CPO Outlook 2026
Where Nordic procurement leaders bridge strategy and practice — together.
CPO Outlook has been carefully designed since 2010 to create the conditions for the conversations that matter most — between people who carry real accountability for making procurement transformation happen. Keynotes that set the context. Peer exchange that goes deep. Workshops that produce something you can use. All built around the human side of change.
Opening the strategic context
Day 1 opens with the big picture — what is shifting in the world that Nordic procurement leaders cannot afford to wait on. Geopolitical disruption, AI moving from pilot to operating model, and the question of what it actually takes to build the function procurement needs to become. Keynotes set the frame. The room takes it further.
Conversations that go somewhere
The peer format is the heart of CPO Outlook. Limited seats per table. No prepared presentations. The facilitator opens with something concrete and real — a decision, a failure, a moment of genuine uncertainty. You contribute what feels relevant. Every session runs twice with a new group, so every seat matters.
Closing the loop together
Day 1 closes with reflections from the room — what surfaced across the day, what surprised, what the room kept returning to. Not a summary. A signal. Followed by the Nordic CPO Award ceremony, recognizing outstanding procurement leadership across the Nordics.
A program designed for people who want peer exchange, not a lecture.
The format has been refined over 15 years — built around what actually creates value for people who are busy, experienced, and have heard most of it before. Every session has a purpose. Every transition is intentional.
Day 1 — 14 October
Opens with keynotes setting the strategic landscape. Moves through two rounds of expert-led discussions across ten parallel tables — you choose the topic most relevant to you. After lunch, a behavioural science perspective on why transformation stalls. Then two rounds of peer Labs — smaller and more hands-on than the morning discussions, each built around a single question and a concrete mapping exercise you take with you. Closes with reflections from the room, the Nordic CPO Award, and an evening reception with seated dinner.
Day 2 — 15 October
Compact and forward-leaning. Opens with a practitioner panel connecting what emerged on Day 1 to what it means in practice. Followed by parallel workshops before lunch — including a closed session for CPOs, hosted by PIR, drawing on what the Nordic CPO Award nominations reveal about the state of procurement leadership today. Finishes around 14:00.
Five currents running through Nordic procurement right now.
These are not session titles. They are what we keep hearing across surveys, dinners, and the conversations that lead to people booking the two days. Both the morning expert-led discussions and the afternoon Labs are designed around them — sometimes head-on, sometimes through a specific decision or capability question. The themes are how we know the program is pointing at the right things.
Two lenses, not two rooms
Every theme below has a strategic and an operational question — because the same current looks different depending on where you sit. Use them to find the angle that matches your actual week, not the title on your badge.
Most procurement transformations are not short of ambition. What they are short of is the distance between a clear direction and an organization that actually moves — consistently, without requiring constant intervention.
How do you lead an organization toward consistent execution — and how do you know when it is actually happening?
How do you deliver with confidence when the direction above you is still being figured out?
Procurement is being redesigned — not incrementally, but fundamentally. The question is no longer whether your people have the right skills on paper. It is whether you are building the right team for a version of procurement that has not fully arrived yet — without losing the people holding the function together right now.
How do you build a team for a version of procurement that has not fully arrived — without losing the people who are holding the function together right now?
How do you help your team stay relevant and confident when neither you nor they can see exactly what the role becomes from here?
AI adoption in procurement is near-universal across the Nordics. Significant ROI is not. The gap between investment and impact is real, widely felt, and rarely discussed openly — because the pressure to be seen as progressing makes candor difficult.
How do you decide where AI investment actually creates value — and how do you know when you have got it wrong?
How do you move from AI pilots to something that changes how procurement actually works day to day?
Supply chain risk has moved from a specialist topic to a board-level concern. Procurement now owns more of the answer than before — but the tools, data and structures available have not always kept pace with the expectation.
How do you own supply chain risk as an organizational responsibility — when your visibility will always be incomplete?
How do you make risk a real input into sourcing and supplier decisions — not just a process that runs alongside the work?
Procurement is held accountable for outcomes it cannot achieve alone. The decisions that shape the result — budget approvals, stakeholder buy-in, cross-functional priorities — often sit outside procurement’s direct control.
How do you build the position and momentum needed to lead from the front — when the structure was not designed for it?
How do you reach the outcomes you are accountable for when others hold the decisions that shape them?
Twelve peer Labs.
After lunch on Day 1, the format shifts. Labs are smaller and more hands-on than the morning discussions — each one designed around a single question, a concrete mapping exercise on A3, and something you can take back to your own desk. Every Lab runs twice with a fresh group — same facilitator, new room — so two of the twelve get your full attention.
How a Lab works
Forty-five minutes. One question. A mapping exercise designed so the conversation produces something visible — a decision-rights canvas, an exposure radar, a two-column chart of what gets cut vs. what gets reported. The moderator is a practitioner who has lived the question, not a presenter. You leave with a concrete first move, not a summary.
One Lab works differently
One of the twelve is case-led by design — ten minutes from a practitioner who built a tool that found 50 MSEK of hidden value in their own contract estate, followed by thirty-five minutes of structured questions from the room. It is flagged as such in the agenda. The rest run as peer Labs.
Nordic CPO Award 2026
Recognizing the CPO who most meaningfully advances their organization’s procurement function. Evaluated on people, integrity and results. The award ceremony takes place on the evening of Day 1, hosted in partnership with PIR.
Built for procurement leaders and their teams.
CPO Outlook brings together senior procurement professionals from Nordic organizations — and the teams they lead. Registration is open.
Chief Procurement Officers
Strategic conversations, a CPO-only workshop on Day 2, and the Nordic CPO Award ceremony. Plus two days of genuine peer exchange with others carrying the same accountability.
Heads of Procurement & Directors
Morning expert-led discussions and afternoon Labs across both strategic and operational angles. Keynotes grounded in real cases. Workshops that go deeper than the roundtables. Built for leaders who are in the middle of making transformation real.
Procurement Teams
CPO Outlook has always been for teams, not just leaders. The Labs, Day 2 workshops and expert-led discussions are designed for the people doing the work — not just the people setting the direction.
Share what you have actually learned
CPO Outlook is built on practitioner voices — people who have been in the middle of transformation and are willing to speak honestly about what it required. If you have a real case, a hard-won insight, or a perspective that would genuinely serve the room, we would like to hear from you.
Contact Anna Bjärkerud →Reach the Nordic procurement community
Expert Organizations at CPO Outlook facilitate peer Labs, host working sessions, and engage directly with senior procurement leaders across two intensive days. If you want to contribute to meaningful conversations — and be part of what makes them possible — let’s talk.
Contact Lars Bjärkerud →Speakers and topics announced as confirmed.
The program is built with real practitioners, not stock speakers. That is also why some pieces are still confirming — calendars move, mandates shift, and we would rather adjust honestly than promise a name we cannot deliver. You will hear when something changes. Register now to secure your place — 14–15 October, Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm.