In this next episode of The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast, Heidrick & Struggles’ Jarrad Roeder and Jennifer Streitwieser speak to Clint Grimes, the chief procurement officer at Capital One. Grimes shares his perspective on how the role of procurement is evolving and the implications that evolution has for the skills and capabilities needed by procurement leaders and professionals. He also shares his insights on the role of culture in broader strategic shifts and how leaders can build and maintain a healthy, high-performance organizational culture. 

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

Welcome to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they are meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Jarrad Roeder: Hi, welcome to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. I'm Jared Roeder, a principal in Heidrick & Struggles’ Philadelphia office and a member of Heidrick Consulting. I'm also joined today by my colleague, Jennifer Streitwieser. 

Jennifer Streitwieser: Hello all, and welcome. I'm Jennifer Streitwieser. I'm a partner in Heidrick & Struggles Philadelphia office, and I'm also a member of Heidrick Consulting.

Jarrad Roeder: Today we're delighted to be joined by Clint Grimes, senior vice president and chief procurement officer at Capital One. Clint joined Capital One as the chief procurement officer and head of Enterprise Supplier Management, or ESM, in May of 2021. Clint leads the team responsible for the supplier value chain, which includes sourcing and supplier selection, contract negotiations, purchase order and invoice management, and delivering third-party risk governance for goods and services. Partnering closely and proactively with business owners across the firm, Clint's team seeks to maximize supplier relationships while ensuring all vendors are fully compliant with the company's third-party management policies and procedures. He's also responsible for Capital One's award-winning supplier diversity program, which seeks to develop and grow diverse-owned businesses.

Previously, he served as vice president of global sourcing at Warner Media. His board service includes membership on the boards of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council, and the advisory board of the Howard University School of Business Center for Excellence in Supply Chain Management.

Clint, thank you so much for joining us today.

Clint Grimes: Hey, thanks for having me.

Jennifer Streitwieser: So, Clint, to kick us off, how is the role of procurement evolving at Capital One?

Clint Grimes: It's an interesting question, because it's like the role of procurement is evolving—just period. I've been in this space for going on 30 years, and in the early days it was really focused on operational—the needs for a manufacturing process and really making sure throughput happens and that vendors got paid.

It's evolved over time as kind of American business—or business in general—has evolved to be much more tech focused, much more risk-management focused. And so, as you can imagine, the needs of the business driving the needs of procurement has really been the constant. It’s interesting, I was talking to somebody fairly recently: I remember when like the first  tech tools were rolled out for procurement that led to this tool or this effort around online reverse auctions. And it's interesting to see how we've moved from that being cutting-edge technology to where we are today. 

Jennifer Streitwieser: What implications does this have for the skills and capabilities needed by procurement leaders and professionals? 

Clint Grimes: Hearkening back to those days, procurement was generally made up of—it's interesting, generalists or specialists. So they were generalists in things like project management or process management, or they were specialists in a particular category. I cut my teeth in the automotive industry, and so someone with a deep understanding of materials processing, for instance, would be a great candidate for a procurement role in that kind of environment.

And as I said earlier, what's been happening is this evolution of the needs of the business and therefore the capabilities of those resources changing. It has gotten to the point where there is a huge IT component. Everything is technology these days, and so the ability to speak the language, understand the market, really drive an understanding of the innovation in that space, all that has gotten to be really, really important. But another thing that's happened as well has been the need for procurement to move from being a tactical set of activities to being truly a strategic partner to the business. You'll hear a lot of commentary these days around the effects of the pandemic and how the pandemic laid bare the treatment of procurement or supply chain functions as being operational in nature and the supply chain shortages that the pandemic  exacerbated made corporate leaders more aware of the strategic nature of their supply chain and their need to have resources that are thinking into the future or driving different behaviors to ensure that business disruptions were minimized or eliminated, ideally.

