Nordic CPO of the Year 2026 · 14 October, Stockholm
The first Nordic CPO of the Year is announced on stage at CPO Outlook on 14 October. Three dimensions carry equal weight, and every nominee is assessed against their own starting point. That is a statement about what procurement leadership is, and what it is not.
Awards are usually read backwards: who won, and why them. The more useful reading is forwards. Before a single name is announced, the criteria are public, and they say what the people behind the award think good leadership in procurement consists of. The Nordic CPO of the Year weighs three things equally: the people a leader develops, the integrity they lead with, and the results they deliver. Not the title. Not the size of the organisation. Not the savings line on its own.
That balance is deliberate. Cost has a number; culture and judgement do not. An award that measured only what is easy to measure would tell the profession, again, that the number is what counts. This one is built to say something else, and it is worth being clear about what.
What the jury is actually comparing
The award is a joint initiative between EBG | Network and Procure It Right, the Award Partner. In EBG’s own reading, the three dimensions come down to three questions.
The second design choice matters as much as the first: nominees are assessed against their own context. A CPO leading procurement in a 5,000-person company is not ranked against one at 50,000. Company size, industry and operating environment are taken into account, and each nomination is judged on how far it has moved from where it started. That is the only way the comparison is fair across the Nordics, where the range from a listed industrial group to a mid-sized family-owned company is enormous, and where good leadership looks different in each.
The best procurement leaders understand the business deeply: commercially, operationally, over time. That understanding shapes how they build their function, develop their teams and work with suppliers. Procurement becomes a source of competitive advantage, not just a managed cost.
Built so the community can trust it
An award in a small market has one obvious risk: everyone knows everyone. The process is structured to manage that risk rather than pretend it away.
The evaluation is run by Procure It Right, independently from EBG. EBG provides the community, the platform and the stage; it does not score nominations. Every nomination was screened and shortlisted by PIR before the summer. Confidential interviews with shortlisted candidates run through August and September, and the jury evaluates on anonymised summaries. Nominees are informed before anything about them is shared, and nothing is shared before the ceremony. Nominations and finalists stay private until 14 October.
The jury consists of sitting Nordic CPOs: Anna Falk, CPO, Boliden; Johan Lindqvist, CPO, NCC; Björn Stenecker, CPO, Vattenfall; and Robert Liljeblad, CEO of Procure It Right, as jury lead. Three of the four hold the role the award recognises, which is the point. Peers are the right judges of whether someone leads well, because they know what it costs.
The scope is large commercial organisations, including state-owned companies. Public-sector bodies such as municipalities are outside it. Nominees can be based anywhere, as long as they lead significant Nordic operations, and a global head office elsewhere does not disqualify anyone. Self-nominations were welcome, and so were nominations from colleagues, board members and advisors who see the work from the inside.
What an inaugural award does that a programme cannot
EBG has run peer exchange for Nordic procurement leaders since 2010. Sixteen years of roundtables and labs give a clear picture of who leads well: it shows in how people describe their trade-offs, how they talk about their teams, and what their peers ask them afterwards. But that picture stays in the room. The format is built on candour, and candour is protected by nothing leaving it. Nobody is singled out, nothing is attributed, and the recognition that happens between peers stays informal.
An award takes what the community already sees and gives it a public form, with a stated reason and a jury of peers behind it. The value is not mainly to the winner. It is to the room, and to the organisations the winner and finalists go home to: a concrete, structured example of what good procurement leadership consists of, in a company people recognise. Reaching the final is itself a significant achievement, and every finalist is recognised on stage.
The question EBG would put to the room is an open one. The criteria say People, Integrity and Results carry equal weight. Would a CPO’s own organisation weigh them the same way? Would the CFO? If the answers differ, which one is closer to how procurement leaders are actually promoted, retained and replaced today?
Not only a name: what the jury has seen
A ceremony that consists of an envelope and a handshake gives the room a name and nothing else. EBG has built this one differently, and the jury has been part of that design.
Before the winner is announced, each jury member takes one dimension and shares what they have seen across the nominations and interviews as a whole. What kind of people-work stood out. Where integrity showed up when it actually cost something. Which results would not appear in a board pack. No names, no companies; that is saved for the citation. Four senior procurement leaders have spent the autumn reading, in detail, how their peers across the Nordics lead. That view does not exist anywhere else, and the room should get it.
After the citation and the award, the winner is asked to speak briefly about what they and their team have done and why it matters, and then to sit down for a short conversation with EBG in front of the audience: what the recognition means for the team they go home to, and what they wish more procurement leaders in the room understood about leading procurement today. Two questions, no surprises, and no career walk-through.
The intent is that everyone in the room leaves with something to use, not only with a name to congratulate. The jury has read the plan and shaped it with EBG; what each of them chooses to say on the night is theirs.
On the day
Nordic CPO of the Year 2026 · Award Ceremony
The award closes the first day of CPO Outlook, late in the afternoon, after the second run of peer labs. The winner and all finalists are recognised on stage. The jury is in the room from the ceremony through the drinks reception that follows, and the evening continues with a seated dinner open to all summit attendees.
- Presented live on stage in front of the most senior procurement audience in the Nordics
- All finalists recognised, not only the winner
- Jury reflections on what they saw across the nominations, one dimension each, before the name is announced
- Reception and dinner with the people you spent the day working alongside (dinner requires pre-registration)
Three things to bring into the room
- Your own weighting. If People, Integrity and Results had to add up to 100 in how your organisation actually evaluates you, what are the numbers? Write them down before the ceremony, then listen to the jury’s motivation.
- Your starting point. The award scores progress from where a leader began, not distance from an absolute standard. How would your last three years read on that scale, rather than against the best-resourced function you know?
- One name. Nominations for 2026 are closed. The 2027 round will open. Who would you nominate, and what would you write in the box?
CPO Outlook 2026
CPO Outlook 2026 is EBG | Network’s 23rd summit, 14–15 October at Hotel Birger Jarl in Stockholm. The through-line this year is the double shift procurement is being asked to make: run the function as it is today, and rebuild it for what comes next, with the same team, in the same week. Two days of keynotes, sponsor-hosted theme discussions in the morning, practitioner-led peer labs in the afternoon, and the first Nordic CPO of the Year.
Full programme · Registration · Programme brief (PDF) · Brief film · nordiccpoaward.com
Sources
- Award criteria, process, timeline, eligibility and jury: nordiccpoaward.com. The three dimensions are described above in EBG’s own words; the full criteria are published on the award site.
- Ceremony, reception and dinner: CPO Outlook 2026 programme.
- Award Partner: Procure It Right.
- The pull-quote on procurement leadership is EBG’s own framing and is not attributed to any jury member or nominee.
- The ceremony format (jury reflections, citation, conversation with the winner) is described from EBG’s own run of show, shared with the jury. Nothing in this article is a quote from a jury member.