Ashish Wadhwa
Procurement Transformation & Digital Procurement Leader
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About
Senior Procurement Transformation and Digital Procurement leader with 10+ years delivering enterprise-scale change across Source-to-Pay, spend analytics, category management, and AI-enabled procurement capabilities. Proven track record leading complex, multi-million-pound programmes at Jaguar Land Rover spanning procurement technology implementation, operating model design, ESG analytics, cost modelling, and supplier management. Deep experience translating procurement strategy into scalable data and AI solutions that drive commercial performance, operational efficiency, and governance.
Skilled at engaging C-suite and senior stakeholders, building business cases, designing capability improvement programmes, and leading cross-functional teams through complex global transformation. CIPS Awards finalist 2021 (Best Use of Digital Technology); JLR Innovation Award recipient.
Experience
Manager, Data Analytics & AI — Procurement at Jaguar Land Rover (2017-10 – Present)
Leading enterprise Procurement Transformation and Digital Procurement initiatives across Source-to-Pay, spend analytics, cost modelling, ESG analytics, and supply chain intelligence.
- Assessed and transformed end-to-end S2P capability: led design and delivery of procurement operating model improvements spanning category management, sourcing, contract management, supplier management, and sustainable procurement — identifying and closing gaps against leading practice.
- Procurement Analytics: built enterprise spend analytics, commercial insights, and ESG analytics platforms on GCP/BigQuery/Snowflake, enabling data-driven decision making and delivering £12.5M in measurable business savings (JLR Innovation Award).
- Sustainable procurement & regulatory compliance: developed ESG analytics capability to support responsible sourcing requirements and supply chain transparency obligations, aligned to emerging regulations including CSDDD and EUDR.
- Capability building: designed and delivered structured training programmes to upskill Procurement and Finance teams on data, analytics, and AI tools; established KPI monitoring frameworks for continuous improvement.
- Outsource/insource evaluation: assessed back- and middle-office procurement functions for potential outsourcing, producing structured business cases evaluating cost, risk, and capability trade-offs.
- Digital strategy & roadmap: defined and executed Data & AI strategy across Procurement and Finance domains, building technology roadmaps that sequenced investment for speed to value.
- Source-to-Pay technology implementation: led delivery of enterprise S2P platforms integrating SAP ECC procurement and invoicing systems; architected semantic knowledge layers enabling advanced procurement search and LLM-powered querying.
- Emerging technology: deployed Virtual Knowledge Graph solutions (Ontology, OWL, OBDA, SPARQL) and LLM integration to unlock AI-powered procurement insights; finalist CIPS Awards 2021 — Best Use of Digital Technology.
- Business case development: built robust investment cases to unlock funding for multi-year data and digital transformation programmes across Procurement and Supply Chain.
- Should-cost modelling & quotation insights: delivered Quotation Insights and Cost Modelling platforms enabling strategic sourcing teams to challenge supplier pricing and identify savings opportunities.
- Savings tracking: established benefits realisation frameworks to track value to P&L and lock in savings from sourcing, supplier management, and demand management initiatives.
- Supplier & contract management analytics: built supplier management and contract performance analytics enabling proactive risk management and value delivery from the supply base.
- Team leadership: built and managed cross-functional teams of Data Analysts, Data Engineers, and AI Engineers; responsible for roadmap planning, delivery governance, and resource management.
- Stakeholder engagement: influenced senior leadership and C-suite to align data and procurement strategy with commercial priorities across global functions.
- Governance frameworks: established Data Governance and AI Governance frameworks improving data quality, lineage, compliance, and enterprise confidence in analytics outputs.
Divisional Manager — Software Architecture at Tata Motors (2012-07 – 2017-09)
Led software architecture teams within Product Engineering; defined standards and governed technical delivery across multiple concurrent vehicle programmes. Innovation Award winner; patent filed for Network Strategy.
Senior Manager — IT Function at Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (2009-12 – 2012-06)
Built the IT function from the ground up (0 to 18 team members) for a greenfield manufacturing site. Implemented Capital and Flashware systems using PMP methodologies. Best Performance Award in IT.
Senior Technical Marketing Engineer at Mentor Graphics (2007-08 – 2009-11)
Bridge between software development and sales; translated complex technical architectures into reference architectures and demonstrations. Provided presales support to Sales teams.
Sr. Design Engineer at Volvo Trucks (2006-01 – 2007-12)
Project leader for Renault Truck France
Engineer at Tata Motors (2004-01 – 2005-12)
PLM tools & vehicle electrical systems
Engineer at Denso (2002-01 – 2004-12)
Two-wheeler electronic components
Education
B.Tech in Electrical Engineering – Y.M.C.A Institute of Engineering (1998-01 – 2002-12)