So you need more strategic thinkers in the space. So that's one piece. I think another piece is that you are also looking for more thoughtful strategic partners to the lines of business. So those skills around influence, those skills around collaboration, those skills around, you know, bringing people along essentially in ways that perhaps weren't the case before. And also in that you have the need to learn how to eloquently say no. Procurement was usually seen as an enabler and it still is, to be fair. But procurement is playing a much more interesting role in the risk management space and supporting the business in a way that may have the business not so happy, at least in the moment, with the advice that they're getting from the procurement function. And so having individuals with skills that are able to navigate not being liked, in some cases, and able to steer a decision in a way that is appropriately risk-sloped—that's a really big change. And so if you think about the skill set, it's less about skills around, again, that process or change management function and more about—or inclusive of that—would also be skills around influence and skills around… diplomacy, I think I'd call it. Those are becoming more important. 

Jarrad Roeder: So, Clint, as you think about some of these broader strategic shifts for the function, what do you see as the role of culture in making those shifts happen?

Clint Grimes: Yeah. If you think about that shift, as you're saying, that shift to this influencer, having a culture where, for example, individuals feel comfortable in the fact that they're fine; there's air cover; or that they're being supported. When they do say no, when they do become roadblocks to progress, this notion of, I guess it's psychological safety. So having a culture where people are empowered and feel supported when they are contrarian, that's fundamentally important. If you're going to have an effort or an activity around managing risk and you’re rowing against the current, you want to feel more comfortable being able to do that. And the only way you can do that is if you have an organization that's constructed in such a way that that comfort kind of goes without saying. And so there's one quote that I've shamelessly stolen from Peter Drucker, and everybody's heard it, is this notion of culture eating strategy for breakfast. You can have all the best-laid plans and all the most defined and detailed ideas, but if you don't have the humans in the loop that are capable and comfortable making those decisions and feeling supported in the fact that they're doing that, I think the processes themselves and the expected outcomes become a challenge without the right culture. 

And within ESM, we've focused very much this past year on making sure that we got the culture component right for that reason. And we also shifted a little bit in the way that we measure performance. Historically, the metrics of success in this space have been really focused around savings and achieving savings targets. That's not sufficient if you're creating savings that don't have longevity or doesn't have this organizational sort of tailwind moving along with it. And so we've enhanced the definitional metrics that we use to define success within ESM, and that also is kind of a product of the changes in culture, but it's also an empowering component of the changes in culture because people are less concerned—or hopefully they're less concerned—about always being seen as cooperative and on the same page as clients, and they're able to, perhaps, be contrarian and not have that affect how they're seen as a performer in the organization.

Jarrad Roeder: Yeah, that makes good sense. And as you mentioned earlier, you've recently spent some time working on the culture at ESM and we know you've actually made some really great strides in that work. So curious, you know, what have been some of the most crucial mindset shifts that you've had to make across the team?

Clint Grimes: Yeah, we're really proud of the positive change that we've seen this year. And one of those shifts isn't really a shift, it's more of an emphasis. In the early days, when I joined the organization, we defined this sort of North Star for ourselves, and that is having us be trusted advisors to our stakeholders. And we doubled down on that, or we emphasized that aspect to the point that it's OK to, like I said earlier, to be challengers to your stakeholders; that it’s OK to say no. It's about how you say it—the eloquent way of saying no. It's like, “no, but,” or “yes, if.” And we invested in the leadership across ESM to change their mindset and have that percolate throughout the organization around this. If we're going to be trusted advisors, we can't always say yes and everybody's not going to like us, and that's OK. And really creating that understanding at all levels across the organization. 

Jennifer Streitwieser: That's super. So what do you see as your role as a leader to build and maintain a healthy, high-performance organizational culture? Are there any new skills or capabilities that you are developing? 

Clint Grimes: I have to say that there's a bunch, and I'll start with that I am very much an action-oriented person and ready to run full steam ahead. I've become a much better listener, and I've become much better at taking a beat before energizing something. Let me go back to this year. When we had some of the challenges earlier in the year or late last year, there was this desire on my part to fix it, right? Let’s just go out and let's fix the problem. Let's throw efforts or activities at the challenge. And it was very instructive—very instructive—to wait, take a beat, try to understand the root cause of the challenges that we were seeing to determine a pathway that was measurable so we could understand how we were doing. So, just being thoughtful. Not that I'm not thoughtful, but to be more thoughtful in the way that we went about that.

