Zip Community Spotlight: Declan Holzman, Head of Procurement at Tempus Labs

Head of Procurement @ Tempus Labs

About Declan: Based in Chicago, Declan joined the Zip Community after attending Zip Forward! Here is Declan, in his own words.

Did you find procurement or did procurement find you? I started as a contractor in the U.S. federal government which exposed me to their structured but cumbersome procurement process. That experience became immediately useful to my going over to Groupon (a diametrically different environment) who wanted to improve their IT procurement practices. Over time, I became more exposed to other parts of procurement until I was the procurement leader. I then started that journey again in condensed time to spin up and lead procurement at Tempus.

What is an interesting trend or challenge you are currently thinking through in your role? As we transition to conversational agents as the first line of procurement, we need to continue being thoughtful of the natural line to hand off to a procurement person, but we also have to be open to that line continuing to change.

What is the best career advice you have ever received? Make sure you understand the priorities within your business. Procurement is a process unto itself that can easily abstract you away from what actually matters, so be watchful that you don't lose the plot.

Outside of work, what is your hobby or passion that brings you joy? I run, including doing the marathon each year. Running is a pain and takes a lot of time, but it's also a good processing engine for stress and thinking.

What about the Zip community are you most excited to explore as it develops? I think the Zip community is especially helpful for this moment in procurement, where the process has more options available to advance into automation. This community will hopefully egg everyone on to keep pace and push each other forward.