WATCH AGAIN: Art of Procurement Digital Outcomes 2023

Jack Freeman is a Partner at PeakSpan Capital. Passionate about building towards our mission of becoming the partner of choice for emerging growth-stage software entrepreneurs and management teams. At PeakSpan, he focuses on business software across the following themes: Payments, Supply Chain, E-Commerce and Digital Health. He feels privileged to work with nearly twenty of our portfolio company partners and hundreds of amazing software executives across two funds.

Mr. Jaime Gracia is a procurement executive and subject matter expert with 20+ years of progressive experience providing vision, leadership, and direction for delivering innovative, cutting-edge acquisitions, training, projects, and programs for public and private sector clients.

Mr. Gracia is currently the Director for Strategic Enterprise Programs in the Center for Acquisition Experience (CAE) in the Bureau of Administration, Office of the Procurement Executive (A/OPE). He leads efforts in a new Acquisition Experience (Acq-X) program across the Department for internal and external-facing programs. He also leads the Industry Liaison Program, Cognitive Procurement Program for RPA, ML, AI tools, and OMB programs, including Category Management, Vendor Management, and Value Engineering.

Mr. Gracia was formally an Acquisition Manager with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He led efforts to provide innovative acquisition services to ensure IRS procurement personnel execute their role as business advisers and partners in this role. He also led efforts to create agile contract solutions to ensure the IRS can meet its mission of effective tax administration.

He also served as a Section Chief with the Department of Homeland Security, Cyber Security, and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Risk Management (NRMC). He provided leadership to NRMC acquisition and program management initiatives for cyber and physical critical infrastructure interdependence and the impact of a cyber threat or incident on the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Before resuming public service, Mr. Gracia was President and CEO of Seville Government Consulting, LLC. His firm created value-added consulting programs to effectively use digital services, data analytics, cybersecurity, and agile methodologies to innovate and transform government procurement and manage cost-effective programs.

Mr. Gracia also has proficiency in small business operations and entrepreneurship, having owned and consulted with several retail, government, and financial ventures. His expertise is focused on business-to-government (B2G) marketing and helping small businesses capture management and business development in the federal space.

He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, author, and speaker. He is an active member of numerous trade and industry associations focusing on the federal government, technology, and contracting issues facing our nation.

Pierre Laprée is the Chief Product Officer at the best-in-class procurement solution provider SpendHQ. He joined SpendHQ with the company's July 2022 acquisition of Per Angusta which he founded in 2012 and served as its CEO. He currently oversees the strategic product vision, innovation planning, and roadmap for the company's spend intelligence and procurement performance solutions. Pierre previously served as a IT team member for finance and then a procurement practitioner for Adecco Group before advancing to procurement Director. Pierre is a frequent speaker at procurement, finance, and inductry events and contributing author for his subject matter expertise. 

Blessen leads Procurement's Digital & Data Science space at Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving sciende. He and his coleagues are responsible for the strategy and execution of a technology and analytics ecosystem that meets the evolving needs of a largek and growing organization. 

Prior to joining Thermo Fisher, Blessen held a mix of IT, consulting, and procurement roles with the US Government, in the Aerospace & Defence industry and in the Medical Tech industry. 

Blessen is based in New York with his amazing family. 

Keith Barthelmeus has over 20 years of leadership across the business, operations, finance, procurement, strategic sourcing and IT. He has a proven track record of success, globally, in a series of progressively more challenging assignments spanning business transformation, business development, new product development, business turn-around, startups, integrations and M&A. Keith is currently serving as Enterprise CPO and Global VP and CFO for Product and Technology for the Brinks Company (NYSE: BCO), the worlds largest cash management company. 

Jo Peterson, Vice President of Cloud and Security Services for Clarify360, Industry Analyst and Strategic Advisor

An engineer by trade, Jo covers cloud, cloud security, cybersecurity and edgecomputing.  She has been helping clients architect cloud solutions since 2009. Her expertise in cloud and security is continually being honed by the customer facing work that she and her team do with Enterprise CIO’s and CISO’s.  Focused on strategy as well as practical insights around cloud, cloud security and cybersecurity, Jo is followed by an audience of over 65,000 on Twitter and has over 12,000 followers on Linked In

Jo holds multiple AWS, Azure and Google certifications as well as CCNA and CCNP.  She is currently in process on her CCSP and CISSP.  She has a Master’s Degree in Information Technology as well as an MBA, is an Air Force vet and the founding Co-Chair of cloudgirs.org. 

Jo is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and serves on CompTIA’s Infrastructure Advisory Board

Gavin is a former Wall Street Equity Analyst and Investment Banker who has leveraged negotiating and communication skills, industry knowledge, and a passion for cost savings into a successful Sourcing, Procurement, and Supply Chain career. He is exceptionally skilled in complex problem-solving, workflow/process simplification, change management, and business unit and Executive collaboration. 

Gavin has significant experience negotiating large, complex, multi-million, and multi-billion-dollar contracts for many of the largest IT, Professional Services, and Corporate Services suppliers in the world. He is equipped with a passion for workforce development and world-class team creation by hiring, training and supporting women, people of color, LGBTQ community members, and military veterans.

When Gavin is not working or spending time with his wife and 2 kids, he is usually found hiking trails around Pennsylvania training for his next endurance challenge.

Lihi Lutan is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Opstream.ai, changing the way companies buy using a smart intake management platform. Throughout her career, Lihi built and scaled business operations at startups and large corporations. Early in her career, Lihi was with Cyota (acq. RSA security) as a team leader and project manager before moving to Thomson Reuters and Fundtech to manage global projects. Later, Lihi joined Taboola (NSDQ: TBLA) as employee 15, as VP Professional Services and Operations, leading the department as the company scaled from $8M to 1B$ in revenue. Transitioning from Taboola to StokeTalent (acq. Fiverr), Lihi served as the company’s COO.

Lihi holds LLB of Law and BSc of Computer Science from Tel Aviv University.

Herman is Innovation Director at nlmtd, co-founder of DPW ScoutLab, and former global open innovation lead ISS A/S. Herman has 15+ years of experience in the outsourcing industry for real estate and facility services, in business and corporate innovation functions. He is the architect of the first Vested outsourcing innovation partnership in Europe.