Event Agenda

wolf pack summit 2026 Agenda

tuesday april 14

pre-event

  • 6:00 - 8.00 PM

Pre-Event Warm-Up - Southern Hospitality and Hony-Tonk Vibes!

Join us for an authentic Nasvhille evening as we head to a private space in Nudie’s Honky Tonk on Broadway — a legendary three-story live music hub where the pack can assemble, high 5 and enjoy food and drinks before the summit begins. 

wednesday april 15

conference day one

Day 1

  • 8:00 AM

Arrival, Check-in & Networking

Head to The Bridge Building to pick up your badge and ready yourself for the inspiring day ahead!

Day 1

  • 8:45 AM

Welcome to the Wolf Pack Summit 2026!

  • Main stage

  • Why are we here? Quick insights into the event format, highlights and objectives to ensure you get the most out of the next two days

Paul Nilsen, Pack Leader, Procurement Pack & Director of Procurement, Douglas Elliman Real Estate

Day 1

  • 9:00 AM

Modern Procurement for Small Teams: Procurement at the Inflection Point

  • Main stage
  • Why 2026 changes the game: margin compression, tariffs, geopolitics, and the end of “AI tourism”
  • The shift from supply assurance to profit assurance
  • Multi-tier supplier visibility and third-party risk management (TPRM) as resilience drivers
  • Agentic AI and workflow orchestration, moving beyond GenAI pilots to embedded execution
  • Data quality, governance, and trust as prerequisites for scalable AI
  • New talent models: hybrid, extensible teams vs. headcount growth
  • Why negotiation, judgment, and human decision-making remain key differentiators
  • Common pain points for small procurement teams and how technology and operating models can help overcome them

Michael Shields, VP of Procurement, Tropic

Day 1

  • 9:30 AM

Purposeful AI – Use Cases for Lean Procurement Teams

  • Main stage
  • Ideal state vs. what you can do right now
  • How to get your organization moving forward with AI
  • Questions you should be asking. What’s the goal? What do I want AI to do for me? Are we ready?
  • Practical use cases
  • How leaders are using AI for challenges such as:
    • analytics + reporting
    • negotiation prep
    • vendor research + intake
  • Change management execution

Ruth Hicks, Head of Procurement, Harvey AI

Zip speaker

Day 1

  • 10:15 AM

Find Your Pack - Facilitated Connection

(Colour coded interest lanyards match people by topic interest – find your match and grab a seat over coffee)

Pack Themes include:

  1. AI & Automation (agents, Copilot, workflows)
  2. Intake & Orchestration (front door, adoption)
  3. Stakeholder Influence (alignment, exec buy-in)
  4. Building the Function (operating model, talent, scaling)

Day 1

  • 10:45 AM

Coffee Break + Pack Demos

The Pack Demo initiative was inspired by you! Hubs enable you to gather in packs and evaluate our vendors’ products and services – with live group demos, offering a unique opportunity to benchmark, critique and compare how peers might leverage the tech within their organizations.

Day 1

  • 11:30 AM

Building Trust and Alignment with Key Stakeholders

  • Main stage
  • Real talk on IT expectations vs. procurement realities – identifying misalignments and how to bridge the gap
  • Building strategic, forward-thinking partnerships that push the business forward
  • How to embed procurement right at the heart of tech planning and execution, working with internal IT so it supports procurement tech
  • Best ways to deliver cross functional intelligence
  • Gain actionable takeaways

Megan Brooks, Senior Sourcing Manager – IT, Enterprise, & Corporate Tech, Sirius XM

Dimitri Desmet, Head of Procurement, Lyra Health

Jeff Lentsch, Director of IT – Strategic Sourcing, Travel + Leisure co.

Moderator: David McCarty, President & CEO – Contract Review Advisors

Day 1

  • 12:10 PM

Live Agent Build

  • Main stage

 An interactive session focused on building an AI agents

  • Live demo to demystify agents by showing one built end-to-end

Day 1

  • 1:00 PM

Lunch

Day 1

  • 2:00 PM

Choice of Workshops

  1. Negotiation for Lean Teams

  2. Career & Talent: Building + Retaining a Small Team

  3. How to Vibe Code: Seeing the Cake Being Made – Leader: Robert Nichol

Day 1

  • 3:00 PM

Take a Break - Coffee + Pack Demos

Day 1

  • 3:50 PM

Intake and Orchestration Deep Dive - educational panel (not a pitch-fest)

  • What makes a good intake tool vs bad one?
  • Fit-by-org-size: “what’s overkill for teams of 1–5?”
  • Implementation pitfalls
  • Adoption playbooks
  • ROI: what can/can’t be measured

Day 1

  • 4:20 PM

Choose your Roundtable

  1. Building / Refining a Category Management Strategy
  2. Cultivating custom tools – James Meads
  3. Building a High-Performing Procurement Team (Strategies for growth, training, coaching, and scaling)
  4. Spend analytics and leveraging your data to do better procurement
  5. (Sell-side only) Why are procurement leaders such a tough demographic to sell to?
  6. Contract flexibility in volatile markets
  7. ROI & value tracking
  8. Tariffs and market disruption
  9. Third-party risk management with AI
  10. Procurement Reporting When You Have No Data – Power BI starter patterns
  11. Building Trust in AI – Data, Governance & Risk
  1. Using third parties – procurement outsourcing

Day 1

  • 5:10 PM

Wrap Up Panel

  • Projects that failed
  • The stuff people are doing now and what is working
  • Tools that didn’t scale
  • Change management scars

Paul Nilsen, Pack Leader, Procurement Pack & Director of Procurement, Douglas Elliman Real Estate
Stephanie Buntine, Sr Category Manager, Bausch + Lomb
Rob Nichol, Director of Procurement, MidPoint Technology Group
Chiharu Romano, Strategic Sourcing Specialist
Michael Leiken, VP, Procurement Strategy, InMarket Media

Day 1

  • 5:30 PM

Transfer to Day One Evening Event

Day 1

  • 6:30 PM

Let’s Party!

