From Lone Wolves to High-Impact Packs — Lessons from the 2025 “Lone Wolf” Procurement Conference

Lone Wolf was organized by KonnectHouse and hosted by Paul Nilsen

If you walked into the “Lone Wolf” conference — organized by KonnectHouse — in the big apple (held the third week of May) expecting a quiet gathering of solo sourcing managers, you were horribly wrong. More on point would be that you left buzzing with ideas and insights — and probably a stack of new LinkedIn connections. Over two intense days, practitioners who run procurement functions of one (or very few) shared actionable advice and recommendations on how they scale influence, leverage technology, and build stakeholder trust without the luxury of large corporate teams.

RAUS Global was part of this inspiring event, in two areas 1) as a keen participant working on a wide array of marketing procurement projects listening to fellow peers and industry leaders to learn and 2) as a host of two round tables featuring a discussion on “how to break into marketing procurement”. We learnt so much from everyone in the room that we had to share with the wider audience. Buckle up.

The Talent Equation: Generalists First, Specialists Later

Panelists were refreshingly candid about the first hire dilemma. For firms under roughly $150 million in revenue, versatility still trumps depth. “I’ll continue with a generalist model; at our size a specialist would bottleneck workload,” said one medical-device sourcing lead who is steering a seven-person team that only recently moved beyond pure inventory management.

RAUS view: Resist the temptation to clone yourself. A “second-in-command” should complement your gaps — data analytics, contracting discipline, or stakeholder storytelling — so that together you cover both the analytical and relational spectrum. When we embed a Capability Accelerator at clients, our first 90-day sprint pairs a commercially minded generalist with someone fluent in the company’s dominant spend category; momentum comes from that offsetting chemistry, not mirror-image résumés.

Plan Headcount Like a Product Roadmap

Whether the fledgling function sat in SaaS, manufacturing, or fintech, everyone agreed on one timeline: securing headcount takes a full year — from business case to HR approval to onboarding. One panellist advised mapping a five-year vision with “milestones for hire #1, hire #2, and the story I’ll need to tell each quarter to unlock them”.

RAUS view: Treat talent requests exactly as marketing treats campaign funding. Build a fact-based case around lost savings, risk exposure, and capacity constraints, then wrap it in a narrative that resonates with Finance (cash), Legal (risk), and Marketing (speed-to-market). Storytelling converts FTEs from “overhead” to “growth enablers.”

Breaking into Marketing: Trust, Transparency, and Tiny Wins

A dedicated round-table tackled the elephant in every Lone Wolf’s office: how to gain credibility with Marketing, the most relationship-driven — and historically procurement-averse — function. Pain points were universal: opaque GL coding, agency-stakeholder loyalties, and spend that rarely hits procurement dashboards. The workaround? Win micro-battles first — fix the contract repository, clean PO codes, deliver a quick compliance audit — before pitching a full-scale agency review.

RAUS view: In our marketing-heavy engagements, we open with a low-touch contractual audit. it is a very cost effective way to understand “the state of the union” between Brand and Agency. When you present the report (and often a windfall in cash) to the CMO, procurement often becomes the hero, not the hall monitor.

Tech that Buys You Time (and Credibility)

Budget-strapped leaders echoed the same strategy: deploy sub-$100K tools that replace data wrangling with relationship-building. One CMO-software conglomerate uses automation so its three-person team can “spend time on negotiations, not data entry”.

The demo hall reflected those priorities. Levelpath’s AI-driven RFP engine generated a security-services tender live on stage, while contract-AI platforms like Luminance earned multiple shout-outs for slashing red-line cycles. Others, like Varisource and Vertice help brands source and negotiate SaaS relationships — with guaranteed savings

RAUS view: Tech is only transformational when paired with revised process. While several of the tools will be invaluable to most organizations, itis important to walk before you run. Before unleashing an AI contract reviewer, lock down a playbook: which clauses auto-redline, which escalate to Legal, and where procurement has authority to accept counter-positions. Otherwise, the robot merely accelerates bad habits.

