in the process of thinking about the move, I realized that I didn’t want my professional legacy to be a series of executive titles. I wanted to contribute to the advancement of my profession — on a number of levels.”
To transfer his knowledge about sourcing, profit improvement and supply chain management to others, he founded Greybeard Advisors, celebrating its tenth anniversary this month, and which ranks today as one of the leading advisory firms in the field.
Greybeard has grown to over 75 advisors by helping clients adopt a more strategic approach to sourcing and procurement — one that produces lasting, bottom-line gains, instead of temporary blips on the P&L.
“The old-style, bare-knuckles approach of beating up suppliers is simply not effective nor sustainable. In fact, it can have adverse consequences, such as hindering innovation and collaboration,” explains Rudzki. He counsels there are much more effective ways to drive short- and long-term improvement in costs and cash flow — ideas Rudzki first detailed in the book Straight to the Bottom Line, a business bestseller and Institute for Supply Management (ISM) book selection, as well as its highly endorsed sequel Next Level Supply Management Excellence.
Bob is a valued blogger for Supply Chain Management Review, and we wish to congratulate him for reaching this significant milestone.
SC
MR

Latest Supply Chain News
- AI won’t fix a broken supply chain foundation
- How I vibe-coded an S&OP app in 30 hours
- The AI regulation gap: Risk, cost, and competitive advantage
- PepsiCo moves its startup sustainability program from pilots to operational scale across Asia Pacific
- Eli Lilly’s Mar Gimeno to keynote at NextGen Supply Chain Conference 2026
- More News
Latest Podcast

Explore
Procurement & Sourcing News
- PepsiCo moves its startup sustainability program from pilots to operational scale across Asia Pacific
- Eli Lilly’s Mar Gimeno to keynote at NextGen Supply Chain Conference 2026
- From orbit to operations: Winning the race for the earliest disruption signal
- Stop moving boxes, start moving dollars: The new math of global supply chain velocity
- Finding your rhythm: SME supply chain footwork when the rules keep changing
- Supply chain’s new normal isn’t stability, it’s change
- More Procurement & Sourcing
Latest Procurement & Sourcing Resources

Subscribe

Supply Chain Management Review delivers the best industry content.

Editors’ Picks