And also listening a lot. We've created these—I find them to be really, really energizing—these listening circles. And what they are these small group sessions across the organization that give me the opportunity to hear firsthand from the practitioners, the folks that are doing the work, on how the changes that we are making are impacting or not impacting, that are affecting in a positive way or maybe not affecting in such a positive way. And having that direct connection has been, again, instructive in helping me to map out what we're going to emphasize and what we're going to de-emphasize. 

We also made some changes to the organization and that was a direct result of some of the feedback that we internally got from our leaders and what they received from their teams to make decision making much more straightforward. It was a better understanding of who was in charge of what. 

And then finally, I think for me, it's modeling the behavior. I am a very big fan of being sure that I'm in the boat rowing just like everyone else and making sure that I'm seen and it's understood that that's the role I play. I am really thoughtful about making sure that there's an appreciation and that appreciation is expressed for the great work that our folks do. So it's kind of a combination of those things, but I think every leader needs to find, of course, their natural state in doing that. And, for me, it is just doing my dead-level best to be as connected to and as available to the organization as possible.

Jennifer Streitwieser: So Clint, what results have you started to see from your focus on culture? Are there any key success factors that you would point to?

Clint Grimes: I think results. It's an interesting one. I'll start with, I mean, there are plenty of them, so I'll start with one around, there's a level of lightness and happiness and just comradery across ESM that, perhaps was muted—I'm not saying it wasn't there—but perhaps was muted before. So when you go into the office, there's a lot more joshing and a lot more just fun and joy, I think, that I see.

So that's one. Two is as we roll out goals and strategic priorities—we rolled them out in early 2024—we’d just come off of an offsite where we are laying out the foundation for 2025. We're being a bit audacious, you know, we're not just looking to be incremental to the goals that we had for this year going into next year. And there is this embracing of that, embracing of the challenge. This sort of bring it on [mentality]. At the same time, there's a little bit of trepidation. We've got some interesting things on the horizon for Capital One in the next 12 months, but there's more excitement as opposed to fear and loathing, or concern, or any of that kind of a feel. And what it's created is, again, you have this joy, this camaraderie, this collaboration, this connection, and this feeling that we can take on you know, whatever the system or, or the world has in store for us. That's what I've seen. I've seen a level of excitement that wasn't to this degree. It probably was there, but I've seen a higher level of excitement across the organization than I've seen before.

Jarrad Roeder: Alright. Well, I know our time together is coming to a close, but one final question for you. If we were able to zoom out a bit, what lessons learned might you share from your work on the culture at ESM? Any advice that you'd offer to others out there who might be working on similar transformations? 

Clint Grimes: Yeah, I'll start with the idea that I said before is look before you leap. Begin with the end in mind. You know, make sure you understand what you're after, and then plan accordingly. So I think that's first. I think second, is bring everybody along. Bring everybody along. To do that, you have to meet everybody where they are. It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's not a plug-and-chug; you're all set to go. So work to bring everybody along with you on the journey.

Create mechanisms to measure. Make sure that if there is a goal out there, whatever it looks like, that there are points along the way and tools that you can deploy to measure your progress toward that goal, and at the right frequency to make sure that you can make course corrections as necessary.

And in the course correction piece, I would say, be adaptable. We made some changes to our trajectory and to our focus. Not the ultimate focus, but maybe the tactics around the focus as conditions on the ground warranted, and so making sure that you have the flexibility in your desired approach, the plan that you've created, that you're able to pivot or change as need be.

Jennifer Streitwieser: Well, Clint, thank you very much again for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. 

Clint Grimes: Yeah. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. 

Jarrad Roeder: Thanks, Clint.

Thanks for listening to the Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don’t miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app. And if you’re listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewers

Jarrad Roeder (jroeder@heidrick.com) is a principal in Heidrick & Struggles’ Philadelphia office and a member of Heidrick Consulting.

Jennifer Streitwieser (jstreitwieser@heidrick.com) is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ Philadelphia office and a member of Heidrick Consulting.