For the increased amount of SaaS contracts — such as Martech and Adtech — that now end up with marketing procurement teams due to their nature, the tools here are also invaluable. And the same principles of having a tech vision and roadmap before entering one-off agreements, at the right price, but without strategic direction.

Skills 2025: Curiosity, Storytelling, and Change-Resilience

Ten years ago grit and weekend overtime were badges of honor. Today the standout skills are softer but scarcer: critical questioning, cross-functional storytelling, and the emotional range to shift from analytics to C-suite persuasion. As one panellist put it, “I talk all day — stakeholders, vendors, engineers — then retreat to silence at night”.

RAUS view: We coach lone-wolf clients to adopt a journalistic mindset — ask “five whys” until you uncover true business pain, then frame sourcing recommendations in that stakeholder’s language (revenue lift for Sales; brand safety for Marketing; working-capital relief for Treasury). Procurement fluency is table stakes; narrative fluency is the career accelerator.

When to Pivot from Generalist to Specialist

Growth trajectories diverged, but a clear inflection emerged: once annual spend or complexity doubles or triples, specialists become inevitable. A fintech leader described graduating from “everyone does everything” to dedicated sourcing leads for Operations, IT, and Shared Services after expanding from one to four FTEs.

RAUS view: Use event-driven triggers — new product launch, major acquisition, or regional expansion — to justify specialization. Link the new role to a tangible risk (GDPR compliance for EU media buys) or opportunity (AI-powered content production savings) so Finance sees more than a headcount request.

Governance First, Discount Second

Many newcomers still equate value with rate-card cuts. Seasoned Lone Wolves cautioned against chasing superficial fee reductions that agencies can claw back via opaque mark-ups. Instead, focus on governance levers: audit rights, burn-rate reporting, KPIs tied to business impact. “Build the rules today so you don’t pay for the same ad three times tomorrow,” one panelist quipped.

RAUS view: Strong governance unlocks sustainable savings rather than replacing them. We open every agency negotiation by aligning on three, inter-locking pillars:

1. Transparency Guardrails — clear audit rights, real-time burn-rate reporting, and language that prevents double-billing or opaque mark-ups.
2. Outcome-Based Economics — pricing that flexes with measurable business results (e.g., lower CPMs and verified viewability / sales-lift targets) so agencies win when the brand wins.
3. Balanced Cost Model — an “open-book” view of proposed fees, overhead, and margin to ensure the agency earns a fair return while procurement captures competitive rates up-front.

By tackling the governance architecture first, we create the data clarity needed to benchmark fees credibly — then negotiate rate reductions or performance incentives with confidence. In other words, governance isn’t the opposite of discounting; it’s the runway that lets meaningful, defensible savings take off and stay airborne.

Key Takeaways for the Lone-Wolf Playbook

1. Hire attitude, train category — but make the new role complementary, not duplicative.
2. Build a 365-day headcount roadmap, backing each hire with CFO-ready storytelling.
3. Use quick-win audits to gain marketing’s trust before attempting bigger transformation.
4. Invest in lightweight AI and CLM tools that free your time for stakeholder relationships.
5. Cultivate narrative skills; data persuades the brain, stories persuade the budget owner.
6. Trigger specialization at clear growth inflection points, tying roles to risk or revenue.
7. Prioritize governance clauses — rebate, audit, KPIs — before chasing savings headlines.
8. Plug into peer micro-communities for candid knowledge sharing and vendor vetting.

For procurement professionals still howling solo at the moon (pun intended), these tactics transform isolation into influence. And remember: even a lone wolf can lead a pack — provided he or she is armed with data, narrative flair, and a relentless commitment to value across cost, cash, carbon, and consumer impact.

Christine Moore is founder of RAUS Global, a consulting firm that accelerates marketing-procurement capability, embeds commercial integrity, and unlocks value across the 4 Cs.