To cap off Day One, we’re heading to Puttshack – Nashville for a lively evening of tech-infused mini golf, great food, drinks, and friendly competition in the heart of Music City. 

thursday april 16

conference day two

Day 2

  • 8:15 AM

Arrival, Breakfast & Networking

Day 2

  • 8:45 AM

Choice of Workshops

  1. How to scale impact through AI and automation augmentation
  2. Data Provenance – Cleaning Up Your House
  3. De-Risking Your Contract: 3 Steps to Find and Fix Hidden Risks
  4. Vendor Management & 3rd Party Risk for Small Teams

Day 2

  • 10:00 AM

The Gig Work Economy & the New Labor Model: What Procurement Must Do Next

  • Main stage Interview

Susan Patrick Harris, VP of Procurement, R1 RCM

Day 2

  • 10:20 AM

The New Procurement Talent Model

  • Main stage
  • Hybrid talent models that blend internal staff, AI employees, and external services
  • Extensible teams: scaling capability without scaling fixed cost
  • Where procurement skills gaps are widening: digital fluency, consulting mindset and human judgment
  • How AI reshapes work distribution – what machines do best vs. where humans win
  • Why negotiation, influence, and decision-making are becoming procurement’s most valuable skills
  • AI employees

Day 2

  • 10:40 AM

Take a Break - Coffee + Pack Demos

Day 2

  • 11:15 AM

Session Holding

  • Main Stage

Day 2

  • 11:45 AM

The Modern Procurement Stack: What’s Right for Small Teams?

  • Main Stage
  • What defines the modern procurement stack in 2026
  • Agentic AI and autonomous workflows vs. traditional automation
  • Real-time contract and renewal visibility across the organization
  • Orchestrated procurement workflows that reduce friction and cycle time
  • AI-supported vendor negotiation and decision-making
  • Benchmarking data as a competitive advantage for pricing and terms
  • Enabling lean teams to scale impact with confidence and governance
  • What do you buy, what do you build, what do you ignore?

Rachel Pinto, Procurement Manager, (Lead), Active Campaign

Day 2

  • 12:15 PM

Lunch + Pack Demos

Day 2

  • 1:20 PM

Champagne Roundtables

  1. Building / Refining a Category Management Strategy
  2. Cultivating custom tools – James Meads
  3. Building a High-Performing Procurement Team (Strategies for growth, training, coaching, and scaling)
  4. Spend analytics and leveraging your data to do better procurement
  5. (Sell-side only) Why are procurement leaders such a tough demographic to sell to?
  6. Contract flexibility in volatile markets
  7. ROI & value tracking
  8. Tariffs and market disruption
  9. Third-party risk management with AI
  10. Procurement Reporting When You Have No Data – Power BI starter patterns
  11. Building Trust in AI – Data, Governance & Risk
  1. Using third parties – procurement outsourcing

Day 2

  • 1:55 PM

Change Management in the World of AI

  • Main stage
  • AI-native procurement: why evolution is no longer optional
  • Why change management matters more than technology
  • Reducing fear by focusing on augmentation, not replacement
  • Creating momentum through small, visible wins
  • Moving from isolated AI usage to an embedded operating model
  • how to design and lead a change management roadmap that ensures the right skills, roles, and mindsets are in place to succeed in an AI-enabled future
  • How to build AI literacy across procurement teams
  • Upskilling the team to collaborate with agents
  • Creating a learning culture that supports continuous adaptation and change

Day 2

  • 2:35 PM

Being the Agent of Change

  • Main stage

Takeaways – Where to place bets in 2026 – What to stop doing – What to experiment with next

Day 2

  • 3:15 PM

Wrap Up & Close of Summit

  • Main stage

Thank you for joining!

Paul Nilsen, Pack Leader, Procurement Pack & Director of Procurement, Douglas Elliman Real Estate

REGISTER NOW

Testimonials

WHAT DO PAST ATTENDEES THINK OF THE EVENT?

    "It was an awesome gathering. Never been around so many IT Procurement Professionals from the buy side that shared best practices."

      "What a great opportunity to meet, engage, and learn both from and with Procurement colleagues from a wide range of backgrounds!"

        "An exceptionally valuable event; speakers and breakout sessions were exceptional and the hallway conversations alone were worth multiples of the cost."

          "It was an amazing conference and I’ve already been able to successfully put some of the negotiation tips and tricks into use. Thank you!"

            "The concentration of specialized expertise and experience was overwhelming, so much to learn from those in the room. I can’t wait to dive in again next year!"